"Do They Know It's Christmas?" is a charity song written in 1984 by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money for the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. It was first recorded by Band Aid, a supergroup consisting of popular British and Irish musicians, in a single day at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, in November 1984.

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" was released in the UK on 7 December 1984. It entered the UK singles chart at number one, where it remained for five weeks, becoming Christmas number one. It sold a million copies in the first week, making it the fastest-selling single in UK chart history until Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997". UK sales passed three million by 1985. The song also reached number one in 13 other countries. In the US, it fell short of the top ten in the Billboard Hot 100, but sold an estimated 2.5 million copies by 1985. It had sold 11.7 million copies worldwide by 1989 and 3.8 million in the UK by 2017.

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" raised £8 million for Ethiopia within a year, far exceeding Geldof's hopes. The success inspired other charity singles, such as "We Are the World" (1985) by USA for Africa, and charity events such as Comic Relief and the 1985 Live Aid concert. Some commentators argued that the lyrics were racist or demeaning towards Ethiopians and misrepresented Africa, or that the song hindered more meaningful solutions to poverty. Geldof defended the lyrics as factual and Ure said the song was secondary to the purpose of raising money for the cause.

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" was rerecorded and rereleased with different musicians in 1989, 2004 and 2014. The 1989 and 2004 versions also raised funds for famine relief, while the 2014 version raised funds for the Ebola crisis in West Africa. All three reached number one in the UK, and the 1989 and 2004 versions were Christmas number ones. The 2004 version sold 1.8 million copies. A new mix, combining elements of the previous versions, was released in 2024 for the 40th anniversary.

Background

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" was inspired by a series of reports made by the BBC journalist Michael Buerk in 1984, which drew attention to the famine in Ethiopia. The BBC News crew were the first to document the famine, with Buerk's report on 23 October describing it as "a biblical famine in the 20th century" and "the closest thing to hell on Earth". The report featured the nurse Claire Bertschinger, who had to choose which children would receive the limited amount of food and who were too sick to be saved. The reports shocked the UK, motivating the British people to inundate relief agencies, such as Save the Children, with donations. Geldof said about Bertschinger: "In her was vested the power of life and death. She had become godlike, and that is unbearable for anyone."

Geldof came to Ure's house the next day and they worked on the song with Geldof on acoustic guitar. Geldof added lyrics based on a song he had originally written for the Boomtown Rats, which he had provisionally titled "It's My World". Ure recorded Geldof and his guitar and developed Geldof's ideas in his home studio, adding his own melody as a chorus. Ure was unable to improve on Geldof's lyrics, although he changed the line "And there won't be snow in Ethiopia this Christmas time" to "And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time", as Ure decided "Ethiopia" had too many syllables.

Artists

While Ure was creating the backing track, Geldof contacted various artists, hoping to have the biggest names in British and Irish music appear. The singer Marilyn, who had achieved hit singles in 1983 but whose career had declined in 1984, arrived at the recording session uninvited, sensing an opportunity for publicity. Geldof and Ure felt any publicity was good and accepted him.

Those who were unable to appear, such as David Bowie and Paul McCartney, sent recorded messages of support that appeared on the B-side. The Thompson Twins, who were out of the country instead donated part of the proceeds of their single "Lay Your Hands on Me" to the Action for Ethiopia charity. Geldof said only three people refused to be involved, but refused to disclose who.

thumb|right|Geldof (right) persuaded a reluctant [[Bono to sing the line "Well, tonight thank God it's them, instead of you".]]

Phil Collins arrived with his drum kit to record a live drum track on top of the drum machine. He set up the kit and waited until early evening, after all the vocals had been recorded. Ure was content with the first take, but Collins asked to record a second take, which he was satisfied with.

Release and promotion

The day after recording, Geldof appeared on Mike Read's BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show to promote the record, and promised that every penny would go to the cause. Most retailers agreed to sell the record at its cost price of £1.35 including VAT;

Radio 1 began to play the song every hour, far greater than the seven or eight plays per day normally received by an A-list single. The number-one single at the time was "I Should Have Known Better" by Jim Diamond. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" had advance orders of 250,000 within a week of its recording, and orders from record dealers reached one million by 8 December. To meet demand, Phonogram put all five of their European factories to work pressing the single.

Initial quantities of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" were made available from 3 December 1984. It was not officially released until 7 December. It received further publicity from a launch party that day at the Royal Albert Hall during the charity event "Dinner at Albert's", an evening of music to raise money for Save the Children and the Ethiopia Famine Relief Fund. The single entered the UK singles chart the following week at number one, outselling all the other records in the chart put together, with the 7" single alone selling 200,000 copies in the first two days of release. It sold a million copies in the first week, making it the fastest-selling single in UK chart history until Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997". UK sales passed three million on the last day of 1984. When Wham!, whose singer George Michael appeared on "Do They Know It's Christmas?", reached number two with their single "Last Christmas", they donated their royalties to the Band Aid Trust.

