We Are The World: The Night That Changed Pop

If a bomb went off in here, John Denver would be back at No. 1 on the charts

(Paul Simon)

Beloved, abused, exploited and eventually — by some — even despised. “We Are The World” is something of an inevitable crossroads of the 1980s (and beyond). Everyone, in some way, has had to come to terms with it: the naive dreamers who genuinely believed they were building “a brighter day, just you and me”, music fans hypnotized by that unimaginable parade of 46 global stars, and the inevitable cynics and conspiracy theorists ready to point the finger at yet another rock'n'roll scam — pop, in this case. Almost no one, however, really knew the “behind the scenes” story of the greatest charity single of all time. Now, “We Are The World: The Night That Changed Pop”, the Netflix documentary directed by Bao Nguyen — the Vietnamese-American filmmaker already behind titles such as “Julian”, “Live from New York!” and “Be Water” — sets out to reconstruct it. And it's a revelation, in every sense.

Chain reaction

Produced by Lionel Richie, who also serves as the main narrator, filmed inside the very studio where the song was originally recorded, the documentary takes off from the incredible domino effect (or “Chain Reaction”, to borrow a famous hit by one of its protagonists) that led to the feat of gathering 46 global music stars in one room to record, in just a few hours, the “American answer” to “Do They Know It's Christmas?”. It all began, in fact, with that Band Aid song, the British all-star supergroup assembled by Bob Geldof to create a charity single for famine-stricken Ethiopia. On December 23, 1984, an indignant Harry Belafonte — political activist as well as musical legend, who passed away on April 25, 2023 — observed: “There are white people saving Black people, but no Black people saving their own people from starvation”. So he decided to pick up the phone and call Ken Kragen, a producer with the entire show-business world in his address book. The first name he pulled out of the hat was none other than Lionel Richie, who would prove to be the driving force behind the whole operation, together with his friend Michael Jackson, whom he had known since childhood back in the Motown days. Among the documentary's funniest moments is Richie's account of a visit to Jacko's house, where a snake roams freely, a chimpanzee named Bubbles needs looking after, and downstairs a dog and an Indian mynah bird are having a full-blown fight (!). The other pillar of the operation is, of course, the producer (and conductor) who could only be Quincy Jones, the man with whom the King of Pop had shared the triumph of “Thriller”. Right behind him, Stevie Wonder immediately agrees with enthusiasm, only to then forget to answer the phone, forcing the two friends to hash out the song themselves in a frantic brainstorming session at Jackson's mansion (though good old Stevie — as we'll see — will get the chance to redeem himself).

The making of the unthinkable Usa For Africa supergroup also reveals all the connections and rivalries of the era. If Bruce Springsteen, fresh off the record-breaking tour for “Born In The Usa”, is in, then Bob Dylan has to be there too, and the same goes for Ray Charles, Paul Simon, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Willie Nelson and Dan Aykroyd, among the first to sign on. But if Cyndi Lauper is in, it's best to leave Madonna out (two popstars in the same henhouse would be too many), while the most painful “no”, that of Prince, is attributed by many to his alleged rivalry with Jackson.

The motto of the whole operation, though, is soon made clear on a note Jones has posted at the entrance to the studio: “Check your ego at the door”. Only that way could the result be brought home. But alongside good intentions, some practical tricks were also needed — starting with the decisive one: exploiting the American Music Awards event in Los Angeles to drag that vast, varied crowd of stars into the studio. All in one night. And who better than the man who had written “All Night Long” — and who, on top of that, was also hosting those very Awards — to pull off such a feat? “It was the only way to get them all together”, a nostalgic Richie confides, introducing footage of the parade of limousines heading to the A&M studios on the night of January 28-29, 1985, from which an old Pontiac carrying the Boss breaks away. It's Bob Geldof himself who brings everyone back down to earth, called upon to open the session by recounting his harrowing experience in Ethiopia. The whole studio falls silent: this time, it really is the moment to leave the ego at the door.

