Breeds of Misery: World poverty, indifference, the Eighties
Best/Worst Verse: "There's a world outside your window, and it's a world of dread and fear, where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears. And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom. Well, tonight thank God it's them, instead of you."
I actually wrote a piece about this song for A Child Grows in Brooklyn last year called "Why “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” may be the most important Christmas song to share with your children," and it turns out that I might be the only person in the world who unconditionally loves this song, Bob Geldof included. My reason for this love is simple: it was the first Christmas song I listened to as a child that made feel relatively lucky to live in a low-income US household on Christmas. And as celebrity agitprop goes, it's about a hundred times better than We Are the World.