For the purposes of this holiday-themed Duranalysis, I\u2019m going to examine the\u00a0half-hour made-for-VHS documentary<\/a>\u00a0that was released simultaneously with the single, which follows Geldof, Ure, and the various artists throughout a long, frenetic day of recording. Here we go:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amidst a sea of reporters and onlookers, the musicians begin to arrive at the recording studio. The beautiful boys of Duran Duran and their frenemies in Spandau Ballet arrive simultaneously after a long evening of mutual partying in Germany. Here\u2019s Spandau\u2019s Tony Hadley describing the situation in an excellent 2004 documentary,\u00a0Band Aid: The Song That Rocked the World<\/em><\/a>: \u201cWe were in Germany the night before with the Durannies, and I remember we\u2019d had a right night out. We looked terrible! \u2026 You\u2019ve never seen ten perfect pop stars rushing for the toilet as quick as the Durannies and the Spandaus. And it was like, hairspray out, you know, Nick Rhodes getting the makeup on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nick preens for the cameras while looking gorgeous and immaculate. Job well done, Nick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bob Geldof, flanked by a silent Midge Ure, talks about how it\u2019s a \u201ccomplete obscenity\u201d that the US and Europe don\u2019t immediately release their stores of surplus food to Africa. Whatever your views on Geldof (the ever-tactful Morrissey, for example, once labeled him a \u201cnauseating character\u201dand described Band Aid as \u201cdiabolical\u201d), it\u2019s tough to mock his passion and gumption. As this documentary makes clear, he worked with a near-maniacal intensity to write and organize and record this single in time to get it into stores before Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (On a shallow note: While I recognize on an intellectual level that Bob Geldof circa 1984 is unequivocally hot\u2014great eyes, great hair, lanky body, superb Irish accent\u2014I first watched Pink Floyd\u2014The Wall<\/em> at far too young and tender of an age, and after watching him shave off his eyebrows and indulge in sundry other disturbing behavior onscreen, I am fundamentally unable to find him attractive. Pretty sure I\u2019m not the only person with this problem.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the recording studio, the musicians all gather together on risers to sing the chorus. As one of the track\u2019s featured soloists, Simon gets to stand in front right next to Geldof. Two years later, Simon would serve as the best man at Geldof\u2019s wedding to\u00a0Paula Yates<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Nick, Roger, Andy, and John are clumped together in the back. The official video for the song consists of footage taken while the track was being recorded, and for years,<\/em> I assumed Roger hadn\u2019t participated in this part, because I could never spot him in the group. But no, he\u2019s there. Look at the video closely: He\u2019s wedged between Andy and Nick, partially hidden by Jody Watley\u2019s glorious mane of hair, looking haunted and miserable. (Quote from Roger on singing the chorus: \u201cI was just miming it, I think.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like Roger, the lovely ladies of Bananarama seem totally over it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The soloists record their bits in the studio. Midge Ure, who seems very sweet and charming, presides over these sessions, providing gentle and supportive feedback in the world\u2019s most lilting and delightful Scottish accent. Paul Young sings the opening lines: \u201cIt\u2019s Christmas time, there\u2019s no need to be afraid\u2026\u201d<\/em> Young was well known in both the UK and the US at the time for hits like \u201cOh Girl\u201d and \u201cEvery Time You Go Away\u201d, but he\u2019s not quite in the same rarified league of fame as the cluster of soloists who immediately follow him on the track: Simon, Boy George, George Michael, Bono, Sting. There\u2019s a reason for this: Geldof and Ure originally planned for the opening to be sung by David Bowie, who ultimately couldn\u2019t make it to the studio that day, and of the available singers, only Young had a low enough range to manage the part. Young: \u201cAs I was the only other person in the room who could sing down there, I think that\u2019s why I got the part.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simon records his solo piece. He behaves a teensy bit like a prima donna throughout. It\u2019s not bad, and it\u2019s not unprecedented. The man\u2019s a star. On occasion, he acts like one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sting diplomatically comments upon having so many big names and big egos assembled in one room: \u201cVery interesting kind of chemistry going on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s Simon, as quoted in\u00a0Lori Majewski\u2019s stellar Band Aid retrospective in\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/em>:\u00a0\u201cThat was the first time I met Sting. He was very friendly, apart from when I said, \u2018God, it\u2019s really hot and sweaty in here,\u2019 and he told me not to do so many drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sting, Simon, and Bono record their parts together. Sting and Simon look like a pair of golden-haired Vikings; wedged between them, Bono looks small and painfully young and innocuous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then Bono opens his mouth and rips out his wrenching, blistering rendition of that infamous\/iconic line\u2014\u201cTonight, thank God it\u2019s them instead of you\u201d\u2014<\/em>and it\u2019s amazing<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s Bono in the 2004 documentary, discussing how Geldof initially approached him to participate in the project: \u201cI thought he was ringing up to say, you know, \u2018I like your album\u2019. No, he told me the album was shite, but despite that, would I like to be a part of his song?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt of the rock band Status Quo record their bit while goofing around and mocking Midge\u2019s name and making unfortunate \u201chomo\u201d jokes (there are some parts of 1984 I do not miss) and singing wildly off key. Over in the control room, Midge looks tremendously patient and long-suffering. Status Quo\u2019s vocal contribution did not make the final mix of the song (Parfitt: \u201cThere\u2019s that lovely moment when somebody else says to me, \u2018Rick, it\u2019s probably best if somebody else sings your bit\u2019\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nigel Planer shows up, uninvited, in character as Neil from The Young Ones<\/em>. He gets far too much screen time in this documentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bono waxes philosophic about how best to use his growing money and fame to help the world: \u201cI\u2019m learning more and more that the best way I can contribute as a person is to do what I do best and make music, sing music.