Bob Geldof

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Presenter0:08

The program was originally broadcast in

Speaker 10:10

nineteen ninety two. And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week fits no neat professional category. He began life forty years ago just outside Dublin, and his childhood was hard. His mother died when he was small, and he was brought up by strict priests and a father who beat him.

Presenter0:44

After school, he spent several aimless years before forming a band, the Boomtown Rats, which enjoyed great success in the late seventies. And then, in 1984, shocked by the news of the famine in Ethiopia, he became the inspiration behind Band Aid, and the record they made became the most successful single ever produced in Britain. It led six months later to the legendary Live Aid concert. Typically, he's now left the charity behind him, uninterested in something which has become an institution. Instead, he's planning to produce breakfast television for Channel Four. He is Bob Geldof. Or should I say Sir Bob Geldof? Do you ever use the title?

Bob Geldof1:23

I don't, but and the taxi driver on the way over was sir bobbing furiously.

Presenter1:27

But you earned it on that July day in nineteen eighty five, and it's a day that people across the world will never forget, the day of the Live Aid concert, when you inspired millions to raise millions. You said at the time that it was the greatest day of your life, and one presumes it hasn't been eclipsed since.

Bob Geldof1:43

No, and I don't think it's possible. Um

Bob Geldof1:46

But it wasn't so much that I was aware it was the greatest day of my life.

Bob Geldof1:53

At the dawning of that particular day, it was at a specific moment during the day when I was on stage with my band, the Boontan Rats, and the emotive quality of the day, which I hadn't predicted at all nor planned for, struck me. And it was an electrifying moment to be aware that there was someone in Shanghai or Tierra del Fuego or wherever watching that specific moment. And it was a strangely calming moment. And I felt very centred. And that was maybe the first time that I was aware of feeling.

Bob Geldof2:41

That sense of being in place and

Bob Geldof2:44

been right, um was at that moment, and of course it passed very quickly, but just having experienced it the once, I knew that that must signify the greatest day of my life.

Presenter2:54

Let's get down to your eight desert island discs, which, despite months of warning, you've still only decided on in the past few days. Is that sheer?

Bob Geldof2:56

But just

Bob Geldof3:01

In the last couple of minutes.

Presenter3:03

Is that because it's such a weighty decision or is it sheer laziness?

Bob Geldof3:06

It's not sheer laziness, it's because right at the moment, you know, I'm up to my neck with a million uh things and it's the little minutiae sort of thing of life that really bore me and I dismiss them until the last moment because they're not important. And though I know that this is a venerable British institution, it is after all another radio show.

Presenter3:30

And it's an institution and you're not too fond of those.

Bob Geldof3:30

And it's an in

Bob Geldof3:32

But I understand the sort of conceit behind the show, which is that you're you know, that we're here now on this island. These are the eight that I've packed because I had five minutes' warning. Well, I left it to the last five minutes.

Presenter3:32

Uh

Presenter3:43

So the first of your eight is what?

Bob Geldof3:45

They were the first to my ages, um.

Bob Geldof3:48

without question one of the maybe ten um geniuses in in pop music, say since nineteen fifty six, it's in inception, and that's Van Morrison, who is, of course, an Irishman.

Bob Geldof4:00

And this particular track, I think I chose it because it's a long one so we won't have time for it all. But it I don't know how he did it actually, because it's like um the equivalent of an impressionistic song. It starts off with this s simple music that's very beautiful, and he builds up this image in the words with this gruff voice. Normally he's not as gruff as this, and he's singing about this garden and this girl in the garden.

Bob Geldof4:26

And he's sitting with her and her face is wet with rain and her father suddenly appears halfway through the song beside them and in the end he's just saying no method, no guru, no teacher. Um he's just with this girl in this garden wet with rain and it's absolutely beautiful.

Presenter4:46

And then one day, you came back home.

Presenter4:50

You were a creature all in rapture.

Presenter4:54

You had the key to your soul.

Presenter4:58

You did open.

Presenter5:01

That day you came back.

Presenter5:05

To the garden.

Presenter5:10

Van Morrison, and in the garden.

Presenter5:13

Your childhood, Bob Geldof.

Presenter5:15

It is the story of a child for whom life seemed to go wrong at a very early stage and who never really quite got back on the rails until adulthood, if I read it right. I mean lots of despair.

