Do They Know It’s Christmas

Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is a charity song written in 1984 by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money for the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. It was first recorded by Band Aid, a supergroup assembled by Geldof and Ure consisting of popular British and Irish musical acts. It was recorded in a single day at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, in November 1984. “Do They Know It’s Christmas” was released in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1984. It entered the UK Singles Chart at number one and stayed there for five weeks, becoming Christmas number one It sold a million copies in the first week, becoming the fastest-selling single in UK chart history; it held this title until 1997, when it was overtaken by Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind 1997”.UK sales passed three million on the last day of 1984. The song also reached number one in thirteen other countries. In the US, it fell short of the top ten in the Billboard Hot 100 due to a lack of airplay, but sold an estimated 2.5 million copies there by January 1985.[6][7] By 1989, it had sold 11.7 million copies worldwide. Geldof hoped that it would raise £70,000 for Ethiopia; within a year, it raised £8 million. The success led to several other charity singles, such as “We Are the World” (1985) by USA for Africa, and spin-off charity events, such as Comic Relief and the 1985 Live Aid concert. The original version of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” has sold 3.8 million copies in the UK.[10] In a UK poll in December 2012, it was voted sixth on the ITV television special The Nation’s Favourite Christmas Song.
“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was rerecorded and rereleased in 1989, 2004 and 2014. The 1989 and 2004 versions also raised funds for famine relief, while the 2014 version raised funds for the Ebola crisis in West Africa. All three reached number one in the UK, and the 1989 and 2004 versions became Christmas number ones. The 2004 version sold 1.8 million copies. “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was inspired by a series of reports made by the BBC journalist Michael Buerk in 1984, which drew attention to the famine in Ethiopia.[ The BBC News crew were the first to document the famine, with Buerk’s report on 23 October describing it as “a biblical famine in the 20th century” and “the closest thing to hell on Earth”. The report featured the nurse Claire Bertschinger, who had to choose which children would receive the limited amount of food at the feeding station and who were too sick to be saved.The reports shocked the UK, motivating the British people to inundate relief agencies, such as Save the Children, with donations. The Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof and his partner, the television presenter Paula Yates, watched the broadcast on 23 October and were deeply affected by it. Geldof said about Bertschinger: “In her was vested the power of life and death. She had become godlike, and that is unbearable for anyone.” On 2 November, Yates was in the Tyne Tees studio in Newcastle upon Tyne, where she was presenting the weekly live music show The Tube. Among the acts performing were Ultravox, promoting their greatest hits album The Collection. The singer, Midge Ure, was chatting to Yates in the dressing room when Geldof called her. Geldof had worked with Ure at the 1981 charity benefit show The Secret Policeman’s Ball. Geldof asked to speak to Ure and told him that he wanted to do something to alleviate the suffering in Ethiopia. He and Ure arranged to discuss ideas over lunch the following Monday, 5 November, and decided to make a charity record.Geldof began recruiting musicians. He called Sting and Simon Le Bon, who agreed to participate along with the rest of Duran Duran, and recruited Spandau Ballet after a chance meeting with the band’s guitarist Gary Kemp at an antiques shop in London. Geldof said: “It suddenly it hit me. I thought, ‘Christ, we have got the real top boys here’, all the big names in pop are suddenly ready and willing to do this… 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.” Further phone calls from Geldof also secured promises of everybody involved to provide their services free of charge. Other contributors included UK music magazines, which donated advertising space to promote the single; Geldof’s record label Phonogram, which released the single; their parent company PolyGram, which distributed it; and the artist Peter Blake, who created the single’s sleeve.