What few realize is that the famine was not an accident. Though drought played a role, many have overlooked that the Ethiopian government's military policies were the primary catalyst.

Getting artists to commit to the project wasn’t as difficult as one might expect. Geldof knew a great many performers, and they could see he was passionate about the cause. Meanwhile, Ure brought needed credibility to the project.There was a charming naivete about this song,” Sting said years later, while speaking to Ure. “I think a more sophisticated song wouldn’t have worked. It had to be a kind of Christmas carol, nursery rhyme, simple, idealistic vision. And that’s exactly what it was.” This is not to suggest that aid initiatives cannot help those suffering, or that people should not give to those in need. Giving is good and can help those in need, especially when combined with prudence—but it is not an end in itself. Helping people is the ultimate goal, and this requires more than just humanitarian efforts, as some members of Band Aid now realize. People were very busy burying the dead,” he said. “Because the Derg [the communist military regime running Ethiopia] had taken so many people away for resettlement, there was a shortage of labour and some of us were forced to become gravediggers.” Lessons From Band Aid Geldof received a dose of perspective that night when he turned on the BBC and saw a news report delivered by journalist Michael Buerk depicting a severe famine in Ethiopia.

Such perceptions should not exactly surprise us. Ethiopia’s famine claimed as many as a million lives, according to official estimates (the actual total is likely closer to 400,000); so it’s not unusual that many would associate the land with starvation.The song was recorded in a matter of hours, and Ure spent the next several days producing and editing in his home studio with engineer Rik Walton. Once [Bob] had Midge on board, all Bob’s friends who know his musical limitations would think ‘we know the record will get made now, so it’s not going to embarrass us,” one person familiar with the project observed. On November 24, 1984, the pop musician Boy George was sleeping in his New York City hotel room when the phone rang. He was touring with the Culture Club and had had a late night partying. The call woke him up. It was Geldof, who the previous day had told George to drop what he was doing and get to London stat to perform a song he had co-written with Ure.