Presenter5:25

Loneliness, misery, and you know, huge amounts of panic here and there as well. Is that how you?

Bob Geldof5:30

That's how I remember it to be. Um my sisters have an alternative view and my dad.

Bob Geldof5:37

Despairingly has another view. And

Bob Geldof5:41

Essentially uh

Bob Geldof5:44

Um the background to it is is your standard cliched one. Um

Bob Geldof5:49

We weren't well off. My dad was a commercial traveller, still is indeed, uh, selling um carpets and towels and things. And he'd go away to the country every Monday and come back on Friday. And my mum died when she was forty.

Bob Geldof6:03

Um

Bob Geldof6:04

Just one night.

Bob Geldof6:05

and I was about six or seven.

Bob Geldof6:08

And my sisters were older.

Presenter6:10

What did she die of?

Bob Geldof6:11

Instead of a brain hemorrhage, she woke up and said.

Bob Geldof6:14

Barb, I've got a pain in my head.

Bob Geldof6:16

And uh

Bob Geldof6:18

He looked at her and ran downstairs to call the ambulance. We just had a phone put in.

Bob Geldof6:23

And the ambulance took a long time coming, and by the time they got there, she was dead.

Presenter6:26

Do you remember a distinct change in your life then?

Bob Geldof6:29

No, I don't. My father had come to me in the morning and he'd sat down and uh

Bob Geldof6:34

He said, I can't remember exactly, but in words the effect that your mum has gone to heaven He started crying and the fact that he was crying made me cry'cause I'd never seen him cry.

Bob Geldof6:44

And um

Bob Geldof6:46

Uh that was th the thing that shocked me, but not, you know, infinity, what's that?

Presenter6:51

Let's pause there for another record. What's number two?

Bob Geldof6:54

This is Ladden Wainwright the Third.

Bob Geldof6:58

who is a great songwriter. Um the opening line is Mary McGuire and Big Frank Clark got drunk again last night, and uh that's always a good grabber. But mainly um

Bob Geldof7:10

I started listening to Loudon Wainwright around uh nineteen.

Bob Geldof7:15

70 around that time and music was a big deal for me. I didn't play sports. I was interested in two things from about the age of 11, politics and pop music. And pop music absolutely articulated for me everything I needed to say. For a start off, I was scruffy even then. And I had floppy hair. I mean, you must understand that if you live by your seven or eleven years old, ironing your shirts is not one of your big priorities, you know. And I was beginning to be interested in girls and I had big lips and so they used to call me liver lips in school and stuff like that. And suddenly this boy comes along who's got even floppier hair and even bigger lips and he's insolent and he's magnificent and it's a very young Mick Jagger and suddenly I was cool, you know. And I listened to this guy Loun Wainwright III and I was living in a squat in Tuftall Park.

Bob Geldof8:09

And Lounway Note always brings back to me the smell of dog piss and leaking gas.

Bob Geldof8:16

That was what um the squad in Tuffnell Park smelt of, and there were two girls in the squad.

Bob Geldof8:22

And I was in love with one, and she didn't like me.

Bob Geldof8:26

and it was tragic. And I had been taking drugs and I was not well and doctors were giving me uppers and downers and sideways and everything. And I thought, God, I can't go on like this. I didn't have a job. But Loudon Wainwright.

Bob Geldof8:43

Kept me going and I thought if Mary Maguire and Big Frank Clark are out there, they have it worse.

Speaker 18:54

Mary McGuire and Big Frank Clark got drunk again last night I was waiting for my bus when they happened along Man, it was a beautiful sight

Speaker 19:17

Mary was laughing.

Speaker 19:21

Uh

Presenter9:21

Singin' it to me Loudon Wainwright the third and Central Square song.

Presenter9:26

You got beaten a lot by the priests at school and by your father. What for?

Bob Geldof9:31

Because I suppose I was a conoclastic. In school I wasn't doing at all well. They thought I was bright and as a result would try and beat me into doing well. We had a thing every week called a judgment book where each subject you would get marked out of nine. If you got all marks above six you were on the honours list. If you got one six you were off the honours list but it was okay. If you got three fives you were on the black list and it was read out in school. I used to get on the black list a lot, but it got to the point where my father would formalise beating me. If I got a six he'd beat me once. If I got a five I'd be beaten twice and so on.