\u201d It\u2019s a little<\/em> insufferable\u2014\u201cMy gift is my song!\u201d\u2014but hell, he\u2019s young here, and he\u2019s sincere and well-intentioned, and in the intervening years since Band Aid, he really has<\/em> leveraged his celebrity to do a great deal of humanitarian work. He\u2019s been a force of good in the world; he\u2019s allowed to be a little insufferable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n John Taylor and Spandau Ballet\u2019s impish Gary Kemp goof around together, giggling madly and showering extravagant praise on Geldof. John seems a little blurry (in 1984, John was always slightly blurry), but he looks gorgeous, and his spirits are high. Most importantly, he\u2019s wearing a fabulous red-and-black sweater with \u201cDURAN DURAN\u201d knitted across the front. I covet that sweater like I\u2019ve coveted few pieces of clothing in my life. Any old slob can own a Duran Duran t-shirt; only John Taylor owns Duran Duran knitwear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s very late in a very long day, and Boy George finally swans into the recording studio, ready at last to record his part. He\u2019d overslept after a performance in New York, then caught the last Concorde flight of the day to London (Bob Geldof: \u201cFuck me! He wandered in at six in the evening!\u201d). Culture Club drummer Jon Moss, Boy George\u2019s then-lover, asks, \u201cWhich way does Boy George go?\u201d The double meaning is firmly intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Has anyone made a sordid, sensationalistic, awesome made-for-TV movie about Boy George and Jon Moss? If not, someone needs to get on that pronto, because those two were\u00a0wild<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Key quote from Moss about his relationship with Boy George<\/a>: \u201cHe tried to kill me with a plant pot, seriously, from two stories up, by dropping it on my head. I tried to smoke him out and set fire to him one evening, but it wasn\u2019t very good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Upon spotting Simon, Boy George summons him over (\u201cOi! Simon!\u201d), then throws an arm around his shoulders and leads him up the stairs to the recording booth. Flashbulbs pop, fans cheer, reporters shout questions. Boy George: \u201cWe\u2019d been, like, sworn enemies for many years, but we ended up putting our arms around each other and posing for the press.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s a tremendously snotty\/awesome (snotsome?) comment Boy George once made to a Duran fan who chastised him for saying rude things about the band to the press: \u201dI stand a better chance of sleeping with Simon Le Bon than you do, honey.\u201d Wow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So Boy George gets to the sound booth and, while swilling from a bottle of brandy, absolutely nails his part. (Per Telegraph journalist Robin Eggar<\/a>: \u201cThere was no catering, and a local shop did a roaring trade in day-old sandwiches. Boy George had to buy his own brandy.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n A reporter asks Boy George if there\u2019s any reason \u201cDo They Know It\u2019s Christmas?\u201d should hit number one. Boy George: \u201cWell, it just means it\u2019ll stop all these really trashy bands from getting to number one.\u201d Boy George is a walking force of chaos. At one point, he casually refers to a then-closeted George Michael as \u201ccamp\u201d (\u201cI was always trying to out George,\u201d he later explained).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Geldof talks about getting all these hugely famous and glamorous stars assembled in one place: \u201cAnd then when they all got together, it just looked like a bunch of yobbos in any old pub in the world.\u201d He\u2019s not wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Immediately following the recording session, Midge Ure stayed up all night mixing \u201cDo They Know It\u2019s Christmas?\u201d in order to get it pressed the next morning. It entered the UK pop charts at number one on December 3rd\u2014eight days after the recording session\u2014and eventually sold over eleven million copies worldwide, raising\u00a0a reported fourteen million dollars<\/a> for famine relief and jump-starting an enduring trend of celebrity activism. As Geldof describes it, Band Aid was \u201c\u2026an extraordinary operation that came together just because people wanted to do something.\u201d Not a bad result for a day\u2019s work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On November 25, 1984, Bob Geldof, frontman of the Boomtown Rats, and Midge Ure, lead singer of Ultravox, assembled over thirty of Britain\u2019s leading rock and pop music […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-duran-duran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1533,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions\/1533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Andy-Taylor-Simon-Le-Bon-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Nick-Rhodes-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Bob-Geldof-Midge-Ure-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Bob-Geldof-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Simon-Le-Bon-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Paul-Williams-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Bananarama-and-Jody-Watley-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Band](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Paul-Williams-solo-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Simon-Le-Bon-recording-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Sting-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Sting-Bono-Simon-Le-Bon-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Bono-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Status-Quo-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Nigel-Planer-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Bono-ruminates-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Gary-Kemp-and-John-Taylor-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Jon-Moss-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Boy-George-and-Simon-Le-Bon-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Boy-George-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-George-Michael-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Duran](\"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Duran-Duran-Band-Aid-Feed-the-World-1024x752.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n