“World Party” by The Waterboys

"World Party" turned up on Fisherman's Blues, the fourth album from Scottish-Irish folk rockers the Waterboys, in 1988, but it had been waiting a while: Mike Scott, Trevor Hutchinson and Karl Wallinger wrote it in the summer of 1985, just after This Is the Sea was finished, and it was Live Aid that sparked the lyrics. The band finally cut it at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin on 25 March 1987, with Scott producing.

It's a big-hearted, ramshackle knees-up: Scott singing and playing piano, Anthony Thistlethwaite on mandolin, Hutchinson on bass, Kevin Wilkinson on drums, Noel Bridgeman on congas and tambourine and Roddy Lorimer on trumpet, with the Abergavenny Male Voice Choir among the extra voices. In America it went to number 19 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.