Bob Geldof - Geldof Used Music To Overcome Yates Grief

The Boomtown Rats frontman lost his mother when he was just seven years old, but admits he didn't properly mourn until TV star Yates died of an accidental heroin overdose in 2000.

And the star reveals his grief was so strong, the only way he started to overcome the pair's demise was to put his feelings into context through music.

He tells Britain's Daily Telegraph, "I've been around a lot of death, in Africa and personally, seen too much dying. All of that stuff, your mum, when you're a kid, it just happens, you get on with it. I don't remember grief for my mum, or bewilderment, so that surges out with all the Paula stuff. Bereavement, absolutely unbound. It was overwhelming, this amorphous mass of loss and pain.

"The impulse to music is about framing your references to the world. You're trying to flesh out a sensation, find something that is essentially incoherent, certainly inchoate, and make it tangible. Until I'd done that, I couldn't understand what had happened to me."