{"id":791226,"date":"2018-12-12T07:07:10","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T14:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=761428"},"modified":"2018-12-12T07:07:10","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T14:07:10","slug":"flashback-band-aid-raises-millions-with-do-they-know-its-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/flashback-band-aid-raises-millions-with-do-they-know-its-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: Band Aid Raises Millions With \u2018Do They Know It\u2019s Christmas?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The age of the celebrity supergroup charity single truly began in October 1984, when Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof<\/a> watched in horror as footage of the worsening Ethiopian famine played across his television screen as part of a BBC News documentary. He was still haunted by the images a week later when a chance encounter reunited him with an old friend, Ultravox frontman Midge Ure, who was just as troubled by what he had seen on the report. The men decided to channel their outrage into a new charity single.<\/p>\n

The plan grew significantly larger in scope after Geldof made some calls to the British pop community. \u201cI rang\u00a0Sting\u00a0and he said, \u2018Yeah, count me in,\u2019 and then [Simon]\u00a0Le Bon. He just immediately said, \u2018Tell me the date and we\u2019ll clear the diary,\u2019\u201d Geldof told\u00a0Melody Maker<\/em>in 1984. \u201cThe same day I was passing by this antique shop and who is standing in there but\u00a0[Spandau Ballet\u2019s] Gary Kemp, just about to go off on tour to Japan. He said he was mad for it as well and to wait 10 days till they got back in the country\u2026 suddenly it hit me. I thought, \u2018Christ, we have got the real top boys here,\u2019 all the big names in pop are suddenly ready and willing to do this\u2026 I knew then that we were off, and I just decided to go for all the rest of the faces and started to ring everyone up, asking them to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now they needed a song. Recording an old standard would cost royalties, thus eating into the proceeds, so they adapted a semi-complete tune Geldof had written for the Boomtown Rats, tentatively titled \u201cIt\u2019s My World.\u201d Following a yuletide overhaul by the pair, the result was \u201cDo They Know It\u2019s Christmas?\u201d \u2014 a song to, in Ure\u2019s words, \u201ctouch people\u2019s heartstrings and to loosen the purse strings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group assembled at Sarm West Studios on November 25th, 1984 was a venerable who\u2019s who of recent U.K. chart toppers. The verses were sung by Paul Young, Boy George, George Michael, Le Bon, and Bono<\/a> (respectively), while the \u201cFeed the world\u201d chorus featured Geldof, Ure, David Bowie, Phil Collins, Paul McCartney, Status Quo, Bananarama, Paul Weller and many others. The singers had not heard the track in advance, and learned their lines on the spot with the help of a demo tape Ure prepared. This caused a minor incident with Bono, who was not pleased with having to sing the acidic \u201cTonight, thank God, it\u2019s them instead of you\u201d passage. \u201cI told [Geldof] I didn\u2019t want to sing the line,\u201d Bono recalled in the book\u00a0U2<\/a> by U2<\/em>. \u201cHe said, \u2018This is not about what you want, OK? This is about what these people need.\u2019 I was too young to say, \u2018This is about what\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0want.\u2019 But it was his show and I was happy to be in it.\u201d Despite Bono\u2019s misgivings, the line became one of Ure\u2019s favorite parts of the song. \u201cI had originally sung it on the guide vocal an octave lower, and he just decided to let it rip, and it was phenomenal,\u201d\u00a0he told Songfacts in 2015.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cElectric. It was just sensational.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vocal track was completed in one marathon 24-hour session, and \u2014 amazingly \u2014\u00a0in shops just days later, credited to \u201cBand Aid.\u201d Thanks to a massive publicity campaign and an hourly push on BBC radio, \u201cDo They Know It\u2019s Christmas?\u201d shot to number one in the U.K., where it remained the biggest selling single until Elton John\u2019s \u201cCandle in the Wind 1997.\u201d In addition to the tens of millions of dollars it raised worldwide for Ethiopian famine relief, the song helped sew the seeds for Geldof and Ure\u2019s Live Aid concert the following year. Though some have criticized the tune\u2019s musical shortcomings, Geldof remains defiant.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease, it\u2019s a pop song. Relax,\u201d he said in a\u00a02014 interview with\u00a0The Telegraph.<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not a doctoral thesis.\u201d Ure echoed the sentiment in his 2004 autobiography. \u201cIt is a song that has nothing to do with music. It was all about generating money\u2026 The song didn\u2019t matter: the song was secondary, almost irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2014, Geldof and Ure re-recorded the song to help with the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa, tweaking they lyrics and corralling some of the biggest British and Irish acts of the time, including One Direction, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Emeli Sand\u00e9, Ellie Goulding and Rita Ora.<\/p>\n