Well, I for one won’t be dashing to my local record store to buy ‘Band Aid 30’. For one thing, I don’t have a local record store but for another I can’t stand the bloody song.
‘Sir Bob Geldof (last top twenty single 1980) has assembled yet another supergroup of pop stars to sing ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ to raise money for a good cause: the victims of Ebola. His intentions are plainly good and he has even managed to persuade his old pal Bono to jet in to London for a few hours to add his ‘thank god tonight it’s them instead of us’ to the mix. Now I know even Bono, with his unique interpretation of tax rules in his native Ireland, didn’t actually mean he is in any way delighted that a lot of very poor people in Africa have died from this horrendous disease because god, in typical style, has decided to spare U2’s frontman in order to allow him invade my iTunes without him actually asking me. No, he’s making a point of some sort. I am sure Bob and his fellow songwriter Midge Ure can tell us what it is.
Personally, I won’t be buying this latest Band Aid effort. I will donate to good causes as and when I see fit, not when a faded pop star tells me to. I’ve nothing against the artists and that is nothing to do with the fact that, sounding like a High Court judge, there are a good few of them I have never heard of. That’s not relevant. In age terms, I am a bit of a dinosaur and I have not yet grown to love One Direction who sound more like a dance troupe who might have appeared with, say, Rolf Harris on BBC TV’s legendary ‘Seaside Special’ shows. I am sure there will be millions who will support the project and I certainly don’t want to fail.
I remember well the first Live Aid where all the bands I wanted to see (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the Beach Boys, Hall and Oates, Led Zeppelin (sort of) and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were in the American show and I had to put up with Queen, Spandau Ballet and Nik Kershaw over here. (That’s very unfair really because there was some cracking music at Wembley, like Paul Weller, Elvis Costello and the Who by why spoil a rambling blogpost with balance?) Being considerably younger, there were few artists I had not heard of but this time it’s close to being the majority!
Geldof is good at all this ‘Give us yer fockin’ money’ stuff although how much did Band and Live Aid really change the world, feed the world? In the immediate aftermath, there can be no doubt that lives were saved and lots of them. But what happened afterwards? I am not sure much did, actually, and the fact that Geldof is back in the limelight instructing us to part with our four quids for what is a different cause suggests the more things changed in Africa, the more they stayed the same. I just wonder if we, or rather our leaders, simply forget.
George Osborne has generously waived VAT on the record which, since he put it up in the early weeks of his government, is pretty rich. Of course, I am not going to condemn him for so doing but I suggest he knows he would have been on the end of a merciless tirade from Geldof and many others if he hadn’t.
So, good luck with the record. I hope you save lives, help bring about a cure for Ebola. I doubt that victims of Ebola will know it’s Christmas and even if they do the greatest gift they’ll get this year is life.