Presenter10:16

And what sort of form did the beating state what did he beat you with?

Bob Geldof10:19

Stick

Bob Geldof10:20

And um

Presenter10:21

Where?

Bob Geldof10:22

On the hands.

Presenter10:24

You you grew to loathe your father, and and one hears why, and but obviously, you know, you've come to terms with it all since then, and you dedicated uh your autobiography to him.

Speaker 310:33

Mm.

Presenter10:33

which you wrote a few years ago, and you wrote because I now understand, and I hope he does too.

Bob Geldof10:37

Good.

Presenter10:40

Does he?

Bob Geldof10:42

I think so. I think he's completely bemused. In in loads of ways he actually stood up for me in weird things. I mean in 1968, which was, you know, all the world, Western world was in revolt. Here I was importing the little red book from China to distribute round the school, you see. And again it was a major source of irritation to the priest. And I got a visit from the political police in Ireland called the Special Branch. And they visited the school president and my father was called in and he thought, oh God, what's he done now?

Bob Geldof11:16

And they said, Your son, Mr Ganloff, has been caught importing illegal books and my father hit the roof, you know, and said you've had him for twelve years, indoctrinating him with your Catholicism. If you can't put a rational argument up against him, you know. And I was there looking at this man, like, who is this guy? Strange things like that. I mean, you know, when the ban started, you know, uh, Dad, I'm uh I'm joining a band. You know, what? What a ridiculous thing to do But he said, Well, do you think you'll make any money? I said, I don't know.

Bob Geldof11:43

And he said, Oh, well, good luck So I do sort of understand him. I mean the American publisher said, Does your father understand that you've written him a three hundred and sixty five page love letter? you know. Uh, I wouldn't put it as strong as that, but he had a tough time and he's a stronger man than I.

Presenter11:59

Record number three.

Bob Geldof12:01

Um it's uh Bob Dylan. Well I'm sure Bob Dylan every Bob Dylan song has been played on Desert Island discs. Um this is my back pages. Um

Bob Geldof12:13

I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now, is the great line from it. But I could pick really any Bob Dylan song, and it's a this was just the one that popped into my head and I said, I've got to have a Bob Dylan song and I was just singing to myself that line and it will do as much as any of the others. It's um

Bob Geldof12:31

A a brilliant song.

Speaker 112:34

Pounded with fire and flaming roads Using ideas as my maps

Speaker 112:44

We'll meet on edges soon, said I, Proud'neath heated brow Ah, but I was

Speaker 312:55

So much of the

Presenter12:57

Older than I'm younger than that now. My Back Pages from Bob Dylan. So Bob Geldoff, as an adolescent, was um bored and aimless and and branded a thief.

Presenter13:12

Was it obvious to anyone that you happened nevertheless to be very, very bright?

Presenter13:17

Well, I can say that.

Bob Geldof13:18

It wasn't obvious to me. No, what it was um I was interested in in the two things that I've mentioned, either music or politics. And at that time it was um

Bob Geldof13:34

Essentially, a sort of idea of protest politics was at hand. I liked the idea of CND and anti-apartheid. I'm not sure that I just didn't like the badges. I liked the argument. I liked the idea.

Presenter13:44

But how did you feed all that? I mean, were you a voracious reader?

Bob Geldof13:47

Yeah. I I read all the time.

Presenter13:49

But then when you were seventeen your mates all p passed the leaving certificate and you didn't.

Bob Geldof13:55

Yeah.

Presenter13:55

You failed. And you were, by all accounts, completely crushed by this.

Bob Geldof13:59

I was, because I was labouring under the illusion. I don't know where it came from. I don't even know why I sat them. I had done absolutely no work. None. I mean none. I went in and looked at these posters, which went nothing to me.

Bob Geldof14:14

and sat in these places for two hours, and came out

Bob Geldof14:18

obviously thinking I'd done something so we all went off to Peterborough where we were working a pecanning factory.

Bob Geldof14:24

Um

Bob Geldof14:26

And at the end of the season, when the results came in, they all phoned home.

