The Greatest Night in Pop: The Making of 'We Are the World'

There's almost nothing as satisfying on the screen as seeing a documentary that shows you how something else you saw and on the screen and loved was put together.  The Greatest Night in Pop does that with the 1985 video and recording, "We Are the World".  In part because our family was just getting started, in part because we cared about feeding people in need of food, in part because we were fans of so many of the artists who made that music, the video has been among my wife's and my favorites since the day we first saw it in March 1985.  It still brings tears to our eyes.  As did The Greatest Night in Pop documentary, many times.

As we were watching it on Netflix the other night, I realized what an important kind of new video and recording the 1985 performance brought into being.  Not a concert of great artists, but a single song performed by great artists.  The performance of George Harrison's "As My Guitar Gently Weeps" in the 2004 Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame inductions with Tom Petty, Stevie Winwood, and Prince (who delivers the best guitar playing I've ever seen) is even better than the Beatles' original recording, and owes a debt of gratitude to the way "We Are the World" brought together more than two score of artists nearly two decades earlier to make such eternal music.

Prince didn't make it to that recording, though he was very much desired, and The Greatest Night in Pop tells us at least a part of that story.  It also shows how Dylan, not really getting how he fit in the recording, sung his part perfectly after Stevie Wonder did a good mimic of Dylan singing like Dylan had in his heyday in the 1960s.  Cyndi Lauper, understandably nervous in the company of such greats, belts out a great line and ends with a "yeah, yeah, yeah".  She wonders if that was ok and is assured by Quincy Jones that it was just right.  The key of the song was of course right for some of the singers but not for everyone.  Bruce Springsteen, coming to the recording session with a hoarse voice just after a tour, sounds like he has "broken glass" in his throat, as someone remarks.  But it's just right for the subject of the recording.  Michael Jackson, who co-wrote the song with Lionel Richie, wants to add a "sha-la-la" to the chorus.  Smokey Robinson tells us in current time, when the documentary was recorded, how he had lots of experience working with Michael Jackson at Motown, and we see him walk up to Jackson in the "We Are the World" recording studio and talk him out of the "sha-la-la".  Diana Ross says how much she loved Daryl Hall's singing.  Who knew?

The Greatest Night in Pop is a treasure-trove of such nuggets of musical history.  I expect my wife and I will be watching it a lot more than once.

Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera

Bones rounded out its 2012 offerings with an episode - 8.9 - that was most memorable in its technique. It had heart aplenty, too, but that's something that's always been a part of Bones, and we've been getting more and more of this unique season.

The technique is known by various names, most commonly as P. O. V. Cam,  but I like to think of it as "I am a camera" - also the name of a play, a movie, and a song.   A "Murderer P. O. V." can be effectively frightening, if every scene we see is through the eyes of a murderer stalking victims.  Since we don't actually see the face of the murderer, we get a pure dose of the intent to murder, as the victim is stalked.   Bones 8.9 turns this around, by giving us an almost complete episode with a "Victim P. O. V."  Since this is Bones, the victim is dead.  And we see all of our characters from his perspective - a 14-year old boy, with a love for a girl and talent for song.

The technique works beautifully, giving us a standout, standalone episode.  The plot itself is not the thing - it's seeing all of our characters, Bones and Booth and the whole gang, from the equidistant perspective of the victim's perception.   Further, since all that physically exists of the victim is a skull and bones, there's not much to really see of him, which allows his consciousness and perception of the other characters free reign on the screen.

Cyndi Lauper has nifty guest role, as a psychic in touch with the nearly departed victim.  More than wanting the circumstances of his demise to be known, the victim wants to profess his love and profess it through a song that he wrote.  Cyndi is thus especially appropriate as the guest star.

And her spirit animates the ending with Bones, Booth, and Christine at home.   With the case solved, and the victim able to move on, we see our leading family back in regular filmic perspective and in fine dancing form.   Not only do girls just wanna have fun, but Booth does too, and our grooving trio provides a farewell to 2012 and invitation to more good times to come in 2013.

See also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ... Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ...Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ...Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ...Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution