“Let us first trace the meaning of the words delirium and exhaustion.”

July 1, 2020 9:37 AM

“Everybody was sort of left-footed,” Hall says. “We were all like, Whoa, what are we doing? Everybody had to figure out how to relate to each other. So everybody started to act like they were in the eighth-grade chorus. It was the weirdest thing I’d ever experienced. All these superstars, whatever you want to call them, we all turned into junior-high kids in chorus, and Quincy became Mr. Jones. That’s how it shook out. Laughing like kids.” 'We Are the World': Inside Pop Music's Most Famous All-Nighter [SL Esquire]
posted by chavenet (25 comments total)

Laughing like kids

🎵 Livin' like lovers
rollin' like thunder
under the covers 🎵
posted by Chrysostom at 9:45 AM on July 1, 2020 [6 favorites]

This is a great peek at the human aspects of the recording.

I've said this before, but the farther we get into the 21st century, the clearer it becomes that the 2nd half of the 20th century was a uniquely special time in music history. The power of all those musicians in the same room at the same time is really something that can never be duplicated. I can still get chills watching the original video - each artist might only have a few lines, but they are putting all their soul into it (except maybe Bob Dylan).
posted by gnutron at 10:25 AM on July 1, 2020 [6 favorites]

I distinctly remember the weekend that the video for We Are the World debuted. My family was visiting my grandmother in Florida. Other than friends' houses, that was the only place I could watch MTV, and they played that video endlessly that weekend.

Amazing to read about Cyndi Lauper coaching Kim Carnes, or Stevie Wonder coaching Bob Dylan.

I owned the record, and it didn't occur to me until just now that there were other songs on the recording.
posted by emelenjr at 10:30 AM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

I totally agree with Billy Joel and Diana Ross that the song is subpar though. That much starpower to produce something so banal.


but they are putting all their soul into it (except maybe Bob Dylan).

I thought the part in the actual article about Bob Dylan (being frightened his singing wasn't good enough and all the stars singing his part like him) was the most endearing part.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:31 AM on July 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

That was a great read, which I don’t mind telling you I read in a very dusty room. It’s incredibly fascinating to learn all the details of what went into it.

I think it would probably be hard for anyone who wasn’t alive and aware back then to realize just what a huge thing this was at the time. It was, like, omnipresent.

Could there be anything more Springsteen then walking to the studio because you found a great parking spot for your rental car?

And, yeah, musically speaking it was kind of a bland, schmaltzy ballad. But that’s really what it had to be, to cut across genres and tastes and to be a blank canvas for all of those different colors of voices.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:41 AM on July 1, 2020 [8 favorites]

Also, why would you put Paul Simon at a mike with two tall guys? And I say this as someone who sings in a trio with two women five and eight inches shorter than I am. (Well, used to, and hopefully will again aprés la pestilence.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:45 AM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: they are putting all their soul into it (except maybe Bob Dylan)
posted by eviemath at 11:23 AM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]

I totally agree with Billy Joel and Diana Ross that the song is subpar though. That much starpower to produce something so banal.

Bob Geldolf said that he was responsible for two of the worst songs of the eighties: this and "Do They Know It's Christmas?" I mean, we understand that it was a great thing to do and all that star power and so forth, but I think that, even that early in her career, Madonna could have been swapped out for one of the people that Ken Kragen repped.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:48 AM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

1985 was a ridiculously strong year for music releases. Or so I've heard.
posted by Frayed Knot at 12:18 PM on July 1, 2020 [16 favorites]

counterpoint: They Aren't The World
posted by philip-random at 12:45 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Has anyone ever explained why Dan Aykroyd was there?
posted by MrBadExample at 1:15 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Fun article, thanks. I heard that song to death back in the day, liking the video and the chance to see people do their bits more than the actual recording.

One bit here really struck me:

“Everybody usually walks around with their assistant, or their entourage,” Hall says. “But you had to walk in the door yourself, just you, and be in this room with a lot of people like you, with your peers, many of whom I had never met, and vice versa—they had never met me. It was—what’s the word?—slightly disconcerting. I’m a pretty self-sufficient guy, but I’m used to walking into a situation having some support around me.” (emphasis mine)

I mean, what's that like? The idea that everywhere you go, there's someone smoothing things out, making sure you're where you're supposed to be, supporting you in real time. Perhaps more than money, that may be the big differentiator between the rich and famous and the rest of us.
posted by the sobsister at 1:15 PM on July 1, 2020 [8 favorites]

Has anyone ever explained why Dan Aykroyd was there?

Blues Brothers?
posted by OHenryPacey at 1:20 PM on July 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

“Then me: ‘And the truth, ya know, love is all we need.’ I looked at those lyrics, and I went, That’s what I get? ‘The truth, ya know’? And it was kind of a low part, too. I think a lot of people were trying to be virtuosos when it came to their part. I know Cyndi did—Cyndi jumped into this whole other octave. Ya yay ah-ya! But she can do that. She’s a great singer. I think everybody wanted to put a little filigree on it, so they jumped out. I looked at my part, and I thought, Don’t even try. Just hit the mark and shut up. It wasn’t a time to show off, for me.”