Bob Geldof14:31

And I remember standing outside the phone box and one by one they they come out with this dazed expression saying, you know, I've got it, that's what they were saying. And I felt particularly betrayed by a guy called Shane Doyd, who had promised me that he had failed, you know, and that we could at least sort of have s you know, solidarity together. But every single one of them got it. And next minute, bingo, they were all saying they were off to university, you know. And I was left by the phone box and they all scarpered back to Ireland and they're

Bob Geldof15:04

They're burgeoning careers, I guess.

Presenter15:07

Some more music.

Bob Geldof15:09

Well number four is um The Beatles in My Life um

Bob Geldof15:14

For everyone of my age group, of course, it's a cliche to have a Beatles track, um, but again, uh

Bob Geldof15:23

My world wouldn't have been possible without the Beatles. I seriously doubt if I'd have been

Bob Geldof15:28

Abel

Bob Geldof15:29

To conduct my life as I've conducted it without them. And um.

Bob Geldof15:35

Uh I s my sister took me to see them in nineteen sixty four or something when I was very small.

Bob Geldof15:41

And I remember

Bob Geldof15:44

Um extremely well.

Bob Geldof15:46

um the sound of the screaming and the smell um which was again girls fainting and peeing themselves as they fainted, and the urine running down the green marbled linoleum of the Adelphi Cinema in Dublin.

Bob Geldof16:03

And um

Presenter16:04

There's a lot of urine in these records.

Bob Geldof16:05

But that's it because, you know, it's just it's there and uh that's what I remember about them. But it was just I never heard a uh a single note, but I listened to them and uh this is the John Lennon song and um

Bob Geldof16:20

Uh

Bob Geldof16:22

When I hear it, there are places I remember all my life, and some have changed, you know.

Bob Geldof16:28

I don't know, I suppose for millions of people, like like a lot of their songs, it's it means something to them, but this is certainly one of John Lennon's best songs and probably one of the Beatles' best songs.

Speaker 316:40

When I think of love as something new, oh I know I'll never lose affection.

Speaker 316:50

People are famous.

Speaker 316:52

But when before I know I'll often stop and think about them

Speaker 316:59

I like

Speaker 317:01

I love you more. Uh Uh

Presenter17:09

The Beatles in my life. Then in nineteen seventy five you formed the Boomtown Rats. Do you recall your first gig and how much you were paid?

Bob Geldof17:17

Oh yeah, it was um Halloween night, nineteen seventy five, Bolton Street College of Technology in a classroom. Uh we were standing on the teacher's dais and uh there was about twenty two people in the room.

Presenter17:32

How much do you get paid?

Bob Geldof17:34

Well, that was a big problem because we initially were getting paid thirty quid, and I thought the whole thing was a joke. I had no intention of ever doing a gig. You know, this was Saturday afternoon fun.

Presenter17:43

You're going to be found out in public.

Bob Geldof17:45

Absolutely. And the guitar player came in and said, I've got a gig. And I said, what? And he said, yeah, we're playing it both. I said, how much? And they said, 30 quid. I don't take my coat off for 30 quid. I said, what's wrong with you? I said, nothing's wrong. 30 quid, would you go, you know, forget it. And he said, well, how much do you want? I said, 60 quid, or we're not doing anything. So we went, we made a phone. He said, yeah, okay, 60 quid. And oh, no, you know. And in fact, it was very like Desert Island Discs. I didn't even think of the name until the last five minutes before the gig, you know. So.

Presenter18:16

We should have your record number five.

Bob Geldof18:16

We should have you.

Bob Geldof18:19

Well, this is Howland Wolf, Smokestack Lightning. I mean just those names when you're thirteen and you don't even know wh what's the name of the artist, is it Smokestack Lightning or Howland Wolf? because they're interchangeable. And it was this very raw, very intense music with this rhythm and it seemed to be talking about everything

Bob Geldof18:41

In the world, and I would sit there by myself listening to this guy, I had no idea who he was, somewhere in Chicago, howling.

Bob Geldof18:49

and at the moon and um or at the sky or shaking a fist at something.

Bob Geldof18:55

Subsequently in 1975 all we did was reinvent these guys this guy's music but play it at three times the speed because it seemed to require that. But still I listened to um the original versions and of all the guys that I always listened to I mean this is really a random uh choice but Howling Wolf is unbelievably brilliant and Smokestack Lightning is one of the great rock songs I suppose.

