studio approach, and you get to the real
essence of the piece and I think a lot of
the material on this next record will work
really well under that kind of a process. I
think the material at its very core is really
about the four members of the band
playing together, so I think it’s going to
work very well live.’
Bono once said with a grin, ‘I have
written some straight love songs only
to have put them aside because they
might elicit projectile vomiting from the
great outdoors! So I like love songs that
are bittersweet, and I like women to be
more complex in songs because that’s
my experience of them in life. But I
think everyone gets it in the neck, don’t
they? Not just women. I would think if
anything I’m harder on the singer than
the subject...’
The Edge recalled this period
stating, ‘We knew when were getting
into the War album that we wanted
something really hard-hitting. It was a
conscious thing... It was a big word to
use and we knew it at the time. I guess
that album wrapped up all our beliefs
and confusion in one package. A lot of
political feelings, the anger about what
was happening in Northern Ireland.
Plus the spiritual side of what we were
doing was also in flux – we were rejecting
conventional religion at that point,
because it just wasn’t for us. We realised
that sectarianism was just another form
of tribalism, just an excuse that people
were using for killing one another. It had
become an ugly thing. We saw a struggle
on every front, and that word “war” – as
big as it was – encompassed where we
were at in our own struggle to try and
figure out what was right and where
we were going. It was the right word to
make sense of a country going through
a very hard time, politically, spiritually,
in every sense. That album had Sunday
Bloody Sunday on it, which was our kind
of statement on the North. We wrote
that song without ever considering how
serious an issue it was to everyone else
and how outrageous it was for a rock ’n’
roll band to write about. To us it was the
most natural thing. We never held back
on anything. Everything that we were
going through went into our music. In
a way, probably the only way we couldarticulate some of the things that we
were feeling was through our music. We
were really clear that violent struggle was
never going to work. We were very angry
about the fact that people were still dying
in what we saw as a vain, stupid war in
Northern Ireland. So our stance was
completely anti-war.’
Bono was immediately identified
as the spokesman of the band, due
to his onstage statements and air of
mystique. However, this role didn’t
sit well with him: ‘I think I’m a kind of
part-time rock ’n’ roll star. We’re probably
the worst rock stars ever; we’ve got all the
wrong equipment... these arms are stuck
on the wrong way. Part of it with U2 is
the falling over and picking ourselves
up off the ground, part of it is sitting up
late at night in Philadelphia and saying
something that will put a noose round my
neck. I met Elvis Costello a few months
ago and he said to me, “I’m ambivalent
about U2, I love it and I hate it”. He said,
“You walk this tightrope that none of
your contemporaries will walk – they’re
afraid to walk it – and when you stay on it
I bow my head. But you fall off it so many
times”. He’s right. We do fall off, a lot,
and onstage I’ll try for something and it
won’t work and... but it might work, and
that’s the point. It might work. I’ve been
sensing that I should just shut up. I keep
stressing that what’s special about U2 is
the music, not the musicians. The more
we do interviews and get involved in the
paraphernalia around the music, the more
we become the focus of attention rather
than the words I write, or the music.’This article is an extract from We Will
Follow, the U2 Special Edition of Music
Legends. Available now at issuu.com.Bono on stage at the US Festival, Ontario
Motor Speedway, California, 30 May 1983.DO YOU WANT SOME MORE...?
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