Teenager moaning about money inspired new Boomtown Rats song, says Bob Geldof

Bob Geldof has said that watching a teenager moan to a friend about not having enough money helped to inspire his band’s latest single.

The Boomtown Rats frontman said that he was clothes shopping in the King’s Road, an iconic location in London’s rock and roll scene, when he saw the interaction which sparked their latest release.

He told BBC Radio 2: “There’s three charity shops and I noodle around there trying to buy cool shirts.

“I was down there one Saturday and this 15, 16-year-old girl was there and she was chatting to her mate over the counter who was working in the charity shop.

“She was moaning about it being Saturday and they’d no money but she’d dolled herself out.”

The band’s new song, which is titled Trash Glam Baby, will feature on their upcoming album Citizens Of Boomtown.

Geldof also told the Steve Wright In The Afternoon programme that there needs to be a “racket that approximates the times” in music.

He added: “Who’s going to sing those blues? And if the Boomtown Rats are the ones who will and can then we will.”

He added that when the band reformed he realised he had missed playing with the group.

He said: “When we got back together again, not prompted by ourselves but by a big gig, and when we played that gig I just really had missed that racket that these unique people make.

“I looked down and there was these parents singing all the songs but also their kids and here was these 15, 16, 17-year-olds singing she’s so 20th century, she’s so 1970s.

“Dude, you weren’t even a blink in your young parents’ eyes then, you know.”