The Sordid Tale of "Do They Know it's Christmas"

On This Day in History: November 25, 1984

Eight months before Bob Geldof held his magnificent snowy savior clusterfuck of a concert called Live Aid that handed over a couple hundred million dollars to a brutal Ethiopian dictator who weaponized the fucking famine in the first place, Geldof had already shown the world who he was with the recording of his demeaning dirge “Do They Know it’s Christmas?”

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: November 25, 1984--

On November 25, 1984, a number of the top music stars of the day gathered in a recording studio in West London to record an atrocity. And I’m not talking We Built This Wang Chung City Tonight kind of shit. The lyrics were problematic as fuck, with a bunch of wealthy artists of an alabaster alignment explaining poverty and starvation to Ethiopians. Talk about your white Christmas.

Anyway, people fucking loved it.

The temporary “supergroup” was called Band Aid. Geldof from The Boomtown Rats enlisted the help of Midge Ure of Ultravox to bring together a few dozen mostly pale-skinned performers from the UK and Ireland to raise money for famine relief via creation of a charity album. There was Sting, Bono, Phil Collins, George Michael, Boy George, and a bunch of members from Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, and Bananarama. For Black representation they had Jody Watley and a few guys from Kool & the Gang brought in the from the U.S. and shoved into the background, but no solos for them.

“Do They Know it’s Christmas?” was a huge hit, selling over three million copies and raising millions while also bringing colonial condescension to the lyrics. But it wasn’t just the lyrics, penned by Geldof and Ure, that were problematic; the album cover had a photo of emaciated and miserable-looking African children against a backdrop of a happy Caucasian Christmas celebration. File under things that make you say what the fucking fuck.

As for the song itself, let’s review. Starting with the title. Do they know it’s Christmas? Well, being that the majority of Ethiopians are Christian, it’s pretty fucking likely they did, you arrogant asswipes. And the third of the population who are Muslim probably don’t give much of a fuck. What about those lyrics? The ones saying there wouldn’t be any snow in Africa? Snows all the fucking time there, dipshits. Do your fucking homework. The lyrics also proclaim nothing grows on the continent. Ever. The fuck? No. Also: No rain? No flowing rivers? Holy shit this is stupid. The song tells you to thank God because better them suffering than you, and don’t forget to hoist your glass in a toast to the starving children. So Wokeness. Much humanitarian.

And no mention of the decades of imperialism that ravaged an entire continent to begin with. Fuck this song.

Those who cannot remember the past need a history teacher who says “fuck” a lot. Get both volumes of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down at JamesFell.com/books. The holidays are coming and they make great gifts.