Confessional

Hello. My name is Get Shirty, and I like Band Aid's Do They Know it's Christmas. There. I've said it. Before you throw something at me, click the link to watch the video. Look at how young and healthy everyone was in 1984! Boy George is glowing, Bono's eyes are readily available, Simon LeBon is luscious, George Michael is bursting with hair and good health, and Sting is right around the peak of my love for him. Plus, that guy from Spandau Ballet is SO PRETTY!

Anyway, I like the song. I was thirteen in 1984, and I was really starting to be annoyed with my family. I remember very clearly sitting in the backseat with my sister, being driven from my dad's parents' house to my mom's parents' house on Christmas Eve, and really listening to the lyrics when the song came on the radio. My parents were toasted and beyond embarrassing, my sister was a brat, and then all of a sudden, Bono sang, "Well tonight thank God it's them, instead of you," and I really heard him. It seemed somehow wrong to thank God that someone else's misfortune wasn't mine, like I was somehow saying that God preferred me. But I *was* grateful. I still am. Sigh. Can anyone feel as much guilt and angst as a thirteen-year-old middle class American Catholic girl on Christmas Eve when a bunch of earnest pop singers from the UK are being all earnest and emotive? I really don't think so.

And so, for making me cry in the car on Christmas Eve, I love Band Aid, and I love their song.

So sue me.