The 40th-anniversary remake of Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas? charity hit was released on November 25. The new mix, which features vocals recycled from previous versions of the single, still includes the original track's "feed the world" message and lyrics.

The original single was written and released in 1984 in response to harrowing news images of famine in northern Ethiopia. These pictures inspired two pop stars, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, to bring together some of the biggest names in pop music at the time to record the song.

In the four decades since then, there have been several related Live Aid concerts and re-releases of the single. And the Band Aid Charitable Trust is thought to have raised more than £140 million for long-term development projects and emergency aid.

There has been much debate about some of the stereotypes represented in Band Aid's original lyrics, as well as on whether the song's effect on the charity sector has been positive. But the Band Aid Trust says that the charity has helped as many as 350,000 people in the last seven months alone through a host of projects in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somaliland and Chad. And, without doubt, it raised public awareness of the issues facing Ethiopia in the 1980s.

Yet in terms of the global persistence of famine, things have not got better in the intervening 40 years. There are many regions of the world where people are still suffering from acute food........

© Salon