Band Aid song - is the criticism justified?

How about a hugely promoted charity song to help all the sick, homeless and elderly in the UK for a change...just a thought!

Funny enough I was in a cafe in Abbey road sitting right next to this picture when I read this thread.                                                                 

So pop stars begging for money in the name of charity is nothing new. But over the last few years I become more reluctant to give to charity for quite a few reasons. The UK is not a third world country, yet we have over 160,000 registered charities. There is something seriously wrong somewhere if we need that many. The idea that a CEO of a charity can be on a salary of over £100k is obscene. The charities that ask you for a fixed amount of say £10 as this will provide whatever for whatever, but I might only want to give them £2, which they don't want as that is not enough. For me what I give to charity is what I choose not what the charity tells me to donate. You then have the charities asking for money to be sent via text messaging costing you  so much per text, you then have to send another message telling them to stop sending you further demands, others don't want a donation they want your bank details and signed up to a monthly direct debit. Then you have the likes of Geldof and Co multi multi multi millionaires asking for money, I remember Geldof asking for money at the Live aid concert, the way he asked for it, sounded like he was your typical run of the mill street mugger. For some reason the media find him amusing for being offensive in the way he asks, well he doesn't ask he demands people give his charity money. I find the man totally obscene.

I'll always offer to buy a homeless person a meal and a hot drink although I wont give them money, I'll donate untold uneaten cat food to local rescue centers, I'll donate money to charities an amount to what I want to give, not an amount what I am being told to give And if the person asking for my money has more than me plus several houses dotted around the world, with their own Lear jet and yacht then they really are wasting both mine and their time......

Good post Barney and certainly resonates.

I remember last year I came out of a Pets at Home store and they had some retired grey hound dogs outside as a draw for the kids, and were a charity that looked after former and abused racing dogs. Not a grey hound fan, but sucker for a good cause so thought I'd give them a few quid, only to be told I needed to sign up to a direct debit?

Explained I only wanted to give a few quid there and then and just got bombarded with sales pitch, which went on as far as trying to convince me to sign up, let them take £10 which I was willing to give them, and then phone up and cancel the DD, as they couldn't take money there and then. Their sole purpose was to generate DD sign ups.

I just looked at the girl and wasn't sure who she was trying to convince, me or herself. I do give to a charity by direct debit, but one that I've chosen to, and not as a result of a full on sales pitch.

So I patted the dogs and left them to it.

I too give regularly to Charity, but its one of my choice and i rarely stick money in a tin as a result of my personal contributions.

Some accept my polite statement that i only give to Cancer related causes and 99% of the time its done directly, others try and justify why i should give to their cause, to which most of the time i politely decline, if they get more insistent, then so does my reply !

I actually took over a DD that my father had with Marie Curie, (he died in one of their hospices), i have since cancelled it because every month i was sent a magazine and fluff that must cost a fortune to print and post etc - money IMHO that should be going to the cause. I accept that they need to raise funds and their profile but that was too much. I simply now make a payment on my credit card every so often that more than equates to what i used to pay on DD.

I also contribute any proceeds of compensation from my infamous complaining about Customer Service 

Saw the geldoff interview on sky where he swore. Done himself no favours, songs mediocre words are crap. If it does good and raises cash then fair enough but time for this song to be consigned to history

Ooops - reading my reply again, i actually forgot the OP !

Agree with Shakey - time the song was put to bed and a new one made - kind of accept the need for it, but even with some new lyrics its a dated track.

Slightly off topic (again) - Geldoff is banging on about downloading the track multiple times in iTunes and delete it and re download - not done it myself but apparently you actually can't do that! You would have thought he would have checked his facts !!!