We're One
May 21, 2021 3:22 AM Subscribe
U2 is currently remastering their roster of videos on Youtube. What started as a With/WIthout You remaster (slyt) ended up as One, One, the Fly and more.
One was my favorite song for years. It's been so long since I watched a classic MTV-style music video. It's so weird to see how young they were on Achtung Baby--even weirder to see them in 1984 chavenet. The Bad video is also fun in showing the tech people lurking just off stage keeping everything flowing.
I'd also forgotten how much they were basically a Christian rock band in the early 80s. (This is not an insult. They just were very into Christian imagery in their music, but in a sweet, earnest way, like religion was genuinely important to them. Think about "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking for" and "Mysterious Ways". It's hard to believe how much "Christian rock" has changed since then.)
posted by hydropsyche at 5:17 AM on May 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'd also forgotten how much they were basically a Christian rock band in the early 80s. (This is not an insult. They just were very into Christian imagery in their music, but in a sweet, earnest way, like religion was genuinely important to them. Think about "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking for" and "Mysterious Ways". It's hard to believe how much "Christian rock" has changed since then.)
posted by hydropsyche at 5:17 AM on May 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
No qualms with Bad as "their best song", but this would be my choice. Still gives me chills.
posted by mcstayinskool at 5:38 AM on May 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by mcstayinskool at 5:38 AM on May 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
That's interesting, thinking of October as a Christian album. I don't think I'd ever viewed it from that lens. My introduction to U2 was with their next album, War, so I've always viewed them first and foremost as a pacifist protest band. The Unforgettable Fire certainly reinforced that.
posted by mcstayinskool at 5:42 AM on May 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by mcstayinskool at 5:42 AM on May 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
In college, I saw an a capella group sing "Running to Stand Still," it was the lead singer's solo piece and she was incredible. It's a great song, but in my head canon it's not a U2 song, it's that song by that woman that night.
posted by chavenet at 6:06 AM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 6:06 AM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
No, no, "Running To Stand Still" is that song that The Edge sings to Mario Batali for some reason.
posted by bondcliff at 6:47 AM on May 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by bondcliff at 6:47 AM on May 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
Christian Rock is driven by the banal demands of that particular marketplace. Whereas U2 are a rock band who just happen to be Christian (three of them anyway).
thinking of October as a Christian album.
I think the story behind October is that Bono lost his binder full of lyrics just before they were to start recording, so what you're hearing on a lot of that album was made up on the spot in the studio, and Bono being an earnest, passionate young Christian -- that's what came out.
Even though it might be U2's weakest album,
I've been going through all my accumulated vinyl of late, trying to decide what to keep and what to set free. The only two U2 albums that are immediate keepers are the first two. Because to this day, radio tends to mostly ignore them, the culture in general for that matter, so I've never really developed allergies. Though I did play the hell out of them myself for a while.
One prolonged season of loneliness comes to mind toward the end 1981. I was the proverbial new kid in town, young and about as poor as I've ever been, but I did have a cassette with Boy on one side, October on the other (someone had mailed it to me). For a while, it was probably my only friend. I'd make time for it pretty much every night, turn off the lights in my little room and watch the distortions and refractions of passing headlights play across the ceiling and walls. I don't think I ever listened that closely to the lyrical content, but rather, I just got lost in the cool, strong and ultimately soulful mood of it all. The Edge's fierce and adventurous guitar, the rock solid rhythm section that never got in the way and the singer who was probably at least as confused as I was (Bono and I are pretty much the same age) but he certainly wasn't letting it drag him down.
Thanks for the links, kfholy, and everybody else.
posted by philip-random at 7:27 AM on May 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
thinking of October as a Christian album.
I think the story behind October is that Bono lost his binder full of lyrics just before they were to start recording, so what you're hearing on a lot of that album was made up on the spot in the studio, and Bono being an earnest, passionate young Christian -- that's what came out.
Even though it might be U2's weakest album,
I've been going through all my accumulated vinyl of late, trying to decide what to keep and what to set free. The only two U2 albums that are immediate keepers are the first two. Because to this day, radio tends to mostly ignore them, the culture in general for that matter, so I've never really developed allergies. Though I did play the hell out of them myself for a while.