Billy Joel is a fucking prince. Work hard, do your thing, don't show off.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 1:44 PM on July 1, 2020 [7 favorites]

It's wild to me that in a room that included Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder (I mean, as a musician, those two are more like gods than mere mortal men to me), Springsteen, Michael Jackson, etc, even all those guys were like... Woah, Ray Charles is here.

I probably hadn't listened to this song since I was like 10 years old, but yeah, Ray really is killing it on his parts. Or, killing it as much as you can on such a schmaltzy snoozer.
posted by SystematicAbuse at 1:46 PM on July 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

And just to round things out, there was the Canadian famine relief single ”Tears Are Not Enough.”
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:10 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Has anyone ever explained why Dan Aykroyd was there?
He stole Michael McDonald's ticket so that Michael McDonald would write a Hollywood soundtrack hit and feel relevant again.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:15 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]

Oh, this song.

Every October long weekend the rural Manitoba town I grew up near has a harvest festival with a parade, flea market, dances, ag events, and a rodeo until they couldn't afford the liability insurance or something. And the local 4-H groups have floats in the parade, and in what must have been 1985 my 4-H group (75% of which were my relatives) decided the theme for our float would be We Are The World and the kids would represent different races because in rural Manitoba in the 80s a bunch of cracker redneck Catholic brats dressed as different cultures in the name of global harmony was some pretty woke shit.

Someone, possibly my dad, made a metal frame for a globe that was covered with blue crepe paper and green plastic flowers, the frilly kind that didn't look like flowers which were ubiquitous on reception tables and Just Married cars in the seventies and eighties and whose particles are probably floating around in our respective bloodstreams right now. I was assigned to be an Inuit person (No, we probably didn't say Inuit person), so I got to wear my winter parka early and my mom carved a impressively barbed harpoon out of an old broom handle.

The morning of the parade was electric. I remember being told my harpoon would be taken away if I didn't stop threatening to stab my cousins, many of whom were and still are antagonistic pricks. The float was hitched to a tractor. The cassette was put into a boom box, and we began to roll down the street, ready to share a message of universal brotherhood in a community were everyone was related to each other and also didn't care for one another that much. But that didn't matter, because We Are The World.

And then the float behind us started playing Elvira by the Oak Ridge Boys incredibly loud and completely drowned out our song, stifling our important message.

So when I hear this song, I think of a parka in October which I can't remember if I was either very grateful for or resentful of, racial appropriation, and a dude singing "Oom pa-pa mow mow" really, really low.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 3:15 PM on July 1, 2020 [7 favorites]

Prince took a lot of shit for noping out of this recording at the time, but taking the long view, he sure made the right call.
posted by mykescipark at 3:51 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]

There's a hole in my heart, as deep as a well,
For that poor little boy, who's stuck halfway to hell...
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:07 PM on July 1, 2020 [6 favorites]

FTFA: Kragen used to manage Harry Chapin, the superstar free spirit of the seventies, until the day Chapin died in a car accident in 1981. Chapin was always raising money to fight hunger and homelessness. Kragen had been trying to put together a blockbuster concert to support Chapin’s legacy, and the logistics were hell.

But he had another idea. Not a concert.

Now it all makes sense. Harry was a saint.

-------

Billy Joel is a fucking prince. Work hard, do your thing, don't show off.

I can never forgive him for the way he treated Doug Stegmeyer, his long-time bass player, who tried to intervene in Billy's drug problem.
posted by mikelieman at 5:24 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Garry Trudeau did two weeks of Doonesbury about this (March 4th through the 16th, except the 10th). Because of course Jimmy Thudpucker was also involved.
posted by bryon at 10:48 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

It always amazes me when I encounter any sort of anecdote or document that suggests Billy Joel is in any way cool

As someone with very strong feelings towards Billy Joel's eternal terribleness I am conflicted
posted by SystematicAbuse at 11:26 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]

Has anyone ever explained why Dan Aykroyd was there?

According to this article, Dan tells the story thusly:

"Totally by accident. My father and I were interviewing business managers in LA and we walked into this office of a talent manager and realized we were in the wrong place. I was looking for a money manager, not a talent manager. I had managed myself at that time and always have. But he said, so long as you are here, would you like to come and join this "We are the World" thing.

I thought how do I fit in here? Well, we did sell a few million records with the Blues Brothers and in my other persona I am a musician, so I showed up and was a part of it but it was totally by accident."
posted by Quasimike at 1:26 PM on July 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

Finally got around to reading this, and really enjoyed it. But for me the biggest eye-opener (and I'm sure I saw this video a million times when it came out because Cyndi Lauper was so electric) was that Bette Midler was there. I had no idea. They only showed her for 2 seconds in the video and I never saw her at all. How could they not give her a solo?
posted by Mchelly at 9:28 AM on July 6, 2020