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It was music doc night last night. Not one but two.

First up the Netflix documentary about the recording of ‘We Are the World’, the US response to Band Aid’s fundraising single ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ (In answer to that question, given that Ethiopia is a Muslim country, probably not.)

I was living in London at the time the song came out and pretty much thought it was the Yanks turning up late, as usual.

When you see the final product…

… you have no idea of the logistics involved in getting all these people in the same room at the same time.

Yes, I knew it was a Who’s Who of the biggest names in the US music business (as Band Aid had been with British music), but I did not know how it all came together. (Harry Belafonte positing that while it was great that a bunch of white Brits had done something to raise funds to relieve a famine in Africa, maybe some mostly black musicians should also do something.) If I ever knew, I’d forgotten that the song was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie. I did not know that Stevie Wonder was supposed to be included in the writing of said song, but failed to respond to various requests, until the night of the recording when he brought everything to a standstill, suggesting (more like demanding) that the chorus should be sung in Swahili, even though they don’t speak Swahili in Ethiopia. This request was ultimately rejected, but not before Waylon Jennings walked out, saying, “No good old boy sings in Swahili.”

Interesting to watch the sobering effect Bob Geldof (invited by producer Quincy Jones) kicking things off by describing to these wealthy musicians what life (if you could call it that) was actually like in most of Ethiopia.

Favourite moments?

Someone remembering Paul Simon walking into the studio, looking around and saying, “Wow. If someone dropped a bomb on this building, John Denver would be back on top.”

Quincy Jones taking a moment to acknowledge the role played by Harry Belafonte in getting the ball rolling and everyone spontaneously serenading him with a rendition of ‘Day O’.

Other take aways? I always had a soft spot for Huey Lewis and now it’s even softer.

Well worth a watch.

When I’d finished, decided to have a look at the video for ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’

Fair point, Harry. Pretty bloody white.

It was still fairly early, so I checked on Disney+ to see if any more episodes of Doctor Who had been added. (The new Doctor – subject for another day.) There weren’t, but there was something else.

Last year, when I did not have Disney+, I went to Joe’s one Sunday and we did a Beatlesathon, watching all three parts of Get It Back in one sitting. Recently a remastered version of the original Michael Lindsay-Hogg documentary, Let It Be, has been re-released.

I’m so old (how old are you?) that I actually saw this in the cinema when I was in my teens. It was at the time a lovely treat for Beatles fans, revealing little, if any, of the behind the scenes conflict painted so clearly in Peter Jackson’s three-parter.

All those years ago in the cinema and last year on Joe’s sofa, watching the rooftop concert scene last night I thought: “Oh, my god, how fucking cool would it have been to be in the area when that was happening?” Especially if you worked in a tall enough building to be able to see it from your office window. Or had access to a ladder to a nearby roof – the sort of ladder one older gentlemen, wearing a raincoat and hat, with pipe firmly clasped in mouth was improbably (it seems) filmed climbing.

And what about that poor young constable, tasked with the job of going into the Apple building to tell the Beatles that they had to stop playing because they were causing a disturbance?

Oh, this is delightful. Whilst searching YouTube just now for ‘Beatles rooftop concert police’ to find the final version of ‘Get Back’, I stumbled across this – an interview with Ray Dagg, the very same copper.