One prolonged season of loneliness comes to mind toward the end 1981. I was the proverbial new kid in town, young and about as poor as I've ever been, but I did have a cassette with Boy on one side, October on the other (someone had mailed it to me). For a while, it was probably my only friend. I'd make time for it pretty much every night, turn off the lights in my little room and watch the distortions and refractions of passing headlights play across the ceiling and walls. I don't think I ever listened that closely to the lyrical content, but rather, I just got lost in the cool, strong and ultimately soulful mood of it all. The Edge's fierce and adventurous guitar, the rock solid rhythm section that never got in the way and the singer who was probably at least as confused as I was (Bono and I are pretty much the same age) but he certainly wasn't letting it drag him down.
Thanks for the links, kfholy, and everybody else.
posted by philip-random at 7:27 AM on May 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's hard to believe how much "Christian rock" has changed since then
I have not been exposed to much of it, but, based on what I heard in the car while searching for a station and discovering that I am in Christian rock quicksand, it sounds like Coldplay. Who sound like......? It seemed like it was basically very well-done, slick, knock-offs of the "modern rock" radio sound, with lyrics about God or faith etc instead of whatever they usually sing about in that idiom.
posted by thelonius at 7:38 AM on May 21, 2021
I have not been exposed to much of it, but, based on what I heard in the car while searching for a station and discovering that I am in Christian rock quicksand, it sounds like Coldplay. Who sound like......? It seemed like it was basically very well-done, slick, knock-offs of the "modern rock" radio sound, with lyrics about God or faith etc instead of whatever they usually sing about in that idiom.
posted by thelonius at 7:38 AM on May 21, 2021
In college, I saw an a capella group sing "Running to Stand Still," it was the lead singer's solo piece and she was incredible. It's a great song, but in my head canon it's not a U2 song, it's that song by that woman that night.
To me it's an Elbow song.
posted by nevercalm at 8:16 AM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
To me it's an Elbow song.
posted by nevercalm at 8:16 AM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
chavenet - that YT clip of "Bad" was spectacular. I was an early fan of U2 in the early 80s (posters on my bedroom wall, ripped t-shirts, buttons all over my jean jacket, etc). I kind of lost interest once "Pop" came out and all that. I did actually see them in concert at Giants Stadium for the Achtung Baby tour, and they were phenomenal.
But revisiting "Bad" in that video was a great 7 minutes. I had forgotten just how powerful that song is. I got chills watching. Thank you for posting that.
posted by sundrop at 8:32 AM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
But revisiting "Bad" in that video was a great 7 minutes. I had forgotten just how powerful that song is. I got chills watching. Thank you for posting that.
posted by sundrop at 8:32 AM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
U2 is such a perfect example of how my self cleaves into selves over time.. There's a self turning 15 on a shale beach hearing Joshua Tree, then there's a self watching the South Park episode where the punchline to the poo joke is: Bono.
I will say, the band got me a few times over multiple selves.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:51 AM on May 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
I will say, the band got me a few times over multiple selves.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:51 AM on May 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
The Edge singing such an amazing song to Mario Batali is a weird video. He sang it beautifully, and Batali seemed to be completely unmoved by it.
posted by hydropsyche at 8:57 AM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 8:57 AM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
I was the world's biggest U2 fan in the 1980s but I don't think I've ever seen that video for Bad. It's got everything: Robin Williams-with-a-mullet Bono, Edge without-a-hat, normal Adam Clayton, and Larry in the shadows. It even has some shots of Greg Carroll, the roadie whose death inspired the song One Tree hill.
By the way, has everyone seen COVID Adam Clayton?
posted by bondcliff at 9:05 AM on May 21, 2021 [6 favorites]
By the way, has everyone seen COVID Adam Clayton?
posted by bondcliff at 9:05 AM on May 21, 2021 [6 favorites]
then there's a self watching the South Park episode where the punchline to the poo joke is: Bono.
the Bono factor is what finally drove me from my early onset U2 fandom. I didn't grow tired of his proselytizing or his histrionics, just his voice, all that passion spilled over both of his sleeves. I saw U2 three times in the 1980s, a club in 1981, a three thousand seat theatre in 1983, and then a stadium in 1987. For me, it just got less amazing the bigger those venues got, the harder Bono tried. But even then, it was well into the 1990s before I realized I just couldn't be bothered to investigate anything that was fronted by that voice anymore.
