Ed Sheeran hasn’t cancelled Christmas, but he’s done the next best – or worst – thing by criticising one of the most iconic seasonal songs of the past four decades. In advance of the release of a new mix of Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?, the singer has distanced himself from the recording, which juxtaposes his voice with those of Bono, Duran Duran, George Michael, Sting and Harry Styles (all of whom pitched in on various versions of the tune over the years). This has reopened a debate around Band Aid and the ethics of charity singles in 2024 – and the question of where good intentions end and a white-saviour complex begins.
Sheeran contributed to a 2014 re-release of Band Aid, but has since had a change of heart and said that he had not been asked if he wanted his vocal to be used on the new Band Aid 40 (he would have declined). In a statement, he said his “understanding of the narrative associated with this has changed”. He also shared a post by his friend, British-Ghanaian rapper Fuse ODG, who stated that Band Aid was part of “a campaign that dehumanises Africans and destroys our pride and identity in the name of ‘charity’” with lyrics that reinforce a “white-saviour complex”.
Such critiques aren’t new – Mary Robinson and Morrissey (the strangest of strange bedfellows) are among those who have expressed their disquiet about Band Aid.
The “white saviour” tag will have stung Sheeran, who was accused in 2017 of participating in “poverty porn” when he visited a village in Liberia for the Children in Need charity – an undertaking British Labour politician David Lammy described as “offensive and stereotypical”.
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Bob Geldof, the Boomtown Rats frontman who wrangled the world’s pop stars into recording the original Do They Know It’s Christmas?, rejected Sheeran’s complaints, insisting Band Aid has “saved lives”.
“This little pop song has kept millions of people alive,” he said – explaining the charity contributes to education and healthcare in Africa. “Why would Band Aid scrap feeding thousands of children dependent on us for a meal? Why not keep doing that? Because of an abstract wealthy-world argument, regardless of its legitimacy?”
Do They Know It’s Christmas? has long evoked strong feelings – both positive and negative. Unlike its American successor, We Are The World, the ditty by Geldof and Midge Ure was always a bit cheesy and toe-curling. Just ask Bono, who achieved a personal career low with Band Aid when he yodelled: “Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of youuuuu……” (a cringe-inducing lyric changed in later versions).
In 2021, on a Late Late Show special celebrating Geldof’s life and times, Robinson, the former president and UN high commissioner for human rights, said that Do They Know It’s Christmas?, while accomplishing much that was positive, was a relic from a bygone era. She said the song was “patronising”, adding that our attitudes towards the Global South have “changed” since 1984. As with Sheeran’s intervention, Geldof wasn’t having it. “I don’t agree with you,” he told Robinson. “If I see someone hurt at the side of the road, [I don’t] just move on.”
The world is complicated, and it is possible for many things to be true at the same time. In the case of Band Aid, we can accept the charity has saved lives – it has raised €170 million since 1984 – but also contributed to stereotyping people across the vast and diverse continent of Africa as lacking agency and requiring western pop stars to swoop in and save them.
Band Aid revisionism hasn’t dropped from the clear blue winter sky. Even in 1984, when Geldof put together the project after watching distressing footage of famine in Ethiopia on the evening news, the song rubbed many the wrong way. The lyrics were criticised – in particular, the line, “Do they know it’s Christmas?”. Given that about 68 per cent of Ethiopians are Christian, they were very well aware of the birth of Christ.
The song was branded “diabolical” by Smiths iconoclast Morrissey, who had declined to join Sting, Bananarama and others in the studio. “The record itself was absolutely tuneless,” he said, “One can have great concern for the people of Ethiopia, but it’s another thing to inflict daily torture on the people of England ... the most self-righteous platform ever in the history of popular music.”
That attack was echoed by the punk band Chumbawamba, who in 1986 released an album called Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records – with such song titles as How to Get Your Band on Television. Decades later, Damon Albarn of Blur suggested charity singles could cause more harm than good. “It starts to feel like it’s a process where if you give money you solve the problem, and really sometimes giving money creates another problem.”
Still, the original remains a slice of peerless pop nostalgia. Where else would you find Boy George rubbing shoulders with Paul Young? Sting and Paul Weller crooning together? Bono hanging with Bananarama? It’s a wonderful 1980s time capsule. But it was also very much of its era. Forty years ago, condescending attitudes towards the developing world were ubiquitous. In the 21st century, we should have a more nuanced take on the causes of global poverty. Robinson is right – listened to today, the lyrics are patronising. Geldof should be credited for his immense work on behalf of the less fortunate – but maybe it’s time to rip off the sticking plaster and accept that, as a beacon for Christmas charity, Band Aid has outlived its usefulness.
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