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Vice Blog

CAUCASIAN VOODOO REVIVAL TO SAVE HAITI

The emergency shipment of poorly-timed voodoo imagery is in!

So Shane MacGowan, Nick Cave, Johnny Depp and many more got together to put out a benefit single for Haiti. Great news - they didn't cover something kinda racist, did they?

Between the lack of big-name songs even remotely about Haiti, the shittiness of the usual charitable anthems, and Shane MacGowan's tradition of not being aware of what he's doing, they settled on "I Put A Spell On You" as the song to sing. Good song, but as we all know, in between fathering enough children to fill a Ramada Inn, Screamin' Jay always played the song as straight up bone-in-the-nose, put-you-in-a-pot, oogah-boogah voodoo minstrelsry. Maybe not the pat on the back that Haiti wants right now.

Still, not caring about offending people is an essential part of the song. It's in the right spirit for Shane MacGowan and company to not care if Haiti doesn't want to only be known as 'that voodoo place'. After all, they're putting their time in for Haiti's benefit, and when it comes to charity, there's no such thing as bad publicity, right? Plus, it opens the door for people to do benefit songs that don't suck, right?

Nah, still awkward. Let's just hope they don't follow it up with "Alligator Wine", and that nothing bad ever happens to Hong Kong.