Band Aid: ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ Re-Recorded to Raise Funds for Ebola Fight
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Sir Bob Geldof arrives at the Band Aid recording on Nov. 15, 2014 in London. SAV/GC Images(LONDON) — A holiday classic is hitting the airwaves in a new way Monday morning.
Some of pop’s biggest stars banded together to release a new version of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” a pop classic that was first released decades ago to aid the fight famine in Ethiopia.
The video of the new version — featuring One Direction, Ellie Goulding, Rita Ora, Christ Martin and others — premiered Sunday night on Britain’s X-Factor. It will raise funds and awareness for the fight against Ebola, and some of the lyrics were revised to reflect the current crisis.
The song is available as a 99-cent download Monday, while a CD version will be available in about three weeks.
The original — written by Irish rocker Bob Geldof and musician Midge Ure, and featuring the megastars of the time such as Sting, Duran Duran and Boy George — was released in 1984.
The effort was dubbed Band Aid, and the song was an enormous hit, raising more than $24 million for the cause.
The artists in the newest version arrived in London on Saturday to record the song. Many of them were not even alive when the song was first released. Bono is the only original Band Aid member to return for an encore.
“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” has been covered on other occasions to raise funds for charitable causes.
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Ure reiterated that this was a fundraising effort and issued a plea.
“All we can do is hope that Ed Sheeran and One Direction and everyone else plead with the fans not to stream this, not to download this for free,” he said.
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