Brings to mind something that this recent Sinead O'Connor thread got me reflecting on. The first time I ever heard her voice was the song Heroine, from a soundtrack album credited to the Edge (for a movie nobody ever saw). Anyway, it floored me. It floored all of us at the radio station where I worked at the time. I recall one DJ suggesting that, "If the boys in U2 had any balls at all, they'd turf Bono and give the job to Sinead, because I'm tired of him, and I don't see how I could ever get tired of listening to her."
posted by philip-random at 9:16 AM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
the Bono factor is what finally drove me from my early onset U2 fandom. I didn't grow tired of his proselytizing or his histrionics, just his voice, all that passion spilled over both of his sleeves. I saw U2 three times in the 1980s, a club in 1981, a three thousand seat theatre in 1983, and then a stadium in 1987. For me, it just got less amazing the bigger those venues got, the harder Bono tried. But even then, it was well into the 1990s before I realized I just couldn't be bothered to investigate anything that was fronted by that voice anymore.
Brings to mind something that this recent Sinead O'Connor thread got me reflecting on. The first time I ever heard her voice was the song Heroine, from a soundtrack album credited to the Edge (for a movie nobody ever saw). Anyway, it floored me. It floored all of us at the radio station where I worked at the time. I recall one DJ suggesting that, "If the boys in U2 had any balls at all, they'd turf Bono and give the job to Sinead, because I'm tired of him, and I don't see how I could ever get tired of listening to her."
posted by philip-random at 9:16 AM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
Christ, what a Bono!
posted by y2karl at 9:19 AM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by y2karl at 9:19 AM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
Just when I thought I didn't have any more time for U2 I heard "Stuck In a Moment" and reader.. I will admit, my eyes moistened. We've all been stuck in a moment, no?
posted by elkevelvet at 10:01 AM on May 21, 2021
posted by elkevelvet at 10:01 AM on May 21, 2021
I'd also forgotten how much they were basically a Christian rock band in the early 80s. This is not an insult. They just were very into Christian imagery in their music, but in a sweet, earnest way, like religion was genuinely important to them.
Oh, they still use Christian imagery today. "Beautiful Day" has the line "See the bird with the leaf in her mouth/After the flood all the colors came out", the song "For The First Time" off Zooropa straight-up quotes Jesus at one point, the video for "Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me" has a clip where Bono is reading from The Screwtape Letters, Pop has a song titled "Yahweh". I read an interview where Bono says that they prefer to go subtle with the Christian angle - like, if you roll that way and you get that reference, then great, and if not, then the song's still cool and it's all good. I think he called it "drawing our fish in the sand". (If anyone really wants to see an in-depth meditation on "U2 and Christian imagery", the 33 1/3 book covering Achtung Baby has a good bash at comparing it to both Milton's Paradise Lost and the theme of the Fall of Man.) Bono has said that the familiarity with Scripture came in really handy with his activism - it was the way he got through to a lot of GOP congressmen, especially when trying to change minds about AIDS research and funding (there was more than one occasion where he would draw an analogy between the way lepers were treated in Biblical times and the way AIDS patients were treated today, and it actually worked).
I didn't grow tired of his proselytizing or his histrionics, just his voice, all that passion spilled over both of his sleeves.
Oh, dude, that was the appeal for me. U2 gave me permission to Care Deeply about things at a time when that kind of Caring Deeply wasn't supposed to be "cool", and the one time I saw them it had the passion and energy of a religious revival when everyone has tipped over into sheer ecstasy. I didn't experiment with drugs when I was a teenager at all - I didn't need to, I had "Where The Streets Have No Name" and "Gloria" and a host of others. I drove cross-country when I was 30 and one of the highlights was reaching a loonnnnnnnnnng straight highway in Utah where I was the only one on the road and the speed limit was 88, and I stopped the car for a minute, put on The Joshua Tree, and then started driving, timing things so that I was flooring the gas right as Larry was kicking up the drums in that explosion at the beginning, and then I rolled down the windows and scream-sung along as loud as I could - "I WANNA RUN, I WANT TO HIDE, I wanna TEAR DOWN the WALLS that HOLD ME INSIDE......" I maintain that The Joshua Tree is perfect driving music in the American Southwest.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:00 PM on May 21, 2021 [11 favorites]
Oh, they still use Christian imagery today. "Beautiful Day" has the line "See the bird with the leaf in her mouth/After the flood all the colors came out", the song "For The First Time" off Zooropa straight-up quotes Jesus at one point, the video for "Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me" has a clip where Bono is reading from The Screwtape Letters, Pop has a song titled "Yahweh". I read an interview where Bono says that they prefer to go subtle with the Christian angle - like, if you roll that way and you get that reference, then great, and if not, then the song's still cool and it's all good. I think he called it "drawing our fish in the sand". (If anyone really wants to see an in-depth meditation on "U2 and Christian imagery", the 33 1/3 book covering Achtung Baby has a good bash at comparing it to both Milton's Paradise Lost and the theme of the Fall of Man.) Bono has said that the familiarity with Scripture came in really handy with his activism - it was the way he got through to a lot of GOP congressmen, especially when trying to change minds about AIDS research and funding (there was more than one occasion where he would draw an analogy between the way lepers were treated in Biblical times and the way AIDS patients were treated today, and it actually worked).