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" was released in the US on 10 December 1984 on Columbia Records. It sold 1.9 million copies in its first eleven days on release A 30-minute making-of documentary was released in the UK on 15 December 1984 and in the US on 18 December 1984 on VHS and Betamax. It reached number three in the UK singles chart the week following Christmas. It was remixed by Horn and included an updated B-side, "One Year On (Feed the World)", beginning and ending with a recording of a telephone message from Geldof and in between featuring Ure reciting a list of what had been bought with the money raised during the previous 12 months. and 3.8 million in the UK by 2017. A parody version, "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?", was released in 2005. In 2010, the BBC apologised after falsely reporting that money raised by Band Aid and Live Aid had been diverted by rebels and used to pay for weapons.

Music video

As the single was recorded and released as quickly as possible, the music video simply featured footage from the recording session. Bowie, who had been unable to attend the recording, flew from Switzerland to record a short introduction to be played on the BBC's television music show Top of the Pops on 29 November 1984. However, the show's strict regulations meant that the song and its video could not be played until it had charted. Geldof contacted the BBC1 controller, Michael Grade, and persuaded him to have every programme preceding that week's episode start five minutes early to make space for the video before the show.

The video was shown on Top of the Pops each week during its stay at number one. For the Christmas Day special edition, most of the artists on the record appeared in the studio to mime to the song. The most notable absentees were George Michael and Bono: during Michael's line, the cameras focused on the studio audience, while Weller mimed Bono's line to the camera.

Reception

Sounds wrote, "It's far from brilliant (if not quite the Bland Aid some have predicted) but you can have fun playing Spot the Star on the vocals, and it deserves to sell by the truckload." Melody Maker wrote that the lyric "veers occasionally toward an uncomfortably generalised sentimentality which threatens to turn righteous pleading into pompous indignation", but that "it's impossible to write flippantly about something as fundamentally dreadful as the Ethiopia famine". NME wrote only: "Millions of dead stars write and perform rotten record for the right reasons." The Smiths singer, Morrissey, who was not invited to participate in Band Aid, said in 1985: "It was an awful record considering the mass of talent involved ... It was the most self-righteous platform ever in the history of popular music."

The line "Well, tonight thank God it's them instead of you", sung by Bono, attracted controversy. Bono said he "really, really loathed" the line and had to be persuaded to sing it by Geldof. and demeaning towards Ethiopians. Ethiopia is home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, yet the lyrics and title imply that Africans may be unaware of Christmas. Peter Gill, one of the few Western journalists in Ethiopia at the time, said: "As Ethiopians have pointed out ever since, they did of course know it was Christmas because the starving were mainly [<nowiki/>Orthodox] Christian." In 2014, African activists and Twitter users complained that the song disregarded the diversity of Africa and did more harm than good for its people. The musician Fuse ODG declined to sing on the 2014 version, saying the lyrics misrepresented Africa. He cited lyrics such as "There is no peace and joy in west (sic) Africa this Christmas", and said he went to Ghana each year for the purposes of peace and joy.

In the Conversation, the academic Colin Alexander said that efforts such as Band Aid reduce the likelihood of genuine societal or ecological solutions. The academic Tanja R Müller in the journal Third World Quarterly said that it in effect "masks the underlying dynamics of power and of social and economic relations that underpin every famine", reinforcing an anti-political understanding delivered by celebrity humanitarians. In the journal Contemporary British History, the academic Andrew Jones said Band Aid, in supporting individual donations, masks underlying causes of global hunger and poverty. Professor Lisa Ann Richey of the London School of Economics argued that instead of donations, Ethiopians should be paid as the single and the profits it generates are sold as compassion and in turn a moral good that does not address the underlying causes.

In 2010, Geldof told Australia's Daily Telegraph that he was "responsible for two of the worst songs in history", with the other being "We Are the World". Ure wrote in his autobiography that "it was all about generating money... The song didn't matter: the song was secondary, almost irrelevant."

Personnel

Adapted from the record sleeve credits.