Performance anxiety

Drawing on extraordinary previously unseen footage captured in those studios, with audio recorded by Life journalist David Breslin, Nguyen does a great job of conveying the climate of stress weighing on the session's protagonists. Starting with Michael Jackson, who actually decided to skip the Awards ceremony altogether in order to rehearse the song alone, singing it a cappella. But the definitive snapshot of the performance anxiety gripping the participants remains the sphinx-like gaze of a silent Bob Dylan during the choral part, stammering even when it comes to his solo line. Indeed, once the group chorus has been recorded and Quincy Jones moves on to the individual performances, some singers devour the moment for breakfast — Black vocalists first and foremost, from Stevie Wonder to Diana Ross, from Michael Jackson to Ray Charles and Dionne Warwick, but also some white singers, like a brilliant Steve Perry (Journey), a flawless Daryl Hall, an overwhelming Cyndi Lauper (once her necklaces, which were causing static in the microphone, were removed) and a surprising Huey Lewis, saddled with the thankless task of replacing Prince's part. But there are also those who feel like they're climbing Everest. Like an exhausted Springsteen, digging deep into his last remaining vocal reserves. And like Mr. Zimmerman himself, incredibly at a loss — he who truly changed the course of music history — faced with an innocuous line: “There's a choice we're making, we're saving our own lives”. When the clock strikes 5:30 in the morning, Bob, headphones on and lyric sheet in hand, starts to mumble, gets the phrasing wrong, and throws Quincy Jones a lost, helpless look. It's here that the true solidarity between stars shows itself, with Stevie Wonder's brilliant idea of sitting at the piano and singing those lines doing an impression of Dylan: that's how they're meant to be sung, Bob gets it, and smiles. And he finally nails it, appearing in those few seconds more human than he has in sixty years of his career. A moment of extraordinary tenderness, a testament to the beauty of imperfection — the same imperfection every musician has to reckon with, every day, in any studio.

That won't be the only bump along the way, though. Pretending the viewer doesn't already know the story's outcome, the documentary plays on the anguish of possible failure, on the palpable tension in the studio over the risk of not pulling it off, with the clock hands ticking relentlessly toward dawn while the stars, arranged in a semicircle, can't hide their nerves. Seemingly insurmountable obstacles keep surfacing: the chill that falls over the room when Stevie Wonder suggests singing a line in Swahili, which even prompts Waylon Jennings to flee (nothing comes of it, not least because, as someone points out, they don't speak Swahili in Ethiopia); Al Jarreau's unsettling drunkenness, which only by some miracle allows him to hit the notes in the end; the awkwardness when Smokey Robinson, one of the few who could get away with it, questions Jackson's lyrics, asking to change a line about “giving”, suggesting the more exhortative “let's start giving”. But above all, there's the Prince affair. He is the Minneapolis genius, the ghost at the feast of Usa For Africa: longed for right up to the last minute, including through an invitation extended to his beloved drummer Sheila E, who will end up leaving the group after discovering she'd been cynically used for that very purpose. Because the Prince, who had just pocketed four American Music Awards and, at 4 in the morning, had a giant bouncer escort him out of an LA club, lets it be known that the most he can do is record a guitar solo to be added to the track afterward, and Richie tells him that's not how this works: either everyone together, or nothing at all.

To offset the moments of tension and difficulty, the documentary skillfully places a number of moments of harmony and general high spirits, some shown, some only recounted. Like when Paul Simon sets off a roaring collective laugh by exclaiming, “If a bomb went off in here, John Denver would be back at No. 1 on the charts”. Or when Stevie Wonder invites Ray Charles to join him in the bathroom, joking about both of their disabilities. Or when everyone joins together to pay tribute to Belafonte by singing “Day-O”, and then start swapping autographs on their sheet music like ordinary fans. Even the hardest hearts will melt at the sight of Diana Ross, the ultimate diva, in tears at the end of the exhausting overnight marathon, confiding to Wonder: “I don't want it to end”.

Was it real glory?

Is it possible that the permanently-on-duty cynics won't be won over even this time? Not even in the face of the candour and humility of a Lionel Richie who progressively reveals all his humanity, confessing in the end that that studio remained his home; or Quincy Jones admitting with amusement: "In the end, the white folks sang well!"; or Springsteen acknowledging that maybe the song wasn't much to speak of but it worked for its purpose; or the idea that, yes, those 80 million dollars raised from record sales were indeed given to the people of Ethiopia – even if it was never entirely clear how effectively that aid was actually delivered (and on that point, one could open an endless debate).

“We Are The World” has often been the target of mockery and parody (amusingly so in the Ramones' spoof with Weird Al and other alternative artists in the 1986 video for “Something To Believe In”). It certainly wasn't a masterpiece, and perhaps it really did resemble a mix between a school play and a soft-drink commercial, as some have called it. And yet it succeeded damn well at doing what it set out to do: stirring something in people's guts, if not their consciences, drawing the world's attention to an issue absent from public debate. But not everyone has given it credit for that.

