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Bangla Desh is a song by English musician George Harrison. It was released as a non-album single in July 1971, to raise awareness for the millions of refugees from the country formerly known as East Pakistan, following the 1970 Bhola cyclone and the outbreak of the Bangladesh Liberation War. Harrison's inspiration for the song came from his friend Ravi Shankar, a Bengali musician, who approached Harrison for help in trying to alleviate the suffering. "Bangla Desh" has been described as "one of the most cogent social statements in music history" and helped gain international support for Bangladeshi independence by establishing the name of the fledgling nation around the world. In 2005, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan identified the song's success in personalizing the Bangladesh crisis, through its emotive description of Shankar's request for help.
It was pop music's first charity single, and its release took place three days before the Harrison-sponsored Concert for Bangladesh shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. The recording was co-produced by Phil Spector and features contributions from Leon Russell, Jim Horn, Ringo Starr and Jim Keltner.
Backed by these musicians and others including Eric Clapton and Billy Preston, Harrison performed "Bangla Desh" at the UNICEF concerts, on 1 August 1971, as a rousing encore. In a review of the Concert for Bangladesh live album for Rolling Stone magazine, Jon Landau identified this reading as "the concert's single greatest performance by all concerned".
A Bengali by birth, Shankar had already brought the growing humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh to Harrison's attention, while staying at the ex-Beatle's house, Friar Park, earlier in the year. The state formerly known as East Pakistan (and before that, East Bengal) had suffered an estimated 300,000 casualties when the Bhola cyclone hit its shores on 12 November 1970, and the indifference shown by the ruling government in West Pakistan, particularly by President Yahya Khan, was just one reason the Bengali national movement sought independence on 25 March 1971. This declaration resulted in an immediate military crackdown by Khan's troops, and three days later the Bangladesh Liberation War began. By 13 June, details of the systematic massacre of citizens were beginning to emerge internationally via the publication in London's Sunday Times of an article by Anthony Mascarenhas. Along with the torrential rains and intensive flooding that were threatening the passage of millions of refugees into north-eastern India, this news galvanised Shankar into approaching Harrison for help in trying to alleviate the suffering. "I was in a very sad mood, having read all this news," Shankar later told Rolling Stone magazine, "and I said, 'George, this is the situation, I know it doesn't concern you, I know you can't possibly identify.' But while I talked to George he was very deeply moved ... and he said, 'Yes, I think I'll be able to do something.'"
As a result, Harrison committed to staging the Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden, New York, on Sunday, 1 August. Six weeks of frantic activity ensued as Harrison flew between New York, Los Angeles and London, making preparations and recruiting other musicians to join him and Shankar for the shows. While conceding that Harrison was no "natural sloganeer" in the manner of his former bandmate John Lennon, author Robert Rodriguez has written: "if any ex-Fab had the cachet with his fan base to solicit good works, it was the spiritual Beatle."
It was pop music's first charity single, and its release took place three days before the Harrison-sponsored Concert for Bangladesh shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. The recording was co-produced by Phil Spector and features contributions from Leon Russell, Jim Horn, Ringo Starr and Jim Keltner.
Backed by these musicians and others including Eric Clapton and Billy Preston, Harrison performed "Bangla Desh" at the UNICEF concerts, on 1 August 1971, as a rousing encore. In a review of the Concert for Bangladesh live album for Rolling Stone magazine, Jon Landau identified this reading as "the concert's single greatest performance by all concerned".
A Bengali by birth, Shankar had already brought the growing humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh to Harrison's attention, while staying at the ex-Beatle's house, Friar Park, earlier in the year. The state formerly known as East Pakistan (and before that, East Bengal) had suffered an estimated 300,000 casualties when the Bhola cyclone hit its shores on 12 November 1970, and the indifference shown by the ruling government in West Pakistan, particularly by President Yahya Khan, was just one reason the Bengali national movement sought independence on 25 March 1971. This declaration resulted in an immediate military crackdown by Khan's troops, and three days later the Bangladesh Liberation War began. By 13 June, details of the systematic massacre of citizens were beginning to emerge internationally via the publication in London's Sunday Times of an article by Anthony Mascarenhas. Along with the torrential rains and intensive flooding that were threatening the passage of millions of refugees into north-eastern India, this news galvanised Shankar into approaching Harrison for help in trying to alleviate the suffering. "I was in a very sad mood, having read all this news," Shankar later told Rolling Stone magazine, "and I said, 'George, this is the situation, I know it doesn't concern you, I know you can't possibly identify.' But while I talked to George he was very deeply moved ... and he said, 'Yes, I think I'll be able to do something.'"
