Do They Know It's Christmas? - 1984 Version

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" is a charity single organized by Bob Geldof, who was the lead singer of The Boomtown Rats. He got the idea after watching a BBC documentary on famine in Ethiopia. Geldof wrote the lyrics and Midge Ure from the band Ultravox wrote the music and produced the track, which was no easy task since so many voices were involved.

In the UK and much of the Northern Hemisphere, snow and numerous displays leave no doubt that Christmas is near. In most of Africa, however, it's quite warm on December 25, since it's summer there. This song asks us to think of those who are living in poverty and hunger in Africa during the Christmas season, reminding us that they might not even know it's Christmas. While the sentiment and melody are full of good tidings, the lyrics are quite bleak: "The Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom."

Most of this song was recorded and mixed over a 24-hour period on Sunday, November 25, 1984, at Sarm West Studios in London. Sting and Simon LeBon had recorded their parts ahead of time, but everyone else came that day. None of the vocalists heard the song before they arrived, so they learned their parts by listening to a guide vocal producer Midge Ure created. With such a tight schedule, there was no time to quibble. In a Songfacts interview with Ure, he said this time constraint helped the effort. "Sometimes, that kind of pressure gets you to create something magical, gets you to eliminate the liberations that you end up having in the studio," he said. "We just had to nail it and get on with it. Get the vocal track from everyone that was acceptable. As it turns out, a lot of the vocal tracks were exceptional."