Bob Geldof on his number one passion - making music

Bob Geldof has won plaudits for his tireless efforts on behalf of the poor of Africa, but making music is still his number one passion, he says.

The 58-year-old former Boomtown Rat just released a new CD called How to Write Popular Songs That Will Sell – not that he’s expecting too many people to notice.

"Just as much as people find it difficult to accept that I do music, I find it very difficult to try and sell it or to try and persuade people to listen," he told RTE last weekend.

"I get every opportunity to crap on about whatever's in my head -- speeches, radio, telly, writing in the papers -- I can do it and people will accept it. The problem is I can always speak my mind but I'm not allowed to sing my heart.”

There’s no doubt that Geldof’s nimble mind is always ready with an opinion. Take the death of the Celtic Tiger. The Dubliner is out and out furious at what’s happened to his country.

"We're f***ed," he says. "Ireland has been ruined by one of the most grotesque betrayals by a political and business class that I've ever seen, but I believe the media are part of it because they failed to really say anything aside from a few columnists who were saying.”

Geldof, as always, has great words of praise for his good friend and fellow Third World campaigner Bono, who he says is as committed to making relevant music with U2 as he ever was.

"No he's not lost it! Are you kidding? I think U2 are much too clever, much too honest as a unit for them ever to be dinosaurs," he says.

"They ask, are we, in the words of the deathless Floyd song, comfortably numb? As people, they haven't lost it. Bono is, they all are, just as ambitious as they ever were.”