Speaker 319:21

Beep.

Speaker 319:24

First down

Speaker 319:25

Proud of you

Speaker 319:27

But don't you hear me cry?

Presenter19:50

Howland Wolf and Smokestack Lightning. So during the late seventies the Boomtown Rats, as we all know, made it big. Was was fame any kind of liberation for you?

Bob Geldof19:59

Oh, it was so fantastic.

Bob Geldof20:02

Between being on the dole,

Bob Geldof20:04

and eighteen months later to be on a beach in Barbados.

Bob Geldof20:09

With a beautiful blond girl.

Bob Geldof20:12

In A Villa on the Beach.

Bob Geldof20:14

With an L P at number two in the charts and a single at number six.

Bob Geldof20:20

Is

Bob Geldof20:21

You can imagine experiencing it. I lay back on that beach and.

Bob Geldof20:28

you know, thought about my life as being something so improbable.

Bob Geldof20:33

that it was laughable, but so enjoyable. And I had a platform more the fame thing wasn't huge to me, except that I had some means

Bob Geldof20:45

To shout about things. That was it. I mean, I even remember in interviews back then saying that that's what I wanted. You know, I didn't wa I had used to have nightmares about anonymity.

Bob Geldof20:55

And finally, I wasn't anonymous and that there was I was there and I mean the first television ever that we did.

Bob Geldof21:03

I mean

Bob Geldof21:04

Boy, did I go for it. I was full of bitterness, as they said, and rage, and

Bob Geldof21:10

But it was coherent and focussed and it had a reason, revenge, and I was quite clear, I was quite clear that finally.

Bob Geldof21:18

Um Vengeance was mine and here was the Medium T V.

Presenter21:21

And you went on television and talked about your father too, didn't you? And were fairly.

Presenter21:26

Damning about him.

Bob Geldof21:28

I I was as I said, there was no question that revenge was my motivation. I couldn't beat him with sticks like he had beaten me. Um but uh

Bob Geldof21:40

I mean, I told the truth.

Bob Geldof21:42

Knowing full well that he was sitting with his cronies in the Bow Club.

Bob Geldof21:48

Watching his son.

Bob Geldof21:51

Um which without question he was proud of, you know, having you know hit records which were like weird for him, you know. How come he can play guitar and write songs? What's that about? You know, wh where did that come from? Well, I didn't know, you know, it was as much a surprise to me. And uh but I knew that, and so the targo was specific, and so was the church, and so was the school.

Bob Geldof22:13

And all those things.

Presenter22:13

And all those things.

Bob Geldof22:15

No, he

Bob Geldof22:16

No.

Bob Geldof22:17

Not once.

Presenter22:19

Record number six.

Bob Geldof22:21

Well, that beautiful um blonde girl who was on the beach in uh Barbados with me, was my um wife, uh, Paula.

Bob Geldof22:31

Um

Bob Geldof22:33

I still am mad for her, and uh she's still incredibly funny and very bright and very beautiful. And um she made a record once with these friends of ours called Heaven Seventeen um and it was on the same record where Tina Turner really made her comeback. They got all these people to sing these bizarre songs and uh they asked Paula, who was doing a programme called The Tube.

Bob Geldof22:58

To sing these boots are made for walking. It couldn't be anybody else, really. Here's my missus.

Speaker 323:10

Swap

Speaker 323:13

And that's just what

Speaker 323:16

If these things are gonna walk all over you

Presenter23:36

Corner Yates singing These Boots Are Made for Walking, and that was you were the backing singers, were you?

Bob Geldof23:41

Yeah, myself and Midjur and Greg from Heaven Seventeen, we were called, funnily enough, the Nancy Boys.

Presenter23:49

So you and Paul have got three daughters, Fifi, Trixie Belle, Peaches and Pixie, aged nine, three and eighteen months. Who chooses their names?

Bob Geldof23:51

Yeah.

Bob Geldof23:53

Yeah, it's not

Bob Geldof23:55

Yeah.

