It was this week thirty eight – YES, 38 – years ago that the Band Aid single Do They Know It’s Christmas? was at number 1 in the UK.
According to the Official UK Charts website, the record went straight in at No 1 on 9th December 1984 and stayed there for 5 weeks. It has frequently charted at Christmas ever since.
We’re all probably familiar with the story. The Rats had been working hard ahead of the release of “In The Long Grass”, when everything turned on its head. Like many of us, Bob Geldof had been watching the news reports about the famine in Ethiopia and the horror of what he saw shocked him into doing something…but what?
His idea of a small charity record to raise a few quid, seemed to be well-received. So, he put together some lyrics, Midge Ure wrote a tune, and they invited a few mates round to a studio one Sunday morning to record it. The Boomtown Rats were there in force, together with nearly every other big name in British and Irish music.
After calling in a few favours on the artwork, manufacturing and distribution – Band Aid, as the assembled supergroup was called – produced the record for next to nothing, so that as much money as possible could be raised for famine relief. That in itself, was an achievement but the impact of what was to become the fastest selling UK single of all time was seismic. Band Aid launched a global wave of similar charity records and of course was the first stepping-stone to the Live Aid concerts the following summer.
Bob’s little idea probably changed the attitudes of a whole generation to the plight of vulnerable people across the world.
Without this "little idea", I would not have been here in Boomtown, with all you great citizens / friends!
Also interesting to read in the current press how the lyrics of the song are being scrutinized / criticised ... I wonder how Bob feels about them anno 2022.
Brilliant. I still remember it happening like it was yesterday.