Bob Geldof: It’s time to recapture the magic!

Bob Geldof and Midge Ure talk to us about their celebrated charity collaboration and reveal plans for the next step.

It’s midnight and Midge Ure is packing away his guitars after a sell-out gig at Paisley Town Hall.

The Scots pop legend peeks out of his dressing room to make sure there is nobody eavesdropping, closes the door and in a conspiratorial whisper says to me: “Listen to this I recorded it last week.”

Midge presses play on his mobile phone and I become the first person to hear the new 2014 version of Do They Know It’s Christmas?, the Band Aid single which made pop history and helped save the lives of famine victims in Ethiopia 30 years ago.

The backing track sounds fantastic. All that’s needed now is for a posse of stars to record the heartfelt lyrics made famous on the original by Paul Young, George Michael, Bono, Duran Duran, Sting, Boy George, Spandau Ballet, Phil Collins and many more.

Ultravox star Midge has reunited with Sir Bob Geldof to recreate Do They Know It’s Christmas? and raise cash for victims of the Ebola crisis in west Africa.

“Band Aid wouldn’t have happened back then without Midge,” Bob, 63, told me after a recent Glasgow gig.

It’s hoped that One Direction, Take That, Ed Sheeran, Paolo Nutini, Robbie Williams and Olly Murs will all take part in the 2014 version. It’s testament to the power of a song written 30 years ago that it still stirs you when you hear those opening bars.

Tour schedules permitting, hopefully the stars will turn up just like they did in 1984. But the very thought brings Midge out in a cold sweat.

“The scary bit was Bob and me standing outside Sarm Studios in London on that cold Sunday morning facing a barrage of photographers. We had no idea who was going to turn up because not one star had phoned and said: ‘I’ll be there’,” recalls Midge, 61.

“Bob leaned over and whispered: ‘If it’s just The Boomtown Rats and Ultravox, we’re stuffed’.

“You couldn’t have scripted what happened next. Sting arrived with his two pet dogs. Then Paul Weller came walking around the corner he’d got the Tube. Bananarama piled out of a Volkswagen Golf. Boy George was on a Concorde flight back from New York.”

The song, inspired by a harrowing BBC News report by Michael Buerk on famine in Ethiopia, moved Bob so much he contacted Midge with a plan to make a record to raise money for the victims. Little did they know what lay ahead.

Bob recalled: “The Rats were over as a band. I didn’t have much confidence. We had a great single out called Dave but it wasn’t doing anything. When I saw the news report I wanted to be sick with rage and shame.

“I thought all I can do is write tunes but this needs more than just five quid in the charity box.

“Midge said: ‘You write something, I’ll write something, and we’ll see what we’ve got tomorrow.’ Here was a songwriter treating me as an equal.”

The pair got down to work in Midge’s studio in London.

“I had a vague tune called It’s My World which the Rats had rejected. The opening line was: ‘It’s my world and there’s no need to be afraid’. I changed that to: ‘It’s Christmas time’,” revealed Bob.

“The mid-section: ‘Here’s to you, raise a glass for everyone’, I’m sure that came from Midge because it’s so Scottish, so New Year.”

There were more hiccups when the cream of UK pop were taught the song, Bob said.

“There were a lot of rivalries in the room. I don’t think some people liked Paul Weller and he didn’t like them but he still came.”

“There was intense rivalry between George Michael, Simon Le Bon, Gary Kemp and Boy George but they all pretended to get along.

“Bono didn’t want to sing: ‘Thank God it’s them instead of you’. He said ‘Are you sure you’re saying the right thing?’ But I was absolutely sure.

“For us, Christmas is all about family, presents and food but there IS another world outside your window. So it’s there but for the grace of God go you and I. Bono finally got it and let rip. He now owns that line.”

Midge added: “We were flying by the seat of our pants. We didn’t plan to have Paul Young sing the first line. I got each of them to sing a verse and chose the best bits.

“But some poor soul had to step up to the plate, in front of his peers, and sing the opening lyric with a camera shoved in his face.

“Spandau’s Tony Hadley was the first guy up and did it brilliantly.”

Midge worked through the night mixing the track and got the surprise of his life driving home.

“I heard Bob on the Radio 1 breakfast show with Mike Read who played Do They Know It’s Christmas? off my cassette,” he explained.

“The moment it finished, Read rewound the tape and played it again. The BBC had never played the same song back-to-back. They played it on the hour, every hour.

“I knew something magical was happening.”

When the single was released, Scots singer Jim Diamond, at No. 1 with I Should Have Known Better, urged fans not to buy his record but Band Aid instead.

“That was a touch of class from Jim. It was a magnificent gesture,” added Midge. “A lot of people had a real go at Bob saying he was a guy acting way above his station. But he was doing things others, including politicians, had failed to do.

“His guidance, drive and mad OTT passion showed them up for the motivational wimps they were. I wasn’t surprised at the backlash against him.

“I went to Ethiopia for the first time in 1986 and saw children who looked like they were just about to expire. You’re sitting holding their little hands and their chests are heaving as they gasp for breath.

“Then somebody gives them a tiny bit of food and that same child blossoms. It’s like watering a flower.

“Birhan Woldu, the Ethiopian girl who was the starving baby in the video for Drive by The Cars, so weak, struggling to stand up. Everybody thought the minute the camera is switched off that’s it, she’s gone. But she turned up at Live 8 in 2005 fit and healthy. She’s now a nurse.”

So what does Midge actually think of the Band Aid single?

“As a song it’s OK. But it’s a GREAT record. Two very different things. It still does its job and I’m immensely proud of it. It’s my baby.”

The single sold more than three million copies and was the UK’s biggest selling 45 until it was eclipsed by Candle In The Wind by Elton John, after the death of Princess Diana in 1997.

It was also a hit for Band Aid II in 1989, Band Aid 20 in 2004 and raised more cash when featured in US TV music show, Glee.

The track paved the way for Live Aid in London and Philadelphia in 1985. The Band Aid Trust has raised more than £200 million for relief in Africa.

Bob says: “There are thousands of people still alive thanks to that record. On average the trust has spent £5,000 every single day of the year for the last 30 years.

“Some people say: ‘Shut up. Go and be a lame pop star’. I’ve never much cared what people think of me. I took the ball and ran with it.

“We never expected it to become a phenomenon.”

Tonight, Africa should thank God it’s Bob and Midge back in their corner.