Midge Ure: ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas isn’t perfect, but it does the job’

The song Do They Know It’s Christmas? was first recorded 30 years ago when musicians Bob Geldof and Midge Ure brought an incredible lineup of stars together as Band Aid for Ethiopian famine relief.

Since then, the song has been re-recorded and released a further three times; the latest of which includes the likes of One Direction, U2 lead singer Bono, Emeli Sande and Paloma Faith and was released earlier today (November 17).

The original remains one of the all time best-sellers in the UK with sales of 3.75 million, while the song’s third incarnation by Band Aid 20 has also shifted over one million copies (1.18 million).

In an interview with Official Charts back in 2012, Midge Ure reflects on how the song initially came together, his surprise at the track’s success and what he really makes of a song recorded in just 24 hours.

Do They Know Its Christmas is one of the best known British singles of all time – with possibly one of the most unusual recording processes behind it. How did you and Bob bring the song together?

“I initially recorded the melody on a little toy keyboard onto a cassette. It was a lot slower than on the record. I sent it to Bob and he came over a couple of days later. He had this idea. He came up with the majority of the lyrics and at the time I thought these two things were totally incompatible.

“We started with these lyrics, ‘there won’t be snow in Ethiopia this Christmas’, which didn’t quite work, so we changed ‘Ethiopia’ to ‘Africa’, leading into the last bit, ‘feed the world’. The really hard part was to have this quite ominous change of time and then finish with this almost positive singalong part which would be so memorable. That was difficult.”

And then you went into the studio to record it?

“At first, Bob wanted Trevor Horn to produce the record, but he takes six weeks just to produce a single! We just didn’t have that. So, I just said leave it with me. Because I had a studio at the house, I went down there for four days and knocked this think into shape. Bob would pop in occasionally, but I carried on working on the music, putting it together, instrument by instrument. “John Taylor [of Duran Duran] came down and laid down a track, and Paul Weller did some guitar which we didn’t actually use. But everything on that record is synthesised, except for Phil Collins drums, plus I also nicked a drum sound from Tears For Fears, from The Hurting.”

“A couple of people came down to my studio and did their vocal parts before the day itself - and then we had only 24 hours in the studio [Sarm Studio]. I would like to think that we did make the best job of it. But we had no budget to make this, the time constraints were huge, we had to grab whoever, whenever we could. As you can imagine, these people are all over the world and weren’t all available when we wanted them.”

What do you think of the single and the song, looking back on them now?

“They are two separate things. You have to look at it as a song and as a record. What we made was a record and it did a brilliant job. It was quite nicely produced, it had lots of textures on it, lots of highs and lows - and you hear it coming out of the radio and it still does the job today. As a song, if you take away the periphery, the artists, the money raised and the reason we made it, I think it’s not that great. It’s not the best thing I’ve been involved in. But as a record…”

Did you expect it to be quite as huge as it became?

“Absolutely not. On the day we made it, it was a real media circus because of all the characters who were there, because a bunch of artists had never got together like that before. There was a specific aim to get to Number 1 at Christmas, but that was it. But it is a Christmas song and people seem to like pulling it out every year. If for one second, we had thought it would be around for this long – I mean we were very focused on getting to Number 1. It wasn’t until much, much later that we realised what it meant.”

Band Aid 30's Do They Know It's Christmas? (2014) is out now. Click here to download the song on iTunes. Watch the song's official music video below: