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Artist News Releases Top Stories
Band Aid 30 recorded, debuted and on sale now
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 17 November 2014
So what did we learn this weekend? Well, mainly that, while God is happy to accept thanks for ensuring famine remains confined to a distant continent, he’s not so keen on being praised for guaranteeing the same for a mind-numbingly horrific killer disease. Which is good to know. I’m glad Bono got the memo.
But look at me, mildly mocking the cause-necessary rewrites to ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ as recorded by popstars past and present under the Band Aid 30 banner this weekend. Let’s face it, the somewhat questionable lyrics of the now four-times recorded ultimate British charity hit have been plenty documented before, pretty much ever since the original version was released three decades ago in fact.
And this weekend’s rewrites – necessary because the beneficiary cause is fighting ebola rather than famine – removed some of the most questioned lyrics. For example, the usually (and again this time) Bono sung bit “well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you” becomes “well tonight we’re reaching out and touching you”.
Some of the reworked words are a bit clumsy on paper, but that’s not really the point is it? And once again Bob Geldof has cleverly gathered together an ensemble of popstars that will pull in the maximum possible audience for his message and fund-raising mission. And if the opening seconds of the Band Aid 30 video aired on ITV’s ‘X-Factor’ last night don’t convince you that this is a cause that should be supported, well little will.
And while – as Damon Albarn pointed out in an interview with ‘Channel 4 News’ this weekend – blindly throwing money at distant countries doesn’t always fix the problems there, if you read just some of the excellent coverage of the ebola epidemic in recent issues of The Economist (this one’s a good starting point), you’ll see that, in this case the immediate problem is a lack of healthcare and infrastructure, and raising money quick will help.
So why not download the bloody song from iTunes here? Or maybe watch it on YouTube and then make a donation via the Band Aid 30 website here. Hell, why not do both? Bono promises to not be all smug when it goes to number one and raises millions for the cause.
