Starvation/Tam-Tam Pour L’Ethiopie

Was there such a thing as the Indie Chart in 1985? I can't remember. If there was, then this was the Indie Chart equivalent of the original Band Aid/Do They Know it's Christmas?. I got this after it was played by John Peel and/or mentioned in the NME. I must have played it to you on your turntable in Cosin Court.

It was intended as a way of contributing to famine relief without sacrificing your cred. So is the music better than Band Aid? Only just as far as Starvation goes. "Star-va-tion, spreading 'cross the nation," Hmmm, and then "Whether you're white, black, red or red indian, we all share the same…" you get the idea; only one step away from Ebony and Ivory. Online the song is variously credited to Madness, UB40 or The Specials — presumably to enhance its profile — but it was actually written by The Pioneers (no, I hadn't either). It's no Free Nelson Mandela, which had come out the year before, and few remember it at all. I asked Tim about it, as I thought he was helping manage The Specials at the time (though he corrected me: he left for Sheffield in '84), and he couldn't recall the record.

Tam-Tam Pour L’Ethiopie sounds better, but that may be because I don't understand the lyrics that are in . I always used to think that the chorus was "Pourquoi la fin, Africa?", but that just shows that I never thought about it very hard: it must surely be "Pourquoi la faim, Africa?", mustn't it? The music is pretty good, though, and the line-up is impressive, including Youssou N'Dour before he was famous in the North (hence he doesn't get billing on the cover).

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