more from bono
Here's a review of U2's latest CD, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. I thought this guy was very insightful. It's kind of a long article, but excellent and worth reading.
U2 lead singer Bono was the highlight of the election season for me. The Republican Convention was in full swing with Arnold, Rudy, ‘W’ and the gang pitching a message of hope and freedom. I’d heard similar things from the Democratic Convention - Hillary, Bill and the guy who lost. At the former, Stephen Baldwin tells us that ‘W’ is the Christian candidate. At the latter, Rev. Sharpton tells us that the guy who lost (what was his name?) is the only candidate who keeps the faith. Hope, freedom, good, evil, faith, morality, progress, prosperity…these were the words that were supposed to provide comfort and security for me and my kids, for future generations. Trust us…we’ll give you everything you want. Trust us. “Yeah right,” I muttered under my breath, “you’ve given me a lot of reason to trust you.”
By now, I was numbed by my cynicism, wishing the election could just come and go and free us from the relentless repetition of image-makeovers (the John Kerry tan, the improved George Bush scowl in later debates), political advertisements (“swift boat” became this election’s “hanging chad”), bizarre political alliances (Zell Miller as the most passionate Republican at the Convention?), Hannitization and Rush and the guy who played ‘Pat’ on Saturday Night Live. I was numb, done. And then he appeared like an angel…Bono, the lead singer of U2, on the O’Reilly Factor, live from the Republican Convention. He spoke about love and justice and debt relief and Jesse Helms support and a Christianity that redeems a broken world. Even O’Reilly was taken aback. “I must say,” O’Reilly mused, leaning back in his cozy leather chair, “I agree with what you’re saying. I respect your faith.”
For two decades, the spiritual journey of U2 has taken fans on a roller coaster. In the 80’s, their music and lyrics were soulful and prophetic, culminating in The Joshua Tree, best known for the line that marked that decade’s pilgrimage: I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. After a long break and a reappraisal of the band’s purpose and mission, U2 burst in to their second decade with a second act, a new look, a new sound, beginning with Achtung Baby, a wild experiment in the budding electronic sound of German techno music, celebrating the end of the Cold War and the opportunities of one world, free of disharmony and injustice. U2’s political bent had always been known to fans, exemplied in popular songs like Sunday Bloody Sunday and New Year’s Day, but they had always been balanced with the hymn-like anthems of Joshua Tree, 40 (a lament Psalm that became the closing song of virtually every concert in the 80’s), Pride (In the Name of Love) or the visionary new earth ballad Where the Streets Have No Name. Christians wondered if U2 had succumbed to industry pressures, and traded faith for politics. For skeptics, the 90’s would prove their hypothesis, with controversial albums like Pop and Zooropa, and concerts that became highly symbolic critical statements on culture and politics. Loyal fans saw through Bono’s showmanship, recognizing veiled references to the writings of CS Lewis, well-tuned Gospel critiques of market-driven faith and televangelism, and powerful prophetic language about a culture that sells it soul for the sake of image and appearance. This was the Gospel alright, but the Gospel gone prophetic and underground, subversively questioning the dominant paradigm, all out of continuing loyalty to the narrow way of Jesus.
Then U2 went silent… with a kind of intertestamental silence. Back to the dressing room they went, preparing for Act 3. Just as our Old Testament ends with chaos and power struggle, leaving the fate of Yahweh’s people in question, so the 90’s ended with the shadowy symbolism and disruptive anticipation of the time between the failed Second Temple period (which, like U2’s critique of 90’s culture, featured a selling out of true faith) and the emergence of Yahweh in the flesh, Jesus. The last album of the 90’s, Pop, had ended with Wake Up Dead Man, a plea of Jesus to rise and vindicate himself in the midst of the pain of life.
Jesus, Jesus help me
I'm alone in this world
And a [screwed] up world it is too
Tell me, tell me the story
The one about eternity
And the way it's all gonna be
Wake up, wake up dead man
Wake up, wake up dead man
Jesus, I'm waiting here, boss
I know you're looking out for us
But maybe your hands aren't free
Your father, he made the world in seven
He's in charge of heaven
Will you put a word in for me?
