The story of Band Aid and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”

Midge Ure, Paul Young, and Tony Hadley talk with the Professor of Rock about how Band Aid came together and made the charity song of the century. (I don’t care about any of the remakes, I only love the original.)

The Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s was a wake-up call for so many young people in the 1980s. Including my teenage self, who knew hardly anything about Ethiopia then, and about how it came to be stricken in the way it was. The country’s history of famines wasn’t exactly something we were taught in school; we had to learn it by watching the news.

And, sometimes, listening to the radio. And seeing videos of all our favorite pop stars coming together to sing about it like the world’s coolest choir, too.

BTW, the Canadian answer to this was also damn cool.

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