I didn't grow tired of his proselytizing or his histrionics, just his voice, all that passion spilled over both of his sleeves.
Oh, dude, that was the appeal for me. U2 gave me permission to Care Deeply about things at a time when that kind of Caring Deeply wasn't supposed to be "cool", and the one time I saw them it had the passion and energy of a religious revival when everyone has tipped over into sheer ecstasy. I didn't experiment with drugs when I was a teenager at all - I didn't need to, I had "Where The Streets Have No Name" and "Gloria" and a host of others. I drove cross-country when I was 30 and one of the highlights was reaching a loonnnnnnnnnng straight highway in Utah where I was the only one on the road and the speed limit was 88, and I stopped the car for a minute, put on The Joshua Tree, and then started driving, timing things so that I was flooring the gas right as Larry was kicking up the drums in that explosion at the beginning, and then I rolled down the windows and scream-sung along as loud as I could - "I WANNA RUN, I WANT TO HIDE, I wanna TEAR DOWN the WALLS that HOLD ME INSIDE......" I maintain that The Joshua Tree is perfect driving music in the American Southwest.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:00 PM on May 21, 2021 [11 favorites]
I wish that instead of remastering their old music they would get into the studio and totally re-do it now, similar to how during a live show they'll update the songs and add bits to them. I used to never care for Bullet the Blue Sky but absolutely loved how on each tour it sounded so different from the previous versions and now it's part of the murderers' row opening tracks to Joshua Tree for me. How do they approach an album like War in 2021 when Ireland's had relative peace for so long but tension is starting to increase again, when instead of being the youth trying to sing a new future into existence they're now old men living in that future and maybe trying to remind people of how things used to be? How do they approach songs that maybe they never felt were that good, or are embarrassed about? I think it would be a neat project.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:33 PM on May 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:33 PM on May 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm going to put in a vote for U2 playing Bad at Live Aid at Wembley in 1985. They weren't really huge yet when that came out, but this video showed how huge they were going to be.
Plus, you get to see Bono's mid-1980s mullet in its full glory.
Watching old U2 videos makes me a bit sad. I'm pretty much exactly the same age as Bono; we were all so much younger then.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 12:33 PM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
Plus, you get to see Bono's mid-1980s mullet in its full glory.
Watching old U2 videos makes me a bit sad. I'm pretty much exactly the same age as Bono; we were all so much younger then.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 12:33 PM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
Incidentally, if you've not heard a choir treatment of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" then this is quite nice (Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir).
posted by elkevelvet at 1:16 PM on May 21, 2021
posted by elkevelvet at 1:16 PM on May 21, 2021
I'm glad to see U2 is remastering their videos for public consumption. If they've got, like, a film version, rescanning it would be the best move. I have no idea what this remastering process is like, but I do see a noticeable upgrade in image quality over the stuff I've been watching for decades.
I still remember quite vividly all the years after Joshua Tree and Rattle And Hum, and waiting, waiting for a new U2 song to appear, and MTV making a big deal of the World Premiere and gathering to watch it and being confronted with The Fly. [also remastered, and looks GREAT!]
As far as I can tell, a lot of people either went with them on that journey, or just stopped at that point. That guitar solo... takes Edge's previous chimes and makes them into something entirely else. (Not that we weren't forewarned -- Bullet The Blue Sky was there all along.)
