Goddamnit, hippies. If you want people to care about climate change, you can’t go making ridiculous “We Are The World” style songs. But that’s precisely what Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Fergie, Colbie Caillat and more have done, resulting in the environmentally conscious charity collaboration track “Love Song to the Earth”. It’s part of a global campaign to raise awareness prior to the United Nations Climate Change Conference this December in Paris.
The lyric video for the track is right out of South Park, spouting lyrics like “Heaven’s poetry to us” and “a diamond in the universe” as the collective pleads with listeners to “Keep it safe” in the chorus.
Seriously, this shit is “Ladder to Heaven” to the fifth power.
According to the song’s official website, “Every time the song is purchased, streamed, or shared, the royalties go directly towards the efforts of Friends of the Earth to keep fossil fuels in the ground and lower carbon emissions, and to the work of the U.N. Foundation to inspire international action on climate change.” Fans are also encouraged to sign a petition to “tell world leaders to stop debating and start taking action on climate change.”
“Love Song to the Earth” was penned by Toby Gad, John Shanks, Natasha Bedingfield and Sean Paul. The latter two also appear on the song, alongside Leona Lewis, Goo Goo Dolls’ Johnny Rzeznik, Angelique Kidjo, Nicole Scherzinger, Kelsea Ballerini, Krewella, Victoria Justice, Christina Grimmie and Q’Orianka Kilcher. That’s a who’s who of “what the fuck are they doing here?” and “whoa, they’re still around? Why?”
In other words, this incongruent mishmash of stars, has-beens and hanger-ons makes no sense – nor does its aim seem at all potent. Those who would tolerate such bombastic sonic drivel are deep in the crowd of ecological awareness, and those who aren’t are going to laugh their asses off at this terrible, terrible song.
“We wanted to create a song to unify voices in a positive uplifting chorus to support the world’s leaders as they gather in Paris this December,” Jerry Cope, the song’s executive producer, told Rolling Stone. “We wanted to finally forge a binding ambitious global climate treaty to address carbon omissions and anthropogenic [effects] that is resulting from human behavior climate change.”
The song and video has a straightforward aim: “Our hope is that people will listen to the song and enjoy the lyric video and go to Lovesongtotheearth.org and sign the petition which will be delivered at the opening of the climate conference in Paris this December,” Cope says. “As an American, I hope that this helps to rally our nation and once again we can lead the world in what is the most important challenge we face in the 21st-century.”
Writing a painfully bad song with the most banal Hallmark card crap lyrics of all time, sung by one massive star and a slew of lesser-thans, is not the way to do it.
