Addressing a group of students this week, ‘Sir’ Bob Geldof said of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, “I’m really, really, really glad that we wrote that little tune,” he said. “But what I’m not really glad about is when I go to fucking Tesco and you always get a clip of Paul McCartney shit and you always get a clip of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?'” So, that’s clear enough, then. Well, however distressed he is hearing these tunes, he can’t be as sick of them as I am.
Band Aid and Live Aid were good ideas. They addressed, temporarily, some of the world’s problems of starvation, famine and, we now know, climate change. But that’s the point: it was a temporary fix. Nothing really changed in the long term although many lives were saved in the short term. Some minds were changed, many were not. Just this week, the truly evil Daily Mail called on the end of overseas aid in order to “look after our own people”, as if it was a direct choice. Enough people agree with the Mail to help you appreciate that Band Aid left little by way of legacy. “Let them starve” is a nice catchy line, created by Paul Dacre.
“Do they know it’s Christmas?”, with the multimillionaire Bono singing “tonight thank God it’s them instead of us” revived the ailing careers of a lot of people who are now reduced to playing pubs or judging TV talent competitions. It was just another charity record.
To that end, Bob Geldof is just another ghost from rock’s distant past, living off a reputation that peaked in the late 1970s, sustaining his dotage by way of employing his edgy potty mouth. I share his dislike for Tesco’s grisly Christmas music policy and agree that McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmas Time” is indeed “shit”. It’s hardly “Yesterday”, is it? Or “Hey Jude”. But then, Geldof’s limited back catalogue is not quite of the same level as Revolver or Sgt Pepper.
I’m glad Band Aid came along because it was fun at the time. Geldof would surely only be a minor figure on Radio Two’s “Pick of the Pops” without it. But rather than whinge about the music policy of Tesco, why doesn’t he do something really useful, like retire?
