Do They Know It's Christmas

I read about Sir Bob Geldof in my English textbook. I did. That was how I learned about Band Aid.

It really touched me. Live 8 was pretty good, but Band Aid is where it all started.

I don't know how much of the aid actually got to Africa, but given how this world is so sickeningly rife with all sorts of conflict, I think it was great that a bunch of rock and pop stars could give up money for a couple of days to record a song to help people. It's a very simple song, and the chorus is easy to follow. It reminds me a bit of our old National Day songs. Simple, catchy.

My favouritest bit of my mp3 copy is where all the artistes who've recorded come in and say a few words, like merry christmas happy new year yada yada. They have David Bowie, even Michael Jackson, I think! Ok, so it gets a little monotonous cause they say the same thing, but at least it shows that they're there, that they care. Some more than others, of course. I'm not sure if Bono is on it. Can't remember.

But yeah, some info based on what I remember...


Sir Bob Geldof was part of the Boomtown Rats, some Irish band who weren't doing that great. He stumbled upon a great idea to record a song for charity, called in his chums and... they did it. They recorded the song and had a great big concert. Twenty years later the world redid it as Live 8. I guess environmental activists would argue how much energy these events wasted, and other people would say the money spent on organising everything (especially Live 8) could have just gone directly into the aid fund. But to me, these concerts say that humanity is capable of banding together in times of need... though it does take extreme need.

...The only thing that bothers me is when the lyrics go 'well thank god it's them instead of you'. JESUS. What a thing to say. Yeah, it means well and all, but to me that's really unnecessary... I wouldn't wish famine, ebola and etc. on anyone. Oh, but anyway, the chorus is obviously my favourite bit. I'll talk about some MJ songs in the next post. Till then.