Photo Credit:
Writers: Bob Geldof and Midge Ure
Producer: Midge Ure and Trevor Horn
Recorded: November 25th, 1984, at SARM studio in London
Released: December 1st, 1984
Players: | Paul Young Boy George (Culture Club) George Michael (Wham!) Simon LeBon (Duran Duran) Sting (The Police) Bono (U2) Chorus: Adam Clayton (U2) Phil Collins Steve Norman John Keeble, Gary Kemp, and Martin Kemp (Spandau Ballet) Chris Cross (Ultravox) John Taylor, Roger Taylor, and Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran) Simon Crowe Marilyn Sarah Dullin, Siobhan Fahey, and Keren Woodward (Bananarama) Jody Watley Paul Weller (The Jam) James Taylor Jon Moss (Culture Club) Martin Ware and Glenn Gregory (Heaven 17) Peter Briquette and Johnny Fingers (The Boomtown Rats) Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt (Status Quo) Robert “Kool” Bell and Denis Thomas (Kool & the Gang) Players: Bob Geldof — guitar Midge Ure — keyboards Sting — bass John Taylor — bass Phil Collins — drums |
Album: | Do They Know It's Christmas? (Columbia) |
Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof was inspired to organize a charity song after watching a 1984 BBC report on the famine in Ethiopia. In his autobiography, titled Is That It?, Geldof wrote, “I could send some money. Of course I could send some money. But that didn't seem enough. Did not the sheer scale of the whole thing call for something more?”
Geldof initially thought of donating the profits from the Rats' next single to OXFAM, but he felt that the situation required an even larger effort, and he set to work on courting other musicians to take part in a special single.
Geldof hooked up with Ultravox's Midge Ure through his girlfriend Paula Yates, who hosted the British music show The Tube. They wrote “Do They Know It's Christmas?” from a rhythm track Ure had lying around, and spliced it to a melody and lyrics Geldof came up with.
The original title for the song was “Feed The World.”
A staffer at the Boomtown Rats' label called the project Band Aid.
Geldof convinced all of Great Britain's music retailers to donate 100 percent of the proceeds from the record's sales by telling each that the others had all agreed to do so, even if he hadn't yet contacted them.
Artist Peter Blake, who designed the Beatles' famous album cover for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, created the collage for the “Do They Know It's Christmas?” sleeve.
Members of Kool & the Gang and R&B singer Jody Watley were the only American artists on the song.
Paul Weller of the Jam played some electric guitar on the recording but it was left off because Ure and Geldof didn't think it fit in with rest of the instrumental backing.
Boy George almost missed the recording session, but he took a Concorde SST flight from New York City and arrived in time to cut his part.
Several artists who couldn't make it to the session — including Paul McCartney, David Bowie (who was to have sung the opening line), and Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Holly Johnson — cut separate messages for the single's B-side.
“Do They Know It's Christmas?” was the Christmas Number One on the U.K. pop chart. It was also the first single to sell more than three million copies in the U.K.
The single peaked at Number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100, but it didn't have a chance to make it to Number One here because the chart was frozen prior to Christmas.