LadBaby scored their fifth Christmas No1 in December, with their version of Do They Know It’s Christmas, which they retitled Food Aid.
And on Wednesday’s installment of This Morning, Bob Geldoff, 71, who wrote the iconic song with 69-year-old Midge Ure in 1984, explained why he allowed YouTubers to use the song.
The rocker revealed that he enabled the project to help “people who are shamefully cold and hungry” while criticizing the cost of living crisis.
Bob said: ‘It’s probably the record with the most number ones of all time. It just keeps generating and obviously that money keeps going to charity. It’s less of a song and more of its own. Is history.’
“The LadBaby thing, whatever you think of the production, that doesn’t matter. With LadBaby, it was for the many shamefully cold and hungry people in Britain in 2023.’
Because? On Wednesday’s installment of This Morning, Bob Geldoff, 71, explained why he allowed YouTubers LadBaby to use the iconic song, which he wrote with Midge Ure, 69, in 1984.
Success! LadBaby scored their fifth Christmas No1 in December, with their version of Do They Know It’s Christmas, which they retitled Food Aid.
Important: ‘Whatever you think of the production, it doesn’t matter. With LadBaby, it was for the many shamefully cold and hungry people in Britain in 2023,’ he said.
The musician added about Do They Know It’s Christmas: “Now it has a life of its own.”
LadBaby made chart history by securing the Christmas number one for the fifth consecutive year, surpassing a record set by The Beatles in the 1960s.
Social media star Mark Hoyle and his wife Roxanne, known as LadBaby Mum, took the top spot with their single Food Aid, a reworking of the Band Aid song Do They Know It’s Christmas?
In the run up to Christmas, the song sold over 65,000 units to become the best-selling single of 2022.
Featuring a cameo by TV’s favorite financial expert Martin Lewis and a video starring celebrities, the lyrics deal with the cost of living crisis.
Proceeds from the single were split equally between the food bank charity Trussell Trust and the Band Aid Trust.
LadBaby previously topped the festive chart with food-inspired tracks We Built This City (2018), I Love Sausage Rolls (2019), Don’t Stop Me Eatin’ (2020) and Ed Sheeran and Sir Elton John, featuring the participation of Sausage Rolls For All (2021).
LadBaby Mark is a graphic designer and blogger from Nottingham who, along with his wife Roxanne, rose to fame through their YouTube videos.
The LadBaby Version: Featuring a cameo by TV’s favorite financial expert, Martin Lewis, and a video starring celebrity look-alikes, the lyrics deal with the cost-of-living crisis.
Tribute: Elsewhere in his This Morning interview, Bob paid tribute to his late Boomtown Rats bandmate Garry Roberts, who died in November at age 72.
Missing: Garry Roberts was one of the founding members of the Boomtown Rats and is said to have been instrumental in deciding on the band’s name (pictured in 1979)
Elsewhere in his This Morning interview, Bob paid tribute to his late Boomtown Rats bandmate Garry Roberts, who died in November at age 72.
The Band Aid icon said: ‘The fans call him the legend. He said there were two things he wanted to do with his life, drive his motorcycle and play his guitar and he did it, fast.
“We’ve auditioned a million guitarists, and no one is going to measure up to him. But we have found some people. We have a lot of festivals coming up and it’s strange (that he won’t be there)’.
In November, the Irish rock group announced the tragic news in a statement describing Garry as “the guy who summed up our sense of who The Rats are.”
Once again he had been performing with the group, which was formed in Dublin in 1975, fronted by lead singer Sir Bob Geldof, after a 27-year hiatus.
The founding members have known each other since they were children and said they feel “strangely adrift without him tonight.”
“It is with a heavy heart that the members of the Boomtown Rats announce the death this morning of Garry Roberts,” they said in a statement, describing him as an “old friend and great guitar player.”
‘A man to be missed, a friend to be remembered, a sound that will never be forgotten.
Reunited: He had once again been performing with the group, which formed in Dublin in 1975, led by lead singer Sir Bob Geldof, after a 27-year hiatus (pictured together in 2013)
“The remaining members of the band, Pete, Bob and Simon, and Darren and Al, extend our deepest condolences to their family and friends.”
Roberts is considered the founding member of the Boomtown Rats after a particularly inspired performance “on a clear spring afternoon in 1975, in a pub in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.”
At the tribute, the group said: ‘To the fans, he was The Legend, and he was. For us it was Gazzer, the guy who summed up the sense of who The Rats are.
Have a nice trip Gas. Thanks for everything friend.’