Bono shines bright for Band Aid song line

BONO has won out in the rock rivalry over who should sing the most famous line of Do They Know It’s Christmas?

Organisers of the Band Aid 20 single revealed he would once again sing, “And tonight thank God it’s them instead of you”, as he did two decades ago. The U2 front man flew into Britain late last night to re-record the line after The Darkness singer Justin Hawkins claimed he had performed a superior version.

Bono sang the line on the original version in 1984, released to raise money for the famine in Ethiopia.

Producers Midge Ure and Nigel Godrich had been trying to contact Bono to perform on the single, which features some big names including Chris Martin, Dido, Robbie Williams, Fran Healy, Jamelia and the Sugababes, for the past two weeks.

But Bono said he “really, really loathed” the line.

He said: “I hated singing it in the first place. I really certainly didn’t want to sing it again.”

But he revealed he was finally persuaded to sing the “crushing line” by Bob Geldof for the first time 20 years ago.

“I did an impersonation of Bruce Springsteen.

“Actually, what was going on in my head, it was the ‘white boy, big soul voice’, which I’m not.”

He suggested it sounded like “Bruce Springsteen sitting on the toilet”.

This time around he said he sung the line “more like a whisper”.

“This is no time for hysteria. We know what the problems are, we know what we can do to fix them. This is no time for breast-beating, this is a time to be strategic,” Bono said.