Do They Know It’s Christmas? is one of the most iconic charity singles of all time, featuring an all-star cast of musical heroes including Sting, Bono, Phil Collins and countless others. Since its release in 1984, it has raised almost $180 million for famine relief and development in Ethiopia and Africa.
Although the song was written by Midge Ure and Bob Geldof using acoustic guitars, the final track didn’t end up featuring much in the way of six-strings, despite a plethora of players in the studio – and, as it turns out, there’s a good reason for that.
A new BBC documentary, The Making of Do They Know It's Christmas?, pulls together archive footage from the creation of the track, and includes an interview with Geldof prior to the star-studded session, where he reveals one big guitar name that couldn’t make it to the studio.
Asked by a reporter who was arriving, Geldof says, “Bono’s just come in. He rang me last night and said [U2 guitarist] the Edge had got a kidney infection, and so he’s in hospital. So send him my love, and I hope he gets better.
“That’s a bit of a drag, because he was going to be the lead guitarist… but there’s about a million guitar players coming down.”
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Geldof wasn’t kidding. The likes of Paul Weller, Status Quo’s Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi, Sting, and Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp were among the guitarists who did turn up – but none of them made it onto the actual recording.
The day before the vocal recordings took place, Midge Ure attempted to track some jangly chords on electric guitar, while Geldof and Weller watched. But nothing could cut through the thick layer of synths.
“We’ve got so many fucking keyboards,” Geldof says. “It’s just the sound of guitar that I think it misses.”
Unfortunately, the sound of the electric guitar would never grace the track, although Weller and Kemp did contribute some background acoustic parts – and the Jam leader even attempted some electric lines.
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“There was nothing wrong with his guitar parts, nothing wrong with his playing at all. It just didn't fit in this electronic-based track,” Ure told Guitar Player of Weller’s electric contributions earlier this year.
“He did a kind of picking thing with a clean sound. It was kind of jangly, probably using one of my guitars, quite – dare I say – Smiths-like… It was all very good. I think even he saw it didn’t fit. He felt it didn’t sound right within that track.”
All of which means it’s a real shame that the Edge was struck down with illness just days prior to the recording of Do They Know It’s Christmas?
It’s not hard to hear how his sparse single-note lines, sprinkled with a touch of his signature delay, could have floated atop the layers of keyboards, adding a sense of spaciousness and fragility to the recording, and ticking off the guitar timbres Geldof sought.
Guitars were a bigger feature in Band Aid 20’s 2004 recording of the track, with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, Busted’s Charlie Simpson, and The Darkness guitarists Dan and Justin Hawkins all tracking parts, while Paul McCartney contributed bass.
The newly released 2024 Ultimate Mix finally brings guitars to the fore, reviving lost contributions from Weller, Ure, Greenwood and Kemp, and highlighting Justin Hawkins’ harmony guitar solo – although we’ll always wonder what the Edge would have brought to the track.
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