We've become accustomed to celebrity charitable endorsements, but let me transport you back to a simpler time long ago, exactly 25-years ago in the magical, shiny 1980s, when it was rare to see contemporary famous icons stepping forward to align themselves with a cause. What's more, a group of disparate performers uniting to create an original song to raise awareness and funds for a new charity? It had never been done until Bob Geldof, Midge Ure and a star-studded entourage formed the ad hoc Band Aid and released "Do They Know It's Christmas" in 1984.
Their goal was to create awareness of the issue of devastating famine in Ethiopia. The BBC reports that the Band Aid Trust distributed $144 million in aid from 1985-2004. In doing so, Band Aid changed pop music.
The song was recorded by a charitable supergroup pulled together for the endeavor. The superstars were chosen based on their fame, and the list paints a portrait of the times: Freddy Mercury, Boy George, Sting, Bowie, Paul McCartney (see the entire list at Geldof's site). And my, they were young. Watching it is worth it to see babyfaced Bono alone.
Love it or loathe it, and people do have strong feelings of all kinds about this song, "Do They Know It's Christmas" is a powerful piece of work. Immediately, it sparked a year devoted to similar efforts, including the follow-up Live Aid benefit concert in January, John Mellencamp's Farm Aid concert in the summer of '85 to benefit American farmers, Quincy Jones' "We are the World" recording in 1985. The trend of charitable endorsements continued, adding a layer of service and meaning to pop music's role in our lives.
The song is high 80s, to be sure. I agree with its critics: for all that is good about the effort, the wretched lyrics are melodramatic, patronizing, and histrionic. No water flows, no snow, poor dry Africa, but hey, let's raise and glass to everyone underneath that burning sun, even if they don't know we get prezzies and chocolate from Santa today! And the clincher, wailed convincingly by my beloved Bono: "Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you!" (A line with which Bono himself is said to hold disdain, because he thought it could be interpreted as wishing troubles on one's neighbor to save yourself, but Geldolf won and the lyric remained.) Some believe the song relies on a neo-colonial noblesse oblige inspired by pity, which isn't the most respectful way to raise funds.
Whether or not you admire the intent or the performance, Band Aid's 25-year legacy is undeniable. It created a model for cause-marketing in music, bringing the local practice of a small band benefit to the international stratosphere. It symbolized emerging internationalism and dissolving boundaries, bringing the English and the Irish together as a united force to be of help to Africa. "We are the World" similarly united North American superstars from different genres as one entity without boundaries.
The generational message of the immediate hit was strong, too, asserting that the Baby Boomers didn't own the nexus of pop culture and progressive politics. With the BandAid model, Gen X put its own spin on the Woodstock legacy, of course. Certainly the trend was more commercial, more co-opted than the attention previous generations had paid to causes or social agendas. Still, "giving back" became the trend, perpetuated in part because it was the perfect solution to the loss of rebellious street cred that befell punks, rockers and pop stars who amassed wicked fortunes in the booming 80s. For many stars like Bono, Sting, Springsteen, Willie Nelson, Mellencamp, monetary success threatened to undermine the personas that were based on the rebellious struggle of workers. They were able to achieve success without looking like sell outs by inspiring donations to relieve the need of others.
Times have continued to change. The 90s were an entirely different bling-bearing creation. Of course Gen Y and the Millenials need to play their trends as it suits them and the times. For Gen X, we're still compelled to celebrate our glory days, and remember how we loved our MTV, and our Band Aids, how we could envision ourselves joking with Paul Young and Simon Le Bon, holding our headphones with our hand to one ear, belting compassion and Christmas cheer along with our best friends from Duran Duran and Bananarama.
I always figured the Ethiopian Jews didn't know it was Christmas time due to 1984"s Operation Moses. From November to January 6500 Ethiopian Jews were relocated to Israel. But you know what was an ever bigger obstacle?
The BandAid song starts my Christmas season. I have not heard it yet, so I suppose Xmas is not oficial yet. Does reading about BandAid count?
BandAid and Live Aid were my summer of 84 as well. I had completed my freshman year at a college in Pennsylvania, but I was stuck in England away from my friends. Yes, I was living in my home town, Manchester -- a hot spot for all things cool in music -- but all my friends were either in the U.S. or at college in England. I worked at a local supermarket...apparently 80s music hadn't yet reached this crowd.
I existed by listening to pirate radio stations "docked off the coast of England" that broadcast music not fit for BBC Radio 1 or by trawling the Virgin Records or HMV racks for what I termed "English New Wave" music.
Did I mention I was a DJ at my college located in Amish Country PA? Try playing Duran Duran and Depeche Mode...to an audience of 1.
On Live Aid day I was glued to the "telly" watching the Wenbley show then tuning in to the Philadelphia show. Would Phil Collins make it to both shows....I was on tenterhooks until I saw him come out on stage!
As to the lyrics of the song, well yes they are patronizing and ridiculous, but the song itself was genius in raising awareness for a cause.
BTW, in a minor, very distant, but still cool brush with fame, my husband and I ate dinner at Planet Hollywood in London at a table near to Paula Yatas, Bob Geldof's then ex-wife, in 92 or 93. She was there with her kids.
Celebrating Band Aid also led me to watch We Are the World repetitively for the last few days. My god, I loved Cyndi Lauper. If your formative years were shaped like mine, Springsteen will melt you. And Dan Ackroyd inexplicably is in the back row, under the guise of Blues Brothers? I don't know. It's amazing.
These were my people at the time. I was either going to marry (GoonSquadSarah ( http://www.sarahandthegoonsquad.com ) continues to argue my claim to John Taylor but on this point she is sadly, sadly wrong, because clearly he is speaking to me and only me through this clip as he always is.) or befriend several of them, including the Bananarama babies, in my new wave fantasy life. I can impersonate/sing all of the parts. I owned the video and Live Aid was basically my life that summer.
I recently came across a cover version that I can't even talk about because it makes me so unhappy. I'm clearly very sensitive.
And although I'm totally with you on the lyrical criticism, I can't help but watch Bono wail out that line now - and does his harmony part with Sting and Simon still kill me softly, yes - and know that that probably influenced the course of his last 25 years in such a way that the value to him and to the world totally outweighed the cost.
They all look so YOUNG. And they looked so mature then, to me at 13.
Raise a glass for everyone. Yep. Thanks, Deb. Much bokeh love to you for this one.
I still love this song. The original Live Aid concert was brilliant too. Whatever the criticisms are of the lyrics etc. it's undeniable that it raised people's awareness of what was going on in other parts of the world, and paved a way for others to raise money and awareness in the same way.
