Who amongst us who are old enough can forget Band Aid? It is slightly frightening and hard to believe that today is the 40th anniversary since this song was released and although we have tried to include more pieces from the older calendars, we felt we should include this again.

For younger listeners who may not know anything about it, and to refresh the memories of others with a bit more detail, there was terrible famine in Ethiopia between 1983 – 1985. In response to try to raise funds to help the Ethiopians, a supergroup was formed and I think anybody who was anybody in the pop world with a conscience wanted to be part of this project.

It is said that Paula Yates, the late wife of Bob Geldof was the brains of this very special venture and Bob Geldof invited other performers to take part.

In the end, 40 artists participated and you can hear the various voices singing different lines of the lyrics. Some of the most notable names in the line up included those in the list below, but you may spot others in the photo and if you were a fan of a contributor and their name wasn’t on this list, apologies, as I tried to include names more familiar still today!

Released on December 3rd, it quickly became the Christmas number 1, staying at the position for five weeks not just that year but with subsequent re-releases of the song by Band Aid II in 1989 and also again in 2004 with Band Aid 20 and 2014 with Band Aid 30. Not only did the song raise funds but also awareness and the lyrics of the song helped with that.

Although here it was released for Christmas, at that time in Ethiopia there was a Communist government so Christmas was not officially allowed to be celebrated. In the first week of the song’s release alone it sold over a million copies and in those first five weeks the total sales went up to over three million, making it the then best selling record of all time. The video which was made of it in 1986 won a Grammy award. During the first five weeks sales the record raised eight million pounds for relief.

Bob Geldof asked Midge Ure to produce the record and everyone donated their services which meant that there was only 24 hours at the studio to record and then mix the record. With so many artists, that meant a lot of mixing!

The success of this record inspired another massive fund raising venture in 1985 called Live Aid and the power of pop music to be able to shine a light on and fundraise for social issues has been well recognised since.

In October 1984, BBC reporter Michael Buerk described the situation in Ethiopia as ‘a Biblical famine in the 20th century’ and footage was shown of a nurse working out there who had such limited resources that she could only feed the starving children whom she thought might ‘make it’ and leave out those who she thought probably would not survive. Bob Geldof said of her: ‘In her was vested the power of life and death. She had become God-like and that is unbearable for anyone.’

Many years later she said: “Why was I in this situation? Why was it possible in this time of plenty that some have food and some do not? It is not right.” It was after seeing these TV reports that Bob Geldof started to take action.

I make no apologies for including the many repetitions below of the line ‘Feed the World’ because its message is no less important now than it was then.