Tears (still) are not enough, 30 years later

"As every day goes by..."

David Foster is singing over the phone,remembering Gordon Lightfoot "killing it" on the opening vocalsof Tears Are NotEnough, the all-star Canadian charity single recorded 30 years ago today.

Foster's Malibu, Calif., home isfar awayin bothtime and space from the frigid February Sunday in 1985when more than 50 of Canada's topentertainers metat Toronto's Manta Studios to make a recording for African famine relief.

"It was a magical day," he says.

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But it's all a blur to him, because he barely sleptthe night before so intense was the pressure to get it right after fellow music producer QuincyJones phoned and asked him tohelm a Canadian song fortheWe Are the World album hisUSA for Africa supergroup was recording.

Foster,working with manager Bruce Allen,had nine days to do it.

"The West and East Coast of Canada weren't exactly on the best of terms, musically,"he says."We were bringing them together for the firsttime."

The group, named Northern Lights, boasted some of Canada's top recording artists including Joni Mitchell, Anne Murray, Bruce Cockburn, Dan Hill, Paul Shaffer, Tommy Hunter, Carole Pope, Vronique Bliveau and Burton Cummings, among many others.

The tune itself, Foster now reveals, was a reject he'd offered it to Joel Schumacher for the soundtrack of St. Elmo's Fire, but the film director hated it.

Jim Vallance and Bryan Adams stayed up all night to turnit intoa famine relief anthem instead. Then Schumacher called back. The melody was right for Rob Lowe's face after all.

Too late."He was really pissed," Foster says.

And Adams's demo tape wasso good, Foster ended up using thosevocals in the final mix.

"Nothing was as good as that feeling that he had from staying up all night with that gravelly voice of his," he says.

Their song, urging Canadians to "pull together" and "change the world forever," went triple-platinum topping the singles chart and raising$3.2 million.

Canadians gave $150 million

The videoopened with CBC footagefrom the Ethiopian famine. CorrespondentBrian Stewart,then basedin London, learnedonly later that his voice was on what would be the most requested video on MuchMusic for March 1985.

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A last-minuteshoot at theNHL all-star game captured ayoungWayne Gretzky singingalong.

Mobile users, watch the Tears Are Not Enough video here

"This is what we do, so this is what we give," Rush frontmanGeddyLee said in the documentary about the making of the Tears Are Not Enough recording.

Mila Mulroney taped theintroduction for the doc, which aired on CBC-TV on Dec. 22, 1985.

David MacDonald ranthe Mulroney government's co-ordinationoffice for African famine relief. He remembers Allen, the organizer,approachinghim forfinancial assistance, although he doesn't remember now the exact amountof the government's contribution to the recording session, which he attended.

The former MPremembers then external affairs minister Joe Clark tellinghim he had thousands of dollars in his desk drawer: people were mailing him cash and cheques, so strong was the collective sense of "we need to do more."

The record's proceeds were matched bytheCanadian International Development Agency and fundedprojects by theRed Cross, UNICEF and CARE.Ten per cent wentto Canadian food banks.

MacDonald saysAdams in particular stayedinvolved, making several trips to Africa. Adams also performed thesong at Bob Geldof'sLive Aid concert that summer.

French-Canadian artists, includingClineDion, also recorded a famine relief single,LesYeuxdelaFaim.

"I went around and did a survey around all the NGOs that were raising money ... Ithink their estimate was that they raised another $150 million, so there was acollective response which was in today's terms pretty darn impressive," MacDonald says.

However, it was a "once in a lifetime" phenomenon, he says."I think the pitch it was making ... it's not a balanced approach to the problems ofAfrica."

'Ethiopia Thanks U'

Withinternational help, Ethiopia made steady progress toward food security. It's nowone of Africa's fastest-growing economies.

Thirty years ago,AinalemTebejewas one of only a few hundred Ethiopians living inCanada. She'd been studying journalism atCarletonUniversity for less than a year when she started seeing the traumatic images the Ethiopian government didn't want her family back home inAddisAbabato see.

Organizers brought her to Toronto forthe recording session. She didn't know any of the celebrities, but became emotional when she sawfans lined up outsideholding signs saying things like "Ethiopia Thanks U."

"The public relates better to celebrities than to politicians," she told the performers.

She also got to sing along, and her relatives back home passed the video around.

"It was surreal for me," she says."There was so much compassion in those days."

Today, Tebeje worksfor the federal government and helps runanorganization that supports medical students in Ethiopia.

"That period gave Canada its image, its credibility as a nation that extends ahelping hand," she says.

When fist bumps were fist pumps

Halifax-based music journalist and critic RyanMcNuttblogged about thefist-pumping awesomenessof "Canada's charity anthem." He's still drawnto the "mega-wattage of star power" in the originalcharity singles.

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Each represents aclichstereotype about its country,he suggests. The BritishDo They Know It's Christmas?takes a colonial attitude, while the AmericanWe Are the Worldis very self-centred.Tears Are Not Enoughoffered an emotional but indistinct humanitarianism.

"The songs don't feel like a dialogue with a problem or a place. We're talking to ourselves ... it's more about us," he says.

No one would consider any of the three truly great songs,he says. "They're like an artifact or a time capsule ... [none]have aged very well."

Pop culture and music journalistAlan Neal thinks David Foster knew exactly what he was doing.

"A song should be structured to get to a desired purpose," the CBC Radio hostsays. "If you're trying to write a song to inspire to give, this song does that."

Looking back, one of its most powerful lyrics, Neal thinks, was Neil Young singing"somehow our innocence is lost."

Northern Lights revival?

Neal would love to heara remakeof Tears, but concedesthat today's more cynical attitudes would diminish its appeal.

"There's something fair about saying this is the way we saw the world in the '80s," he says."Maybe Canada would say something different now?"

Foster says he's neverthought about his song'slegacy. It's been 20 years since helistened to it.

Would heever put a group together to re-record it as BobGeldof'sBandAid 30 did last Christmasfor Ebola charities, or Quincy Jones did five years ago, revivingWe are the Worldto helpvictims of Haiti's earthquake?

No one's ever suggested it to Foster. And he doesn't think he should.

"I think those songs are sort of untouchable. There's just certainsongs you leave alone," he says.

"If you do it right the first time everything else is goingto be second best."