Bob Geldof23:57

Well, Fifi, um, was after my auntie Fifi, who, um, almost solely in my family, um

Bob Geldof24:07

Was the one who

Bob Geldof24:08

Never really criticized me. The others were always saying, Oh, you're never going to make anything of yourself. You're a layabout. Why don't you do some work? Auntie Fif never really bothered with that. She used to make me coffee cakes when my father put me in as a boarder. And she always used to tell him to leave me alone and used to always say, You know, you should be a writer, you know, you're always reading. Try writing, you know. And just, you know, always that. There was one positive voice from someone. So, obviously, the first kid I had, and she was a girl, I called her after Auntie Fifi.

Presenter24:43

and Peaches and Pixie.

Bob Geldof24:45

Peaches because Fifi was at the birth, which sounds very hippie, but in fact WhatsApp she was there because she wanted to get a rollo and she had been told that you know if she helped mummy, What's it as soon assoever she got a rollo and she would also be able to call the baby whatever she felt like. So after peaches had been washed off and she had this sort of little peachy face, you know, a little bit of blonde fluff on top, she said she looks like a peach, you know. So he said okay, peaches.

Presenter25:13

And Pixie the same?

Bob Geldof25:14

Pixie, the exact same. I mean, I called her Pixie'cause she came out and she had these little pointy ears and scrunched up face. So, you know, Pixie, you know, it's very straightforward stuff really.

Presenter25:23

And they're they're obviously I and Paula together, you know, the centre of your life. I mean, patently fatherhood for you in comparison with what you've been describing.

Presenter25:33

was your experience. Fatherhood for you is an enormously happy experience.

Bob Geldof25:37

Yeah, it's very nice. I like it very much. It's, you know, it may be very boring, etc., etc., but, um.

Bob Geldof25:43

Uh I really wouldn't have any other way.

Presenter25:47

Next piece of music.

Bob Geldof25:48

nineteen seventy five, I was just disgusted by most music. And when we were starting, we tried to play what seemed to us to be real music, rhythm and blues. And my friend in Dublin, who became our manager,

Bob Geldof26:05

Was playing me all these records that he thought that were happening then were great, and he turned me on to reggae, which I hadn't much experience of. I'd heard bits of it but never quite got it. And he gave me a couple of Bob Marley records, and I just again thought, God, this is you know absolutely important. I mean, here was this new language, like those black men, you know, here was a new language. I may not understand exactly what they were saying, but it sounded fantastic. It was a way of using language, reinventing it, and making it powerful again. I picked this song, I mean it may be a bit corny picking this song, given it's me, but I just picked one at random, and mainly because I like the way that he uses sort of Jamaican English in this. It's fantastic. It's called Them Belly Full of Me Hungry.

Bob Geldof26:54

Uh

Speaker 326:56

Yeah.

Speaker 326:58

The belly full of

Speaker 327:02

Hang my mother.

Speaker 327:04

Rain of all but the empty time

Speaker 327:07

But the cook got food and a well danced

Speaker 327:12

You tell me when you say

Presenter27:24

Bob Marley and the Whalers singing Them Belly Full, But We Hungry.

Presenter27:28

I take it you wouldn't mind being alone on a desert island. Self sufficiency is your strong suitor.

Bob Geldof27:33

Uh it wouldn't bother me very much. I mean um

Bob Geldof27:38

Uh it would depend obviously on on the conditions. I mightn't last that long, but that wouldn't bother me too much either. Um boredom would be the thing. Uh

Bob Geldof27:47

I've I'm very afraid of boredom and so I stay

Bob Geldof27:51

frenetically busy, um to the point of irrit irritating myself to death and exhaustion.

Presenter27:57

You don't take holidays either, apparently.

Bob Geldof27:58

No, I don't. I'm not good at them. Um, you know, and it drives everyone mad because I can't stay on the beach. Uh I'm sort of up walking around and I can't read, sit still on a beach for long. Um, and I've got to get in a car and drive and if, you know, I've got to be able to drive far. It's sort of a question of ten miles sort of thing.

Presenter28:16

Sounds deeply neurotic.

Bob Geldof28:18

Yeah, I probably am. You know, I'm a ragbag of neurosis, you know.

Presenter28:23

A lot of people said after Live Aid, of course, that that you had won the entree into politics, really. You'd won the clout. You like talking, as you've said, and you could do it. Did you ever give it any serious consideration?

Bob Geldof28:36

No, um

Bob Geldof28:38

No, not at all. I don't I didn't think it interested me and I don't think it does. Um being a sort of single issue.

