It’s not Christmas until the fight for Christmas number one begins, and LadBaby have just entered the arena with their festive single, Food Aid.
Though LadBaby (comprising duo Mark and Roxanne Hoyle) have scored several number ones before – four times in fact – this song is unique in that they have become the first-ever act allowed to rework Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas.
It also features money saving expert Martin Lewis, who became a household name over the course of 2022 thanks to his tips for beating the cost-of-living crisis.
Food is a central theme to LadBaby’s festive reworkings: their debut hit was 2018’s We Built This City on Sausage Rolls (based on Starship’s We Built This City), which was followed by I Love Sausage Rolls in 2019 (The Arrows / Joan Jett’s I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll), Don’t Stop Me Eatin’ (Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’) in 2020 and finally Sausage Rolls for everyone last year, which featured Ed Sheeran and Sir Elton John.
This time around, the song’s lyrics reflect the cost-of-living crisis, with lyrics such as “It’s Christmas time/ let’s come together for Food Aid/ This Christmas time, the nations skint and they’re under paid.”
The song’s chorus is similarly bleak: “There won’t be food for everyone this Christmas time/ For many there’ll be hungry through the night/ When there’s nowhere else to go/ When the lecky’s running low/ Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?”
Fortunately, LadBaby have also released a music video, in which Mark is seen showing Roxanne into a music studio to reveal their celebrity guest. Instead, she’s greeted with a series of lookalikes, including those of Boy George, Adele, Kylie and Robbie Williams.
“Don’t worry,” he tells her. “I’ve got Lewis…” “Lewis Capaldi,” she asks? No, it’s Martin Lewis, who then appears alongside them in the track.
“When Mark and Roxanne contacted me out-of-the-blue to ask if I’d join them in Food Aid I thought they’d confused me with someone else,” Martin Lewis said of the collaboration. "The nearest I’ve ever got to thinking about a Christmas number one is going to the loo on Boxing Day after too much orange juice the day before. Yet once I knew they were serious, and it was for the Trussell Trust, a hugely important charity I’ve a history with, I decided to give it a go, and do it with gusto.”
The song goes onto spoof the original Band Aid music video: a lookalike Boy George is seen helping lookalikes of Noel and Liam Gallagher reconcile their relationship, while Robbie Williams pines over an image of Gary Barlow.
According to LadBaby, the decision not to include real famous faces was a purposeful one. “It just didn’t feel right roping in lots of megastars to sing about a cost-of-living crisis,” they said.
“Behind the hilarity, the reason for making the track is to raise as much money as we possibly can for the Trussell Trust and the Band Aid Trust. We HAVE to do whatever it takes to build a future where all of us can afford to go to sleep with a full stomach.”
To release Food Aid, LadBaby had to secure permission from Bob Geldof, Midge Ure and the Band Aid Trust to rewrite the song – accordingly, 50 per cent of the profits from the song will go to the Band Aid Trust, with the other 50 per cent going to the food charity The Trussell Trust.
