No Rock And Roll Fun

AND WE BANISH SHADE: With charity already suffering at the hands of Chris Moyles, a further blow to good doing comes from the now seemingly unstoppable march towards Band Aid III; a remake of Do They Know Its Christmas with - heh - a new generation of "stars" including Coldplay, The Darkness and Travis doing their bit.

Now, of course, if it all raises money to help people, it can never be a terrible thing, but why do Do They Know... again? 20 years ago, the song was fine - the whole point of the project was a sudden response to a terrible situation, so it didn't matter that the song was written in ten minutes on the back of an envelope. But boy, did it sound like it was. However, after twenty years of thinking about it, surely even Bob must see that there's a need for a total overhaul of a song which doesn't really make any sense. From the title, which always seemed a little odd to us (are we going to be sending life-saving aid or advent calendars and tinsel?) the lyrics are riddled with phrases which were fine on a song thrown together, but don't make much sense when you've had time to sit and think about them: there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime? What, not even in the mountains? We let in light and we banish shade? But isn't shade a good thing? It's not the same thing as darkness, surely?

Could we make a small suggestion? At the same time as the original Band Aid, the Two Tone bands and their affiliates came together to record a cover of Starvation (that's why Madness turned down Band Aid). It's a cracking song, it sounds brilliant, and while Bob's song is all "poor starving Africans need us to save them", Starvation's lyric is much more about how we're all part of the same world. It's a snappier message, a better sound, and surely would make a far better subject for the Third Band Aid than resurrecting a song which did its work twenty years ago?