Bob Geldof28:46

Live aid was relatively easy to get an idea across, quite a sophisticated one, with quite a lot of debate going on. Being one of, whatever, six hundred odd voices in Parliament subject to party whips would be like being in school again. And I know I couldn't subject myself to that. I would inevitably be one of whatever party's rebels. Therefore, I wouldn't get any promotion. And so, what are you consigned to? A voice of impotence, you know, howling in the wilderness of the back benches, other than being an irritating humourist like Dennis Skinner, say, or someone like that, which I can't see much of a point to, you know, except that he's hilarious. If I could

Bob Geldof29:23

Implement actual change.

Bob Geldof29:26

then that would be all right. But I don't think you can implement actual change even in national government level.

Presenter29:30

I mean, if you could be Prime Minister.

Bob Geldof29:33

I don't even think then. I think you're circumscribed, which is the very good thing about democracy.

Presenter29:37

Record number eight.

Bob Geldof29:40

Um record number eight is Iggy Pop, um and mainly because um

Bob Geldof29:46

It's a great track Lust for Life.

Bob Geldof29:48

I do like life very much, but at the moment when it ceases to be, I won't mind in the least, as I view myself here in my circumstances as being highly improbable. But it seems to me to be the purpose is to check out what all this stuff is, you know, this Bob Geldof stuff.

Bob Geldof30:12

To test it to its limits, which are less than some people and more than others, so long as.

Bob Geldof30:18

that at the moment when I finally

Bob Geldof30:20

Close my eyes. My last.

Bob Geldof30:24

Coherent thought was M that was interesting, then it will have been worth it and then blessed oblivion.

Speaker 130:33

Yes, I'm gonna love

Speaker 130:35

That's like

Speaker 330:37

Government chickens

Speaker 130:39

Uh

Speaker 330:41

That's a matter of time.

Presenter30:57

Piggy Pop and Lust for Life. Which is your favorite of the eight, Bob?

Bob Geldof31:01

Um Van Morrison.

Bob Geldof31:03

I think it has to be.

Presenter31:06

Um waiting for you on the beach is is the Bible, and a complete work. Is the Bible of any use to you?

Bob Geldof31:10

Uh

Bob Geldof31:12

Hmm.

Bob Geldof31:14

Uh not hugely, but I um

Bob Geldof31:17

Admire the style.

Presenter31:19

And the complete works of Shakespeare there, too. What's your book? What extra book would you like?

Bob Geldof31:23

Um probably the diaries of Samuel Pepys.

Presenter31:27

Why?

Bob Geldof31:28

Because they're big.

Bob Geldof31:30

Um I could read a day at a time and

Bob Geldof31:34

Because I think he was fantastic.

Bob Geldof31:37

And he was able to handle great historic moments.

Bob Geldof31:41

In such a human way. I mean, to live, to be surrounded by the flames of the Great Fire London and wondering how to get your money out of the house without your wife seeing because you didn't want her to know how much you had and find somewhere to borrow to bury it without a neighbour looking. It's also wonderful to go to sleep at night just reading his books because he always sums up the day and he always says another day done and all is well and thanks to God.

Bob Geldof32:11

That's the book.

Presenter32:12

And what about your luxury?

Bob Geldof32:14

In the end, if it's not too grand, I'd bring the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

Presenter32:21

I'm not sure we can transport it. I'm worried about that one.

Bob Geldof32:24

Well, it's completely impractical to have, so I thought I was conforming to the rules there. And of course my other alternative, as I said to you earlier, was a packet of three.

Presenter32:35

Which you can't have,'cause that's well.

Bob Geldof32:36

Yeah.

Presenter32:37

It's too practical, basically.

Bob Geldof32:39

Well, not really. I mean, you can never be too safe, Sue. And as I absolutely expect my Ursula Andres to rise Venus-like from the waves.

Presenter32:48

Would you like to choose between the Metropolitan Museum of New York or a Packet of Three?

Bob Geldof32:52

Well, I think a pact of three C is sort of

Bob Geldof32:55

nice because it's symbolic. It's sort of, you know, represents hope over any possibility of salvation. But on the other hand, I'd probably prefer to look at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, so I'll take the latter.

Presenter33:10

Sir Bob Geldof, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Bob Geldof33:14

Thank you.

Speaker 133:22

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.