This is the video for the 25th anniversary version of “We Are the World”, made for the benefit of earthquake victims in Haiti.

This is a noble project.  The disaster in Haiti is certainly one of the worst in recent memory.  As of February 10 the reported number of deaths was 230,000.  Stalin once said “”A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic,” and I confess that 230,000 is a difficult number for me to wrap my head around, so I went looking for points of reference.  Comparisons are hard to find.
The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 still lives on in the psyche of the city and the whole state for that matter, but the death toll seems paltry by comparison, roughly 3,000.  September 11 was a major national trauma for our nation, and that caused about the same number. That was, of course, a very different thing, traumatic for different for different reasons, but we’re just trying to set a sense of the numbers.  As of today, American casualties in the two military engagements resulting from the attack, Iraqi and Afghanistan, have been less than 7,000 (approximately 4,700 in Iraq and 1,700 in Afghanistan).  Even civilian casualties in Iraq are less than under 110,000 by most estimates.
Bigger numbers of American soldiers lost their lives in the Vietnam War, to whit 58,236, with 1,760 still unaccounted for.  Not since WWII has the United States experienced a loss of as many lives.  418,800 Americans were killed in that war.  The number of people killed in Haiti is approximately the same as the number killed in the Asian tsunami of 2004, but that tragedy was equally unfathomable to me.
Then I happened upon the point of reference that made the number both comprehensible and horrifying.  The estimated population of my hometown of Richmond, VA in 208 was 202,002.  I’m not sure why an “estimate” is specific to the digit, but that’s the number provided.  So in other words, it would be as if the quake in Haiti wiped out my entire home city, all 202,002 people and 10% of the people in neighboring Chesterfield County, population 303, 469.  That’s a lot of friends, family and neighbors that I care about very much.
Still, I don’t know anyone in Haiti so 230,00 can feel like a statistic.  We mustn’t allow that to happen.  If it feels like that to you too, here is a page with six personal stories recounted on video, one person at a time.  They sugar coat nothing.  They show what folks are up against, what progress there has been, and the human capacity for hope and to rise above.  Haiti was a deeply impoverished nation before the quake, and it really needs our help now that it is so devastated.  It will take a lot of time for it to recover and I worry we will forget about it.  So give, and give generously at www.humanistcharities.org, wearetheworldfoundation.org or american.redcross.org
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Here’s the original song:

When I listen to this older version, I can recognize every voice, including those by artists whose records I didn’t own, whose music I didn’t listen to on the radio (I liked AOR or rock and roll radio, not top 40), and even one or two whose names I can’t come up with without thinking. Now go back and listen to the remake again. So many voices are indistinguishable and some of the more distinct ones are not used to maximum effect.
I loved the vocals on the first single. So well arranged and mixed. Sometimes voices of completely different character sang as if in dialogue. You would think they would be terribly mismatched and that it should have been cacophonous, but somehow it worked. One of my favorite parts on the original was when Stevie Wonder’s vocals just danced effortlessly around Bruce Springsteen’s almost primal vocals.
Maybe that was a result of Michael Jackson’s input, because on this one the vocal arrangements and mixing are not so great and innovative. The rappers rap in unison and it sounds like some kind of war chant. People with similar vocal tones sing together and they hardly sound that different.  So many people sound on this record sound like one another anyway.  What do you think of the new version?  My verdict is “forgettable.”
Something has happened in the music business. I happened long ago, actually, but it’s gone to its extreme now. I don’t know how to explain it, but the business fit artists to molds, rather than allowing artists to make the molds. It struck me watching American Idol last week that these kids have to sing songs made famous by artists who, themselves, would never have even made it to Hollywood week! Can you imagine what Simon would have said to Billie Holiday? Bruce Springsteen? Janis Joplin? B.B. King?  Bob Dylan?  Peter Gabriel?  If he had been a judge at an Aretha Franklin audition back when she was starting out, he would have told her to stop screaming!   You know he would have.