Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1986


Tears Are Not Enough

Buy Tears Are Not Enough now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




"'Tears Are Not Enough'" is a 1985 charity single recorded by a supergroup of Canadian artists, under the name Northern Lights, to raise funds for relief of the 198385 famine in Ethiopia. It was one of a number of such supergroup singles recorded between December 1984 and April 1985, along with Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in the United Kingdom, USA for Africa's "We Are the World" in the United States, "Cantar, cantars" by a supergroup of Latin American and Spanish singers, Chanteurs sans Frontires's "thiopie" in France, and Fondation Qubec-Afrique's "Les Yeux de la faim" in Quebec.

Although recorded independently of the USA for Africa project, it was included on the full-length 'We Are the World' album.

The project was organized by Bruce Allen, who brought together a large group of artists to record a song written by David Foster, Jim Vallance, Bryan Adams, Rachel Paiement, Paul Hyde and Bob Rock. Foster and Vallance wrote the music and initial lyrics, Adams completed the English lyrics, Paiement wrote the one French verse, Rock & Hyde contributed the song title. The song was recorded on February 10, 1985 at Manta Sound studios in Toronto.

The song was issued as the album's second and final single by Columbia Records on May 1, 1985, and quickly reached number one on the Canadian Top 40 chart. It also finished number one on the year-end Canadian charts for that year. The song's video also received extensive airplay on MuchMusic.

The vocals were recorded at Manta Sound Studios in downtown Toronto on Sunday, February 10, 1985. Gordon Lightfoot drove himself to the recording in a pick-up truck. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell arrived together in a taxi. Mark Holmes of Platinum Blonde arrived in a white stretch limousine.

On December 22, 1985, CBC Television aired a 90-minute documentary by John Zaritsky on the song and its creation. A CBC reporter, Brian Stewart, had been the first Western journalist to bring the famine in Ethiopia to worldwide attention. The film was a shortlisted Genie Award finalist for Best Documentary Film at the 7th Genie Awards in 1986.Sid Adilman, "Genie films are coming on strong". 'Toronto Star', February 14, 1986.

By 1990, the project had raised $3.2 million for famine relief projects in Africa. Ten percent of the funds raised was set aside to assist Canadian food banks.

Performers



Solo vocalists (in order)



Heard in duos or trios

*Mike Reno (Loverboy) with Liberty Silver

*Carroll Baker, Ronnie Hawkins and Murray McLauchlan

*Vronique Bliveau, Robert Charlebois and Claude Dubois (in French)

*Bryan Adams with Donny Gerrard (Skylark)

*Alfie Zappacosta with Lisa Dal Bello

*Carole Pope (Rough Trade) and Paul Hyde (The Payola$)

*Salome Bey, Mark Holmes (Platinum Blonde) and Lorraine Segato (The Parachute Club)

Chorus members



Chorus members included:

Instrumentation and production



*David Foster - Keyboards, Producer

*Jim Vallance - Drums, Engineer, Associate Producer

*Paul Dean (Loverboy) - Guitar

*Steven Denroche - French Horn

*Doug Johnson (Loverboy) - Synthesizer

*David Sinclair (Straight Lines / Body Electric - Acoustic guitar

*Hayward Parrott - Engineer

*Geoff Turner - Engineer

*Bob Rock (The Payola$) - Engineer

*Humberto Gatica - Mixing Engineer

Non-perfomers



Fans have speculated for years about major Canadian artists who were not part of the sessions. These are some of the key names in these discussions:

Recording process



Joni Mitchell later spoke to writer Iain Blair about the recording experience: "I know it sounds ridiculous, but I was literally starving when we did the session 'cause my yoga teacher had sent me to a psychic dietician who, while rubbing her chin and swinging her arm around in a circle, had diagnosed a lot of food allergies. The result was, predictably, that I was hardly allowed to eat anything, so by the time I arrived with an apple and a rice patty, my poor stomach was making all these strange noises. Then we get in the studio, and the engineer says he can't record 'cause he's picking up some weird rumbling sound coming from my direction. (She laughed.) And it was all pretty ironic, considering the subject matter!"'Chicago Tribune,' May 1, 1985.

At one point during the recording process, Foster also had Neil Young re-record his line after singing the word "innocence" flat, to which Young famously quipped, "That's my sound, man."Kevin Chong, [https://www.straight.com/article/neil-young-saved-my-life 'Neil Young Saved My Life'], 'Georgia Straight,' October 13, 2005.

According to journalist Terry David Mulligan, singer/songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie was supposed to be part of the project but did not show up to recording sessions. As a result, the term "Buffy bailed" became an expression in certain Canadian music circles.[https://www.torontomike.com/2022/02/terry-david-mulligan-toronto-miked-podcast-episode-992/'Terry David Mulligan: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 992'], February 1, 2022.

Video



The song's video opens with footage from Brian Stewart's original CBC News report on the famine, and then cuts to the performers singing the song in a studio. Near the end of the video, footage also appears from the 1985 NHL All-Star Game in Calgary, depicting the Campbell Conference All-Stars including Wayne Gretzky, Grant Fuhr, Jari Kurri and Miroslav Frycer singing along as the audience waves flags and banners in the air.

References




Buy Tears Are Not Enough now from Amazon

<-- Return to movies from 1986



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1107968324.