We are the World

I still remember it was 1991 and I was in third grade. Probably standing 4 feet and (maybe) 8 inches tall on a big podium with 24 other kids from my school. I think we were a mix from third and fourth grade. We all were divided into groups of five and the group arranged in a semi-circle with a mike in front of each group. If you have the mental picture set, you can very well guess that I might be referring to some sort of choir I was a part of. It was the annual day of our school (1^st December, every year) and we were performing the song 'We are the World' in front of a big audience. Each one of the group was supposed to sing a stanza from the song, in cycle and whenever the chorus ( we are the world) came, every one sang together. Each of us kid was also holding a flag for a different country. I was holding Italy. I still have the picture of the entire performance group. I still remember the unending applause from the audience after the performance was over. This was my very first stage performance ever and I shall never forget it. This is also one of the very first songs that I remember completely. I had no idea about what the lyrics meant but I had it word-by-word.

I did hear the song a couple of times later and came to know that it was written by Late Michael Jackson and performed by a group of great singer the world have ever seen. In the year 2005, during my training days in Trivandrum, we had a cultural show put together by the fellow associates – Elektrika. I did gave a rather forgetting performance on stage that day. As a part of group song, there was this group who performed the song. It was so refreshing to listen to the song again after a long time. They were all dressed in black and white, which reminded me of my third grade show where we performed dressed black-and-white. I simply loved the song and to my great surprise, I still remembered it verbatim. It was an awesome feeling. The performance was very well received by the audience (from all who knew it and who didn't). Last week, the 'Class of 2010' presented the cover version of the song at NBC (Winter Olympic 2010) as '25 for Haiti'. Rekindled by the great singers of our generations, the song is dedicated to the Haiti victims.

I have a knack of analyzing the lyrics of any song I hear. The greatness of 'We are the World' just doesn't lie in the music. It has a very simple yet so deeply affecting lyrics. It signifies the unified diversity and world harmony in set of simple words. It also glorifies the aspects like hope, confidence, courage, care and peace that makes a human humane. I don't know if its because of the two live performances I have seen , the visual cortex in my brain registers the song with the color black and white. I would like to attribute this to the one-world-one-view aspect of the song. The beauty and magic of the music and words combined together touches the hearts of the people who hear it for the first time. There are only a few things that you remember even if you come across it after a very very long hiatus. Things like the childhood lullaby, taste of you favorite food, your mother-tounge, prayers you use to enchant, voice of your closed ones,your national anthem...etc etc. You remember these things because they are very close to you heart. Something similar is with this song for me. I dont know why, but I remember this song completely whenever I hear it after however long break. It envisions the world as a single 'entity' without any borders and fronts. This song , as I call it, is the anthem of the entire humanity.

For the original version of the song click here

For the new version (25 for Haiti) of the song click here

*****Ankur