1. The @RollingStone "minute-by-minute breakdown" of the making of "We are the world" on the recording of the song's 30th anniversary is nuts. A thread.
2. Willie Nelson, who spent much of the night drinking with Waylon Jennings and Ray Charles, remembered telling Charles that he thought the project was great "but wouldn't it be nice if we did something for the people in our own country"> It led to Farm Aid
3. Willie Nelson sings the "oddest line" in the song: "As God has shown us, by turning stone to bread." Rolling Stone: "Actually, there is no Biblical passage where God transforms stone to bread ... the Bible seems to be against turning stone into bread ..."
4. Michael Jackson's origin story for "We Are the World": He'd hum a tune and ask Janet, following him around, what do you see? And she responded: 'DYING CHILDREN IN AFRICA.' 'You're right. That's what I was dictating from my soul.'"
5. Michael Jackson finished "We are the world" chorus with "sha-lum sha-lingay." Bob Geldof said it sounded like they were mocking Africans. Stevie Wonder left to call a friend in Nigeria to get an appropriate SWAHILI phrase.
6. After Stevie Wonder called a friend in Nigeria to include a SWAHILI phrase into a song about an Ethiopian famine, Bob Geldof 'observed that Ethiopians don't actually speak Swahili, a point underscored by Lauper, who said that it was like "singing to the English in German."'
7. Take the line:"There's a choice we're making/We're saving our own lives." It was originally "There's a chance we're taking/We're taking our own lives." It was changed so the singers would not seem to be congratulating themselves for advocating mass suicide.
8. The conclusion of the article has to be seen to be believed: "Although distributing food in Ethiopia was a logistical and political nightmare, and some of the money raised was squandered, ['We are the world'] did a lot of good in the world."
9. Around 2 a.m, as the artists left the studio studio where they were recording 'We are the world" in January 1985, Ray Charles "... announced that he hadn't had no good lovin' since January. It did not go unnoticed that it was, in fact, January."
The full thing. It is kinda long; One more: during a break from recording, Ray Charles asked where the bathroom was and Stevie Wonder said, "I'll show you where it is, Ray. Follow me!" Wonder took Charles by the hand and led him to the right door. rollingstone.com/music/features…
