“In this world of plenty, we can spread a smile of joy.”

#44 Do They Know It’s Christmas? – Band Aid

[543] Writers: Bob Geldof & Midge Ure. Producer: Midge Ure.
15 Dec 84 - 13 weeks on chart (plus 7 in 1985) - 5 weeks at #1 from 15 Dec 84

Sunday 25th November 1984: I was coming to the end of my first term at university, living on campus and with no TV. I hardly ever wandered down to the TV lounge at the bottom of the tower block, but this Sunday I did. On the TV news, there was a report of a recording session which had been taking place that day, with Bob Geldof harrassing all the top pop celebs of the time to come and sing a line each on a song he was recording for the famine in Africa. I remember how excited I was at seeing all these big names turning up at the studio, and how they kept making a big thing out of the fact that there were ‘no egos’ and everyone was just doing their bit to help. It wasn't all good-natured friendliness in the studio though. Oh how we laughed when Boy George came to record his line, and was played the existing bits through the 'cans'. 'Ooh, who's that?', he asked? It was George Michael. Then Georgie Boy said something like, "It sounds like a woman, but then he is!" Miaow!!

Eight days later, if memory serves me right, the single was in the shops. I bought two 7” copies of it on 3rd December 1984, as the receipt that’s just fallen out of the sleeve has reminded me. (£1.35 each – how many meals did that provide?) Absolutely everyone I knew, at uni or at home, bought this record and 3.5 million did overall. The intro still sends a shiver down my spine. I've never been a big fan of Christmas, and 1984 had been a crap year at times for me, but this single seemed to sum up what Christmas should really be about, and of course it was a very handy way of making us all feel less guilty. In reality though, the amount of money raised by Band Aid and Live Aid was so huge that it made a demonstrable difference, and paved the way for the ongoing good works of Comic Relief. Unlike nearly all charity records before or since, it also had some musical validity too. Pop music can sometimes mean something and be a force for good. And all of that explains why it's Chig’s all time #5 and Rob's #4. (That's two days in a row for one of Rob's top ten, and Marcus too!)

Ironically, this was the first #1 writing credit for Midge Ure, despite all those Ultravox hits, none of which made #1 (we’ll return to this subject later. He had already hit #1 as an artist with Slik in 1976. The exposure and goodwill generated by Band Aid didn’t do him any harm though, as he had a solo #1 at last later in 1985. Of course it all led to Live Aid the next year and one of the most joyous days of my life, spent lying on a cushion at my Mum’s, taping the concert from the radio, while watching it on the TV. I so wanted to be there, but I also wanted to tape it, and I couldn’t do both. Were you there?

That Christmas holiday, my first one home from university, I had a job in a restaurant in Warwick. Rather a posh, pretentious restaurant. Although it was all surface, like most restaurants are, I’m sure. There was a waitress called Anne, who was pure sweetness and light to the diners, agreeing to any request with a fixed smile on her face. She would then burst through the doors into the kitchen screaming at us, “those FUCKERS on table five are complaining again” or “the WANKERS want this warmed up”. To a nice 18 year-old Catholic boy like myself, she was scary. As was the chef, a moody sod who I’m sure Billy, the chef in the revived Crossroads was based on. My jobs were to wash up and prepare the vegetables. That’s hours and hours of peeling sprouts and cutting crosses into the bottom of each one, as anyone who’s been near a restaurant at Christmas will know. This restaurant didn’t have anything as vulgar as chips on the menu, not even as French fries, but occasionally some uneducated little oik would order them anyway. When this happened, yours truly was sent out the back door, down the fire escape, to the pizza place down the road, where I would buy a portion of chips which were then served up to the customer at about ten times the price. So why am I telling you this here? Well, the restaurant was expensive enough to not be very concerned about waste. If someone had taken one slice from something off the sweet trolley, it would never be put out on display again, not even on the evening shift if it had been cut into at lunchtime. Occasionally, some of the ‘waste’ food would find its way into a plastic bag and be taken home by us (mainly cakes), but there’s only so much you can carry in a plastic bag when you’re cycling home, and we were always scared the owner would find out. And so it is that I have a very strong memory of listening to the radio in the restaurant kitchen, as they played the Band Aid single, while I forced nearly whole gateaux down the waste disposal, singing out loud, “feed the wor-orld, let them know it’s Christmas time!” Ironic? It was tragic.

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