As a result, Harrison committed to staging the Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden, New York, on Sunday, 1 August. Six weeks of frantic activity ensued as Harrison flew between New York, Los Angeles and London, making preparations and recruiting other musicians to join him and Shankar for the shows. While conceding that Harrison was no "natural sloganeer" in the manner of his former bandmate John Lennon, author Robert Rodriguez has written: "if any ex-Fab had the cachet with his fan base to solicit good works, it was the spiritual Beatle."
Foreign journalists had been deported from East Pakistan shortly before the Pakistani army's Operation Searchlight, and even after Mascarenhas' first-hand observations had been published, Shankar and Harrison were concerned that the mainstream media in the West were showing a reluctance to report all the facts.That summer, it also emerged that America was supporting General Khan's military offensive, both financially and with weaponry – despite the Blood telegram in April, in which officials at the US Consulate in Dacca advised their State Department of the "genocide" taking place and accused the US Government of "moral bankruptcy". Realising the need to create greater awareness of the situation in Bangladesh, and particularly the refugee camps of India that had become "infectious open-air graveyards" with the outbreak of cholera, Harrison quickly composed a song for the cause. "Bangla Desh" was "written in ten minutes at the piano", he would later recall. The title translates as "Bengal nation", and the fact that Harrison spelt it as two words is indicative of how little the new country name had been acknowledged by the Western media at this time.
As with the concerts, Harrison made a point of steering clear of the politics behind the problem, his lyrics focusing instead on the human perspective. At the suggestion of Leon Russell, who had participated in the recent Ronnie Spector and Badfinger sessions, Harrison began the song with a brief verse outlining his own introduction to the Bangladesh crisis.
The first four lines refer to Shankar's request for help, and "[in] deference to the Shankar context", musical biographer Simon Leng suggests, Harrison set the opening verse as a rock version of Indian music's traditional alap – "a slow introductory statement of the main ideas".Lyrically, the remainder of the song concentrates on the uncompromising message "We've got to relieve Bangla Desh" as thousands of refugees, particularly children, fell victim to the effects of famine and disease.
The final verse-chorus reflects a point that former US Fund for UNICEF president Charles Lyons has identified as a perennial obstacle when addressing global issues of poverty – that the problems appear to be too big and too distant for individuals to be able to solve.
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| Original Script of the song |
The Full Lyrics are given Here:
My friend came to me
With sadness in his eyes
He told me that he wanted help
Before his country dies
Although I couldn't feel the pain
I knew I had to try
Now I'm asking all of you
To help us save some lives
Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Where so many people are dying fast
And it sure looks like a mess
I've never seen such distress
Now won't you lend your hand and understand?
Relieve the people of Bangladesh
Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Such a great disaster, I don't understand
But it sure looks like a mess
I've never known such distress
Now please don't turn away
I want to hear you say
Relieve the people of Bangladesh
Relieve Bangladesh
Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Now it may seem so far from where we all are
It's something we can't reject
It's something I can't neglect
Now won't you give some bread to get the starving fed?
We've got to relieve Bangladesh
Relieve the people of Bangladesh
We've got to relieve Bangladesh
Relieve the people of Bangladesh
With sadness in his eyes
He told me that he wanted help
Before his country dies
Although I couldn't feel the pain
I knew I had to try
Now I'm asking all of you
To help us save some lives
Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Where so many people are dying fast
And it sure looks like a mess
I've never seen such distress
Now won't you lend your hand and understand?
Relieve the people of Bangladesh
Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Such a great disaster, I don't understand
But it sure looks like a mess
I've never known such distress
Now please don't turn away
I want to hear you say
Relieve the people of Bangladesh
Relieve Bangladesh
Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Now it may seem so far from where we all are
It's something we can't reject
It's something I can't neglect
Now won't you give some bread to get the starving fed?
We've got to relieve Bangladesh
Relieve the people of Bangladesh
We've got to relieve Bangladesh
Relieve the people of Bangladesh
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