“It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid …”
There’s an argument to be made for the notion that Band Aid, and the subsequent Live Aid gig, were the culmination of the story of pop music in the UK.
Obviously, you’d need to define what you mean by culmination. We’re clearly not talking about art or aesthetics here. But Band Aid is the moment when pop music realises its own agency over and beyond any notions of soft power.
That was possibly not the outcome that the glitterball of mulleted and mascaraed pop stars who turned up at Sarm studios in London back in November 1984 were expecting. But here we are 40 years on, half a lifetime, and that agency is being flexed again with the release of another version of Do They Know It’s Christmas?
This time around it’s a Trevor Horn-produced megamix of three previous versions. It was launched on Monday with a full-on media charm offensive by Band Aid founders Bob Geldof and Midge Ure.
The waters are murkier this time around though. Ed Sheeran has announced that he wishes his vocal was not on the new version and has endorsed British-Ghanaian rapper Fuse ODG’s criticism of the Band Aid project as promoting a “white saviour complex.”
Fuse ODG, who was also on TV and radio on Monday morning, also argues that while Band Aid was a response to a particular disaster - the famine in Ethiopia and, in 2014, the ebola outbreak in west Africa - it promoted a vision of Africa that was outdated and disempowering.
These might not be the kind of discussion points you’d expect to hear on Virgin Radio. And we didn’t really when Midge Ure spoke to Chris Evans on the morning show on Monday. (I haven’t listened to Evans on radio since the 1990s. His broadcasting style hasn’t changed at all. He’s as busy and noisy as ever. And he’s still talking over the records. I guess it’s worked for him.)
Geldof, though, addressed the criticisms in his usual bullish manner when he popped up on Ryan Turbidy’s mid-morning show afterwards. And Ure was given the chance to offer a more nuanced response when he appeared on 5 Live on Niky Campbell’s phone-in show. As co-writer of Do They Know It’s Christmas, he accepted the criticisms of the song’s lyrics - “Of course there is snow in Africa,” Ure admitted - but then suggested: “Don’t analyse it as a song, analyse it as a humanitarian aid piece, because that’s what it was.
“Fuse’s take is absolutely correct on the whole idea of Africa standing up for Africa,” he added later, “but completely missing the point that Africa can’t stand up on its own feet if its children are still dying.”
Read more
Scottish record label rescues singer snubbed by Richard Curtis' Love Actually
1990s indie favourites hit the road for Scottish shows: 12 gigs to see next
Geldof was blunter on Virgin, pointing out that last week alone 800 children in Africa were guaranteed something to eat for the foreseeable future because of the efforts of Band Aid.
“With this single issue we have agency, we have power, we can actually change another’s life.”
Who is right? The BBC documentary Do They Know It’s Christmas? The Song That Changed the World rather nailed its colours to the mast with that title. The hour-long show - which airs on Radio 2 at midnight on Saturday, but has been on BBC Sounds since Monday - was ultimately more interested in charting how the various versions of the song came together over the last 40 years. But it couldn’t, and didn’t, skate around why Band Aid happened in the first place.
“After Live Aid my wife and I worked in Ethiopia for a month,” U2’s frontman Bono recalled. “People were handing me their children saying, ‘You take my son, please, because you know he’s going to die if you leave him with me.’ And I’d have to walk away from that. That’s not something I’ve ever really been able to put out of my head.” Hardly surprising.
As on 5 Live, Midge Ure emerged as someone who was genuinely engaged with the debate, but certain, ultimately, that Band Aid was in essence a good thing.
“I understand the whole thing about the white saviour complex,” he admitted. “It’s not new for us. We’ve had this thrown at us for 40 years.”
But, he argued, they were and are still answering a need. “We deal with the result of famine, of war, of conflict. We’re dealing with children who have nothing to eat, nowhere to live, no education, nothing.”
How many politicians can say the same?
Listen Out For: Songs of Modern Scotland, Radio Scotland, Saturday, 6pm
Roaming Roots Revue is an annual highlight of Glasgow’s Celtic Connections festival. Back in January this year, Roddy Hart and friends celebrated contemporary Scottish songs. This hour-long show on Radio Scotland dips in to hear the likes of Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil, Eddi Reader and Del Amitri’s Justin Currie tackle some fond, familiar tunes.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here