Wake up, wake up dead man
Wake up, wake up dead man
He did awaken, in the first new album of the 90’s, the long-awaited answer to Joshua Tree’s lament: All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Opening with Beautiful Day and Elevation, the album bursts with hope and new life. Songs like Grace, Peace on Earth and Walk On convey a sense of anticipation, expectation, and longing, as if John the Baptist himself were singing “Prepare the way in the wilderness for the Lord.” You hear the band’s hope as Bono sings, “Home, I can't say where it is but I know I'm going.” Still waiting, still seeing through a veil, but hoping, All That You Can’t Leave Behind re-awakened a spiritual conversation among fans. In their concerts, Bono would break out in to spontaneous worship, quoting Scripture, meshing songs from past and present, rousing a chorus of fans singing, “Hallelujah,” as if he were sending a message: The Kingdom of the God is at hand.
In How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, anticipation becomes revelation, breaking out with apocalyptic glory in the opening song Vertigo. Vertigo might be a response to a 90’s U2 hit song called Numb, describing the mindless and heartless life the world expects us to live. In that song, The Edge sings in a monotone and trancelike voice: “I feel numb…Don't project, Don't connect, Protect, Don't expect, Suggest, I feel numb, Don't struggle, Don't jerk, Don't collar, Don't work, Don't wish, Don't fish, Don't teach, Don't reach, I feel numb. “ During that time, the band lamented the happy, shiny consumerism of 90’s Christianity, which pretended of a life without struggle or pain, which replaced holy desire with mindless duty, which replaced soul connection with lonely isolation. Vertigo, however, re-orients the world and hopes of a better day, a new creation. The spinning sensation of Vertigo hints at a whirlwind that re-structures reality, that opens up the possibility of a faith and life pervaded by deep feeling and emotion once again. Bono sings, “Lights go down and all I know is you give me something I can feel…I can feel your love teaching me how to kneel.”
Following Vertigo, Miracle Drug and Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own speak of the need for help and rescue outside ourselves. Hinting at the human tendency to control life through science and medicine, the songs strike similar themes in their tone of humility. “God I need your help tonight,” Bono cries out, but leaves us only for a moment in our despair, answering, “I was a stranger and you took me in.” In Love and Peace or Else, we see, as in many of their songs, a faith for a groaning creation, a kingdom song that takes political concerns as a matter of Christ’s work of creation-restoration. But again, Bono finds that the solution is found in prayer: “I don’t know if I can take it, I’m not easy on my knees, here’s my heart you can break it, I need some release. Lay down your guns all your daughters of Zion, all your Abraham’s sons…we need love and peace.”
But “blessings are not just for the ones who kneel…luckily,” Bono sings, as he ends City of Blinding Lights. Like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, Bono finds himself captured by the city of this world, a city “advertising for people like us.” Reality is, life is lived amidst the neon lights of the city with its false allure, a city rewarding the one enticed by her tantalizing beauty. Like Solomon, or like Christian in Vanity Fair, sometimes life on our knees is harder than we know. Luckily, there is grace.
Re-orientation, humility, and grace culminate in All Because of You, a wonderful prayer and poem of thanks and praise. The continual refrain is powerful: “It’s all because of you…I am, I am.” He laments the ugliness of Vanity Fair, of the city of this world, singing, “I was born a child of grace, nothing else about the place, everything was ugly but your beautiful face, and it left me no illusion.” Like a baby faced with the harsh reality of the outside world, he cries out, “I want back in.”
And “back in” is a vision of what once was, Eden, the pure love of Bride and Groom, the “mysterious” love of a man and a woman. In A Man and a Woman, U2 is at its most nostalgic. The song envisions a sacred romance, to borrow the title of a favorite book of mine, between a man who meets a woman on “rue St. Divine” and realizes “she’s already mine.” Bono plays the part of the Bride, singing, “And you’re the one, there’s no one else, you make me want to lose myself, in the mysterious distance between a man and a woman.” Play it next time you read Song of Solomon or Ephesians 5. You’ll cry like I did.
In Crumbs from Your Table and One Step Closer, we’re taken back to reality as it is now, in all its pain and glory. The first admits of the difficulty of believing the truth about life and love. In a world of broken hearts, it’s hard to believe in visions of Eden and restored hearts, it’s scary to risk love, it’s more comfortable being numb. Bono’s prayer echoes the human struggle and hopes for manna along the way: “You speak of signs and wonders, but I need something other, I would believe if I was able, but I’m waiting on crumbs from your table.” The second reminds us how close we are. “I’m across the road from hope,” Bono sings, “I’m one step closer to knowing, knowing.” If he still quite hasn’t found what he’s looking for, we know that he’s much closer than he was 20 years ago.
