Politics & Power Quote by Bob Geldof

There is a whole autobiography packed into that ladder of verbs: must, need, have to. Geldof frames his life less as a series of career choices than as escalating obligations, each rung heavier than the last. “Music” sits in the realm of compulsion and identity - the thing he’d do even if no one paid, even if the world didn’t ask. “Business” is the pragmatic middle: not romantic, not evil, just the infrastructure that keeps the lights on and turns art into something sustainable. Then comes “politics,” not as ambition but as duty, the final stop when fame stops being personal and starts being public property.

The line works because it refuses the standard celebrity redemption arc. He doesn’t claim politics made him enlightened; he implies it made him cornered. Coming out of the post-punk era and into the Live Aid/anti-poverty megaphone of the 1980s, Geldof became a template for a modern phenomenon: the entertainer drafted into governance-by-soft-power. Once you’ve proven you can move money and attention at scale, staying “just an artist” starts to look like abdication.

There’s also a quiet self-defense here. By distinguishing “must” from “have to,” he’s preempting the cynic who says activism is branding. The subtext is: I didn’t go looking for politics; politics came looking for me, because the world’s problems don’t respect the boundaries of your job description.