Friday Afternoon Videos: Do they know it's Christmas?

After watching a news report about famine in Ethiopia, Boomtown Rats lead singer Bob Geldof (now “Sir Bob Geldof,” thanks to this aid effort) called up his friend Midge Ure (from Ultravox) and decided to gather up British musicians to record a benefit song. The supergroup Band Aid was formed, and their song “Do They Know it’s Christmas” resulted in millions of dollars in relief for famine in Africa. Due to its success, Geldof went on to create the charity concert Live Aid, and more benefit singles (including USA for Africa's "We Are the World") from other countries followed.

After 22 years, the song has become a Christmas staple. The video is fun to watch – you get to see a very young, mullet-head Bono, big-winged-hair George Michael, and other British musicians that you haven’t seen since. One of those is Paul Young, who sang the opening verse, among others – those versus were originally created for David Bowie, who couldn’t make the session.

Another interesting note: not all of the musicians were from Europe. Jody Watley and Kool & the Gang from the U.S. joined the recording. We’re sure that they were touring the country at the time and Geldof probably saw that his Band Aid group was a little too full of pasty white Brits, and could benefit from a little more soul.

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