There has always been an undercurrent of suspicion toward charity carried out by stars (musical and otherwise), a constant urge to question its authenticity, to expose its do-gooder rhetoric along with any shady dealings or exploitation. As if simply doing it weren't already preferable to doing nothing – inaction, oddly enough, never comes under the same relentless fire. In short, to put it in Quincy Jones's words: “Anyone who wants to throw the first stone at Usa For Africa can get off their ass and start helping out. God knows how much there still is to do.” But not even the later – and grander – Live Aid, also promoted by Geldof, will escape this crossfire, even though it was really nothing more than the natural live extension of the campaign launched by Band Aid and Usa For Africa. And yet it would turn out to be rock's last utopian surge, right in the heart of the infamous hedonistic, disengaged 80s. After that, everything faded away, leaving behind only the occasional, less far-reaching event over the years (from Farm Aid to the Artists United Against Apartheid's Sun City, from the Freddie Mercury Tribute for Aids Awareness to the Concert For New York City after 9/11). And with that, even the controversy died down.

Nguyen's documentary, on the other hand, takes us back for 96 minutes into the fleeting dimension of the dream, the moral fable. A musical madeleine that hits all the right notes to move us, weaving together video clips, present-day testimonials and the memories of those who lived that night firsthand, such as Bruce Springsteen, Dionne Warwick, Cyndi Lauper, Huey Lewis, Kenny Loggins, Sheila E. and Smokey Robinson. “With our film we try to immerse the audience in something that's very present, the ticking of the clock in that room,” Nguyen explains. “Everyone was running on adrenaline.” If nothing else, one might say – but that's beside the point here.

The one truly off-key note is the omission of what American journalist and activist Andrea Grimes, writing for MSNBC, called “the most moving moment of that greatest night”: the arrival in the studio of two Ethiopian women who had survived the famine. It's a serious flaw, but one that can be forgiven in a work that manages to resurrect the spirit of an entire decade through an event that certainly didn't change pop music, nor the history of music, let alone Africa's fate – more forgotten today than ever – but which did show that a good cause could still bring together even showbiz's most self-centred personalities, in the name of the illusion of building a better world. You try it, and then we'll talk...

Title: We Are the World: The Night That Changed Pop

Director: Bao Nguyễn

Cast: Lionel Richie, Kim Carnes, Tom Bahler, Bob Dickinson, Sheila E., Humberto Gatica, Quincy Jones, Cyndi Lauper, Huey Lewis, Kenny Loggins, Steve Perry, Ruth Pointer, Wendy Rees, Bruce Springsteen, Harriet Sternberg, Dionne Warwick, Steven Ivory, Ken Woo, Michael Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Lindsey Buckingham, David Byrne, Ray Charles, Phil Collins, Bob Dylan, Bob Geldof, Daryl Hall, James Ingram, Jackie Jackson, La Toya Jackson, Marlon Jackson, Tito Jackson, Al Jarreau, Waylon Jennings, Billy Joel, Ken Kragen, Madonna, George Michael, Bette Midler, John Oates, Jeffrey Osborne, Anita Pointer, June Pointer, Prince, Kenny Rogers, Diana Ross, Paul Simon, Sting, Tina Turner, Sarah Vaughan, Stevie Wonder.

Producers: Bruce Eskowitz, Larry Klein, George Hencken, Harriet Sternberg, Kent Kubena, Julia Nottingham

Executive Producer: Amit Dey

Music: Darren Morze, Goh Nakamura

Running time: 96 minutes

The performances

Solo singers

Lionel Richie

Stevie Wonder

Paul Simon

Kenny Rogers

James Ingram

Tina Turner

Billy Joel

Michael Jackson

Diana Ross

Dionne Warwick

Willie Nelson

Al Jarreau

Bruce Springsteen

Kenny Loggins

Steve Perry

Daryl Hall

Huey Lewis

Cyndi Lauper

Kim Carnes

Bob Dylan

Ray Charles

Choir members

Dan Aykroyd

Harry Belafonte

Lindsey Buckingham

Mario Cipollina

Johnny Colla

Sheila E.

Bob Geldof

Bill Gibson

Chris Hayes

Sean Hopper

Jackie Jackson

La Toya Jackson

Marlon Jackson

Randy Jackson

Tito Jackson

Waylon Jennings

Bette Midler

John Oates

Jeffrey Osborne

Anita Pointer

June Pointer

Ruth Pointer

Smokey Robinson

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