Bono, Sam Smith, Sinead O’Connor, Underworld, Elbow, More Team Up for New "Do They Know It’s Christmas?"

Bono, Sam Smith, Sinead O'Connor, Underworld, Elbow, More Team Up for New "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

Back in 1984, Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof mobilized a number of British musicians for “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, a charity single aimed at spreading awareness of the famine in Ethiopia. The song was re-recorded twice, in 1989 and 2004, for similar charity purposes. Now, Geldof has announced plans for a fourth recording, as The Hollywood Reporter reports. This time, he’s enlisted Bono, Sam Smith, Ellie Goulding, Underworld, Sinead O’Connor, Bastille, Ed Sheeran, One Direction, and Elbow, with more to be added. Paul Epworth (Adele, FKA Twigs, Lana Del Rey) will produce.

This will be the third time Bono has sung on the song, as he contributed to the original and the 2004 recordings. The song will be recorded this Saturday in London. The lyrics have also been changed to reflect the new charity cause: The Ebola epidemic in Africa. 

“For 30 years, we’ve been boring people to death about the great inequalities of the world, whereby 50 percent still live on two dollars a day. That’s disgraceful. It’s ridiculous, and it’s unnecessary,” Geldof said in a press conference. “And what they were dying of in 1984 was of course hunger, but they died essentially because they were poor. We know we can contain Ebola; we have the doctors, the nurses, medicines and state systems. We have money. They’re dying again because they are extremely poor. That is radically unacceptable.”

Additionally, he said that producer Quincy Jones is working on a version featuring musicians from the United States. Jones also organized 1985′s “We Are The World”, another superstar charity single.

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