The final two songs are brilliant, musically and lyrically. Original of the Species speaks of true identity and the beauty of love. Bono moves beyond veiled references and subversive ways of speaking, as if he just can’t keep the love in anymore. We’re told, “Everywhere you go you shout it, you don’t have to be shy about it, no, and you’ll never be alone, come on now show your soul, you’ve been keeping your love under control.” The tune will capture you, and you’ll be singing it as you drive the kids to school…with hands raised. With this new boldness, Bono and the Edge each take an octave on the final song Yahweh, a song destined to be this generations 40. With the lyrical flavor of a Take My Life and Let it Be and the musical flavor of a worship anthem, Yahweh is a worship song, plain and simple. It is a prayer and an invitation for God to turn “clenched fists” in to open hands, to “kiss” and heal a critical mouth, to restore the “city shining on a hill” if it “be your will,” to “take this heart and make it break.” That’s where the album ends, in fact, with those lovely, humble, prayerful words…take this heart and make it break. By now, your hands are raised, and you’re calling Ticketmaster for front row seats to what is sure to be another incredible worship experience – U2’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb tour.
I’ll be there, and I hope to see you, and in the end we’ll sing 40 and Yahweh as we dance where the streets have no name back to our homes. By the way, what is that atomic bomb anyway? My hunch is that it is a state of the heart, possibly the fate of a generation bent on self-reliance, science and medicine, Dr. Phil books, Oprah-ology, political solutions to spiritual problems, an entrenched narcissism, and a deeper belief in the power of a military than the power of prayer. How do you dismantle an atomic bomb? U2 offers very biblical hints, beginning with the most obvious – get on your knees, and ask that your heart be broken first. Someway, somehow, in the brokenness that results, something of a “dismantling” of sin might just take place, might just lead you with hands raised to Yahweh, might just lead you to shout in the streets, or on the O’Reilly Factor, or wherever God gives you a voice, that “the sun is coming up on the ocean.”
U2, with God’s help, has done it again.
BTW, Mr. Q, what did you mean by that comment? Do you think Bono is the antichrist? Is he putting on an act and pretending to accurately communicate and understand the gospel? Forgive me if I'm being cynical about this, but I need a little explanation. I've never heard that nickname for him in my life. I'm pretty sure "Bono" is his most popular nickname, last time I checked.
U2 lead singer Bono was the highlight of the election season for me. The Republican Convention was in full swing with Arnold, Rudy, ‘W’ and the gang pitching a message of hope and freedom. I’d heard similar things from the Democratic Convention - Hillary, Bill and the guy who lost. At the former, Stephen Baldwin tells us that ‘W’ is the Christian candidate. At the latter, Rev. Sharpton tells us that the guy who lost (what was his name?) is the only candidate who keeps the faith. Hope, freedom, good, evil, faith, morality, progress, prosperity…these were the words that were supposed to provide comfort and security for me and my kids, for future generations. Trust us…we’ll give you everything you want. Trust us. “Yeah right,” I muttered under my breath, “you’ve given me a lot of reason to trust you.”
By now, I was numbed by my cynicism, wishing the election could just come and go and free us from the relentless repetition of image-makeovers (the John Kerry tan, the improved George Bush scowl in later debates), political advertisements (“swift boat” became this election’s “hanging chad”), bizarre political alliances (Zell Miller as the most passionate Republican at the Convention?), Hannitization and Rush and the guy who played ‘Pat’ on Saturday Night Live. I was numb, done. And then he appeared like an angel…Bono, the lead singer of U2, on the O’Reilly Factor, live from the Republican Convention. He spoke about love and justice and debt relief and Jesse Helms support and a Christianity that redeems a broken world. Even O’Reilly was taken aback. “I must say,” O’Reilly mused, leaning back in his cozy leather chair, “I agree with what you’re saying. I respect your faith.”