Vocalists

  • Robert "Kool" Bell (Kool & the Gang)
  • Bono (U2)
  • Pete Briquette (the Boomtown Rats)
  • Adam Clayton (U2)
  • Phil Collins (Genesis and solo artist)
  • Chris Cross (Ultravox)
  • Simon Crowe (the Boomtown Rats)
  • Sara Dallin (Bananarama)
  • Siobhan Fahey (Bananarama)
  • Johnny Fingers (the Boomtown Rats)
  • Bob Geldof (the Boomtown Rats)
  • Boy George (Culture Club)
  • Glenn Gregory (Heaven 17)
  • Tony Hadley (Spandau Ballet)
  • John Keeble (Spandau Ballet)
  • Gary Kemp (Spandau Ballet)
  • Martin Kemp (Spandau Ballet)
  • Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran)
  • Marilyn
  • George Michael (Wham!)
  • Jon Moss (Culture Club)
  • Steve Norman (Spandau Ballet)
  • Rick Parfitt (Status Quo)
  • Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran)
  • Francis Rossi (Status Quo)
  • Sting (the Police)
  • Andy Taylor (Duran Duran)
  • James "J.T." Taylor (Kool & the Gang)
  • John Taylor (Duran Duran)
  • Roger Taylor (Duran Duran)
  • Dennis Thomas (Kool & the Gang)
  • Midge Ure (Ultravox)
  • Martyn Ware (Heaven 17)
  • Jody Watley
  • Paul Weller (the Style Council)
  • Keren Woodward (Bananarama)
  • Paul Young

Spoken messages on B-side

  • David Bowie
  • Stuart Adamson, Mark Brzezicki, Tony Butler, Bruce Watson (Big Country)
  • Holly Johnson (Frankie Goes to Hollywood)
  • Paul McCartney

Other musicians

Charts

Weekly charts

{| class="wikitable sortable"

! Chart (1984–2025)

! Peak<br />position

|-

| Australia (Kent Music Report)

| style="text-align:center;"|1

|-

|-

|-

| align="left" |Canada (RPM 100 Singles)

| style="text-align:center;" |1

|-

|-

| Estonia Airplay (TopHit)

| align="center"| 30

|-

| Europe (TROS Europarade)

| style="text-align:center;" |1

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

| Iceland (Tónlistinn)

| style="text-align:center;" |27

|-

|-

|Japan (Music Labo)

| style="text-align:center;" |20

|-

|Japan (Oricon)

| style="text-align:center;" |17

|-

| Latvia (LaIPA)

| align=center|5

|-

| Lithuania (AGATA)

| align=center|43

|-

| Luxembourg (Billboard)

| align=center|22

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

| scope="row"| Poland (Polish Streaming Top 100)

| align=center|23

|-

|-

| Romania Airplay (TopHit)

| align=center|90

|-

|

|-

| scope="row"| Slovenia (SloTop50)

| align=center|5

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

| US Rolling Stone Top 100

| align=center|94

|}

Monthly charts

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|+ Monthly chart performance for "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

! scope="col"| Chart (2025)

! scope="col"| Peak<br>position

|-

! scope="row"| Romania Airplay (TopHit)

| 97

|-

|}

Year-end charts

{|class="wikitable"

! Chart (1984)

! Position

|-

| UK singles (OCC)

| style="text-align:center;" | 1

|-

! Chart (1985)

! Position

|-

| Australia (Kent Music Report)

| style="text-align:center;" | 19

|-

| Belgium (Ultratop Flanders)

| style="text-align:center;" | 61

|-

| Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)

| style="text-align:center;" | 66

|-

| New Zealand Singles (RMNZ)

| style="text-align:center;" | 10

|-

| Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)

| style="text-align:center;" | 29

|-

| UK singles (OCC)

| style="text-align:center;" | 14

|-

| West Germany (Official German Charts)

| style="text-align:center;" | 17

|}

Certifications and sales

Band Aid 20 recorded a third version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in November 2004 for the twentieth anniversary of the original recording, and again got to number one. The recording and release of the single tied in with the release of the Live Aid concert on DVD for the first time. The idea was prompted by Coldplay's Chris Martin, although Geldof and Ure both got quickly involved. Geldof did the publicity and educated the younger artists on the issues (some of whom had not been born, or were very young, when the original was recorded) while Ure filmed the event for the corresponding documentary. He enlisted musicians including Paul McCartney (on bass), the Supergrass drummer Danny Goffey, and Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead. Godrich said in 2009: "I'm glad I did it – it raised quite a bit of money. It came on when I was sitting in a lobby somewhere once, and it took me a while to recognise it. It sounded good though, better than I remembered." Damon Albarn did not take part in the recording but arrived to serve tea to the participants.

| style="text-align:center;" |1

|-

| Croatia (HRT)

| style="text-align:center;" | 6

|-

|-

|Europe (Eurochart Hot 100)

| style="text-align:center;" |1

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|}

Year-end charts

{|class="wikitable sortable"

! Chart (2004)

! Position

|-

| Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)

| style="text-align:center;" | 91

|-

| Ireland (IRMA)

| style="text-align:center;" | 1

|-

| Italy (FIMI)

| style="text-align:center;" | 15

|-

| Netherlands (Single Top 100)

| style="text-align:center;" | 61

|-

| Sweden (Hitlistan)

| style="text-align:center;" | 81

|-

| UK singles (OCC)

| style="text-align:center;" | 1

|}

{|class="wikitable"

! Chart (2005)

! Position

|-

| Europe (Eurochart Hot 100)

| style="text-align:center;" | 40

|}

Certifications