THE words are the same and the refrain will be familiar to millions: “Feed the world, let them know it’s Christmas time.”

But the new Band Aid, assembled yesterday 20 years after the original to re-record the charity anthem Do They Know It’s Christmas?, is a choir of young voices and rising stars singing to a new audience.

That choir included Joss Stone, the British soul star who is taking the United States by storm, who was not born when Bob Geldof assembled the original Band Aid to raise money to help the starving in Ethiopia in 1984.

Also in the line-up was Jamelia, the R&B singer of hits such as Superstar and See It In a Boy’s Eyes, who was aged three when the first Band Aid single clinched the Christmas No 1 spot. She brought her three-year-old daughter to Air Studios in Hampstead, North London, where pop music history was again being made.

The passage of time — and the handing on of the cause of fighting famine to a younger generation — was illustrated by Pixie Geldof, 14, wearing the same T-shirt that her father wore at the original session.

Her father, who once peppered his appeals for money with expletives and now fills the role of elder statesman of pop, was there to lend credibility and continuity. Some of the younger stars seemed almost overwhelmed to be in the presence of the mouthy Irishman.

Where the first Band Aid session had been a chaotic event imbued with optimism, naivety and spontaneity, Geldof was insistent that pop’s new ambassadors would understand the political significance of the song.

He gathered the stars together and showed them footage from the Ethiopian famine which had driven him to start Band Aid. Then he introduced a young African woman who had featured in the original film as a malnourished child.

Geldof told his disciples: “This is proof that Band Aid and Live Aid work. You’re part of it now. You’re part of the gang. This year, when people buy your record, they’re making a political statement. What you’re doing this morning and giving up your Sunday is that you are making that political demand. Next year, we must keep that pressure up.”

Geldof said later that he wanted the younger pop stars to understand that “art and culture” could have a political impact. Once again the aim of Band Aid is to alleviate famine in Africa — most immediately the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. Geldof said: “This record is about firing the starting pistol to the year of 2005 when Britain is the chair of the G8 and president of the EU. The reality is that only politics created this dilemma and only politics can resolve it.”

The new Band Aid recording will be released at the end of November and is certain to be the Christmas No 1.

• The original Do They Know It’s Christmas? raised £8m
  
  
• Live Aid raised more than £80m in its first year alone
  
  
• The £110 million total raised was equivalent to Africa’s weekly debt repayments
  
  
• More than £250,000 is still contributed each year
  
  
• In the first year, the Band Aid Trust spent £9.8 million on emergency aid such as food, shelter and medical supplies

• In that year a total of £14.2 million was spent on freight costs, with £19.8m spent on long-term projects.

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