For two decades, the spiritual journey of U2 has taken fans on a roller coaster. In the 80’s, their music and lyrics were soulful and prophetic, culminating in The Joshua Tree, best known for the line that marked that decade’s pilgrimage: I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. After a long break and a reappraisal of the band’s purpose and mission, U2 burst in to their second decade with a second act, a new look, a new sound, beginning with Achtung Baby, a wild experiment in the budding electronic sound of German techno music, celebrating the end of the Cold War and the opportunities of one world, free of disharmony and injustice. U2’s political bent had always been known to fans, exemplied in popular songs like Sunday Bloody Sunday and New Year’s Day, but they had always been balanced with the hymn-like anthems of Joshua Tree, 40 (a lament Psalm that became the closing song of virtually every concert in the 80’s), Pride (In the Name of Love) or the visionary new earth ballad Where the Streets Have No Name. Christians wondered if U2 had succumbed to industry pressures, and traded faith for politics. For skeptics, the 90’s would prove their hypothesis, with controversial albums like Pop and Zooropa, and concerts that became highly symbolic critical statements on culture and politics. Loyal fans saw through Bono’s showmanship, recognizing veiled references to the writings of CS Lewis, well-tuned Gospel critiques of market-driven faith and televangelism, and powerful prophetic language about a culture that sells it soul for the sake of image and appearance. This was the Gospel alright, but the Gospel gone prophetic and underground, subversively questioning the dominant paradigm, all out of continuing loyalty to the narrow way of Jesus.
Then U2 went silent… with a kind of intertestamental silence. Back to the dressing room they went, preparing for Act 3. Just as our Old Testament ends with chaos and power struggle, leaving the fate of Yahweh’s people in question, so the 90’s ended with the shadowy symbolism and disruptive anticipation of the time between the failed Second Temple period (which, like U2’s critique of 90’s culture, featured a selling out of true faith) and the emergence of Yahweh in the flesh, Jesus. The last album of the 90’s, Pop, had ended with Wake Up Dead Man, a plea of Jesus to rise and vindicate himself in the midst of the pain of life.
Jesus, Jesus help me
I'm alone in this world
And a [screwed] up world it is too
Tell me, tell me the story
The one about eternity
And the way it's all gonna be
Wake up, wake up dead man
Wake up, wake up dead man
Jesus, I'm waiting here, boss
I know you're looking out for us
But maybe your hands aren't free
Your father, he made the world in seven
He's in charge of heaven
Will you put a word in for me?
Wake up, wake up dead man
Wake up, wake up dead man
He did awaken, in the first new album of the 90’s, the long-awaited answer to Joshua Tree’s lament: All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Opening with Beautiful Day and Elevation, the album bursts with hope and new life. Songs like Grace, Peace on Earth and Walk On convey a sense of anticipation, expectation, and longing, as if John the Baptist himself were singing “Prepare the way in the wilderness for the Lord.” You hear the band’s hope as Bono sings, “Home, I can't say where it is but I know I'm going.” Still waiting, still seeing through a veil, but hoping, All That You Can’t Leave Behind re-awakened a spiritual conversation among fans. In their concerts, Bono would break out in to spontaneous worship, quoting Scripture, meshing songs from past and present, rousing a chorus of fans singing, “Hallelujah,” as if he were sending a message: The Kingdom of the God is at hand.
In How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, anticipation becomes revelation, breaking out with apocalyptic glory in the opening song Vertigo. Vertigo might be a response to a 90’s U2 hit song called Numb, describing the mindless and heartless life the world expects us to live. In that song, The Edge sings in a monotone and trancelike voice: “I feel numb…Don't project, Don't connect, Protect, Don't expect, Suggest, I feel numb, Don't struggle, Don't jerk, Don't collar, Don't work, Don't wish, Don't fish, Don't teach, Don't reach, I feel numb. “ During that time, the band lamented the happy, shiny consumerism of 90’s Christianity, which pretended of a life without struggle or pain, which replaced holy desire with mindless duty, which replaced soul connection with lonely isolation. Vertigo, however, re-orients the world and hopes of a better day, a new creation. The spinning sensation of Vertigo hints at a whirlwind that re-structures reality, that opens up the possibility of a faith and life pervaded by deep feeling and emotion once again. Bono sings, “Lights go down and all I know is you give me something I can feel…I can feel your love teaching me how to kneel.”
Following Vertigo, Miracle Drug and Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own speak of the need for help and rescue outside ourselves. Hinting at the human tendency to control life through science and medicine, the songs strike similar themes in their tone of humility. “God I need your help tonight,” Bono cries out, but leaves us only for a moment in our despair, answering, “I was a stranger and you took me in.” In Love and Peace or Else, we see, as in many of their songs, a faith for a groaning creation, a kingdom song that takes political concerns as a matter of Christ’s work of creation-restoration. But again, Bono finds that the solution is found in prayer: “I don’t know if I can take it, I’m not easy on my knees, here’s my heart you can break it, I need some release. Lay down your guns all your daughters of Zion, all your Abraham’s sons…we need love and peace.”
