<P> "Do They Know It's Christmas?" was re-recorded three times: in 1989, 2004, and 2014 . All the re-recordings were also charity records; the 1989 and 2004 versions also provide money for famine relief, while the 2014 version was used to raise funds for the Ebola crisis in West Africa . All three of these versions also reached number one in the UK, and the 2004 version of the song was also a UK million seller, with 1.8 million copies sold . </P> <P> The song was inspired by a series of reports that Michael Buerk made for BBC television news programmes, which highlighted the famine in Ethiopia that was taking place at the time . The BBC News crew were the first to document the famine, with Buerk's report on 23 October describing it as "a biblical famine in the 20th century" and "the closest thing to hell on Earth". The reports shocked the UK, motivating the British people to inundate relief agencies, such as Save the Children, with donations, and also to bring world attention to the crisis in Ethiopia . The Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof and his partner, television presenter Paula Yates, watched the 23 October report and were also deeply affected by it . On 2 November Yates travelled from the couple's home in London to the Tyne Tees studio in Newcastle upon Tyne where she was presenting the weekly live music show The Tube . Among the acts performing on that week's programme were Ultravox, promoting their greatest hits album The Collection . Ultravox's front man Midge Ure happened to be chatting to Yates in the dressing room after the show when Geldof called her . On discovering that she was with Ure, an old friend of Geldof's, he asked to speak to Ure and told him that he wanted to do something to alleviate the suffering in Ethiopia . Ure immediately agreed to help and the pair arranged to meet and discuss ideas over lunch the following Monday, 5 November, quickly coming to the conclusion that the best option would be to make a charity record . </P> <P> Following their meeting, Geldof immediately set about recruiting other well known musicians to participate on the record . Geldof said, "I then rang Sting and he said, yeah, count me in, and then (Simon) Le Bon, he just immediately said tell me the date and we'll clear the diary . The same day I was passing by this antique shop and who is standing in there but Gary Kemp, just about to go off on tour to Japan . He said he was mad for it as well and to wait 10 days till they (Spandau Ballet) got back in the country...suddenly it hit me . I thought,' Christ, we have got the real top boys here', all the big names in pop are suddenly ready and willing to do this...I knew then that we were off, and I just decided to go for all the rest of the faces and started to ring everyone up, asking them to do it ." Further phone calls from Geldof also secured promises of everybody involved in the record's making to provide their services free of charge, including most of the UK music magazines which donated advertising space in their publications to promote the single, Geldof's record label Phonogram who released the single, their parent company Polygram who distributed it, and the artist Peter Blake who created the single's sleeve . </P> <P> Geldof and Ure's biggest problem was to be able to come up with a song that could be recorded and released in time for Christmas . They both realised that they would have to write one themselves and not record a cover version, otherwise they would have to pay royalties which would have to be subtracted from the amount raised for charity . On the Monday afternoon Ure came up with the outline of what he felt sounded a Christmas - like melody on a portable keyboard, which he recorded onto a tape and sent to Geldof, who sarcastically told him that the tune sounded like the theme to Z - Cars . Geldof came to Ure's house the next day and together they worked on the tune with Geldof on his acoustic guitar . Geldof added lyrics based on a song he had originally written for the Boomtown Rats, as he later recalled: </P>

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