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Lionel Richie has said he’s considering recording a new version of ‘We Are The World’ to raise money for the fight against coronavirus.

Richie says he was not expecting to mark the 35th anniversary of the song, which featured multiple superstars of the day such as Michael Jackson, Diana Ross and Cyndi Lauper, but he now believes that the pandemic has made its message “so clear” once again.

“Two weeks ago, we said we didn’t want to do too much [about the song] because this is not the time to sell an anniversary. But the message is so clear,” Richie explained, according to People Magazine.

Richie also singled out the significance of the chorus line: “There’s a choice we’re making, we’re saving our own lives.”

Describing how he originally penned the lyrics with Michael Jackson, Richie told People: “That line came about as Michael and I were sitting there talking. We said, you can either say, ‘I’m saving my life’ or ‘We’re saving our lives.’ ‘We Are the World’ is a statement we wanted to make. What do we do to save our own?”

He added: “We were back to there are ‘those people’ and ‘those people.’ If you find yourself saying ‘those people’ then you are not thinking properly. “What happened in China, in Europe, it came here. So if we don’t save our brothers there, it’s going to come home. It’s all of us. All of us are in this together.”

https://omny.fm/shows/hammer-and-nigel-show/lionel-richie-suggesting-new-we-are-the-world

Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris / Staff