But “blessings are not just for the ones who kneel…luckily,” Bono sings, as he ends City of Blinding Lights. Like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, Bono finds himself captured by the city of this world, a city “advertising for people like us.” Reality is, life is lived amidst the neon lights of the city with its false allure, a city rewarding the one enticed by her tantalizing beauty. Like Solomon, or like Christian in Vanity Fair, sometimes life on our knees is harder than we know. Luckily, there is grace.
Re-orientation, humility, and grace culminate in All Because of You, a wonderful prayer and poem of thanks and praise. The continual refrain is powerful: “It’s all because of you…I am, I am.” He laments the ugliness of Vanity Fair, of the city of this world, singing, “I was born a child of grace, nothing else about the place, everything was ugly but your beautiful face, and it left me no illusion.” Like a baby faced with the harsh reality of the outside world, he cries out, “I want back in.”
And “back in” is a vision of what once was, Eden, the pure love of Bride and Groom, the “mysterious” love of a man and a woman. In A Man and a Woman, U2 is at its most nostalgic. The song envisions a sacred romance, to borrow the title of a favorite book of mine, between a man who meets a woman on “rue St. Divine” and realizes “she’s already mine.” Bono plays the part of the Bride, singing, “And you’re the one, there’s no one else, you make me want to lose myself, in the mysterious distance between a man and a woman.” Play it next time you read Song of Solomon or Ephesians 5. You’ll cry like I did.
In Crumbs from Your Table and One Step Closer, we’re taken back to reality as it is now, in all its pain and glory. The first admits of the difficulty of believing the truth about life and love. In a world of broken hearts, it’s hard to believe in visions of Eden and restored hearts, it’s scary to risk love, it’s more comfortable being numb. Bono’s prayer echoes the human struggle and hopes for manna along the way: “You speak of signs and wonders, but I need something other, I would believe if I was able, but I’m waiting on crumbs from your table.” The second reminds us how close we are. “I’m across the road from hope,” Bono sings, “I’m one step closer to knowing, knowing.” If he still quite hasn’t found what he’s looking for, we know that he’s much closer than he was 20 years ago.
The final two songs are brilliant, musically and lyrically. Original of the Species speaks of true identity and the beauty of love. Bono moves beyond veiled references and subversive ways of speaking, as if he just can’t keep the love in anymore. We’re told, “Everywhere you go you shout it, you don’t have to be shy about it, no, and you’ll never be alone, come on now show your soul, you’ve been keeping your love under control.” The tune will capture you, and you’ll be singing it as you drive the kids to school…with hands raised. With this new boldness, Bono and the Edge each take an octave on the final song Yahweh, a song destined to be this generations 40. With the lyrical flavor of a Take My Life and Let it Be and the musical flavor of a worship anthem, Yahweh is a worship song, plain and simple. It is a prayer and an invitation for God to turn “clenched fists” in to open hands, to “kiss” and heal a critical mouth, to restore the “city shining on a hill” if it “be your will,” to “take this heart and make it break.” That’s where the album ends, in fact, with those lovely, humble, prayerful words…take this heart and make it break. By now, your hands are raised, and you’re calling Ticketmaster for front row seats to what is sure to be another incredible worship experience – U2’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb tour.
I’ll be there, and I hope to see you, and in the end we’ll sing 40 and Yahweh as we dance where the streets have no name back to our homes. By the way, what is that atomic bomb anyway? My hunch is that it is a state of the heart, possibly the fate of a generation bent on self-reliance, science and medicine, Dr. Phil books, Oprah-ology, political solutions to spiritual problems, an entrenched narcissism, and a deeper belief in the power of a military than the power of prayer. How do you dismantle an atomic bomb? U2 offers very biblical hints, beginning with the most obvious – get on your knees, and ask that your heart be broken first. Someway, somehow, in the brokenness that results, something of a “dismantling” of sin might just take place, might just lead you with hands raised to Yahweh, might just lead you to shout in the streets, or on the O’Reilly Factor, or wherever God gives you a voice, that “the sun is coming up on the ocean.”
U2, with God’s help, has done it again.
BTW, Mr. Q, what did you mean by that comment? Do you think Bono is the antichrist? Is he putting on an act and pretending to accurately communicate and understand the gospel? Forgive me if I'm being cynical about this, but I need a little explanation. I've never heard that nickname for him in my life. I'm pretty sure "Bono" is his most popular nickname, last time I checked.
posted by John Mark at 5:10 PM
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