One interesting indicator from the video for The Fly is something to realize about U2 -- for years, they've conceived of the album and the promotion of the album and the tour all as one artistic unit. We see the ZooTV logo and a lot of what would become the ZooTV massive overload being hinted at in this video. They were already imagining giant stacks of televisions and possibly even hanging Trabants to use as lighting rigs when this video came out, well before the album.
posted by hippybear at 9:15 PM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
I still remember quite vividly all the years after Joshua Tree and Rattle And Hum, and waiting, waiting for a new U2 song to appear, and MTV making a big deal of the World Premiere and gathering to watch it and being confronted with The Fly. [also remastered, and looks GREAT!]
As far as I can tell, a lot of people either went with them on that journey, or just stopped at that point. That guitar solo... takes Edge's previous chimes and makes them into something entirely else. (Not that we weren't forewarned -- Bullet The Blue Sky was there all along.)
One interesting indicator from the video for The Fly is something to realize about U2 -- for years, they've conceived of the album and the promotion of the album and the tour all as one artistic unit. We see the ZooTV logo and a lot of what would become the ZooTV massive overload being hinted at in this video. They were already imagining giant stacks of televisions and possibly even hanging Trabants to use as lighting rigs when this video came out, well before the album.
posted by hippybear at 9:15 PM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
I love, love, love the version of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" they did in a church with the New Voices of Freedom (the song starts about a minute in). U2 starts off the song with the choir backing them up and then they let the choir take over.
This gospel soul cover is pretty fun. YouTube comment: "I know this is a U2 cover. But this cat makes it sound like a Jackie Wilson song." With a James Brown finish!
The tambourine/harmonica player clearly wants to be the front man, though.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:17 PM on May 21, 2021
This gospel soul cover is pretty fun. YouTube comment: "I know this is a U2 cover. But this cat makes it sound like a Jackie Wilson song." With a James Brown finish!
The tambourine/harmonica player clearly wants to be the front man, though.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:17 PM on May 21, 2021
I love, love, love the version of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" yt they did in a church with the New Voices of Freedom
That's from Rattle And Hum, which I saw 3 times in the theater the week it was showing. It's not a great film, but it has truly great moments in it.
posted by hippybear at 9:25 PM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
That's from Rattle And Hum, which I saw 3 times in the theater the week it was showing. It's not a great film, but it has truly great moments in it.
posted by hippybear at 9:25 PM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
I actually saw the RATTLE AND HUM NYC premiere WITH U2 in the audience!.....
Actually not as cool as that sounds - it was more like, "I went to a huge auditorium theater with a bunch of U2 fans, and 5 minutes into the movie the door opened and everyone started screaming and I saw 4 guys pushing their way to some seats towards the middle and one of the guys had a cowboy hat on so I THINK it was them?" Plus everyone in the audience screaming again and again periodically throughout the film - either when the band said something cool onscreen, said something funny onscreen, acted like a doofus on screen, or the like. I actually went to see the film a second time shortly after because "I couldn't hear a damn thing for half the movie."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:55 AM on May 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Actually not as cool as that sounds - it was more like, "I went to a huge auditorium theater with a bunch of U2 fans, and 5 minutes into the movie the door opened and everyone started screaming and I saw 4 guys pushing their way to some seats towards the middle and one of the guys had a cowboy hat on so I THINK it was them?" Plus everyone in the audience screaming again and again periodically throughout the film - either when the band said something cool onscreen, said something funny onscreen, acted like a doofus on screen, or the like. I actually went to see the film a second time shortly after because "I couldn't hear a damn thing for half the movie."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:55 AM on May 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
I had a similar experience, my dear Empress, at the one and only Lou Reed concert I ever attended. Which rankles me still...
posted by y2karl at 11:56 AM on May 22, 2021
posted by y2karl at 11:56 AM on May 22, 2021
Just when I thought I didn't have any more time for U2 I heard "Stuck In a Moment" and reader.. I will admit, my eyes moistened. We've all been stuck in a moment, no?
I spent a lot of time after 9/11 walking around Astoria listening to "All You Can't Leave Behind." Stuck In a Moment and Walk On can still me cry.
posted by Mavri at 8:55 AM on May 23, 2021
I spent a lot of time after 9/11 walking around Astoria listening to "All You Can't Leave Behind." Stuck In a Moment and Walk On can still me cry.
posted by Mavri at 8:55 AM on May 23, 2021
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posted by chavenet at 3:46 AM on May 21, 2021 [6 favorites]