Why I Love ... 4 Men From Ireland
The first in occasional series about some of the art I love and why I love it.
Back in the days when I still drove (I don’t now, because realising what learning disabilities I live with helped me understand why I found driving so stressful and exhausting, even if it was only for short distances), I was seated in the driver’s seat and alone in the car. I had come out of a meeting for local church leaders about the then-still-new Alpha course. I had sat in the meeting a little inspired but also weary and cynical; I knew it wouldn’t fly at the church I was then working in because the leadership and many of the church’s people were just too resistant to this sort of thing. Time would prove me partially wrong, it would turn out, but I wasn’t to know that then.
As someone new to the role, I had found this sort of disconnect between my own ideas and spirituality and that of the church I was working in quite unsettling. I think this meeting had really made it hit home for me how difficult this job was, how much of yourself you need to set aside to do it well and with integrity, and how lonely you feel much of the time. It was a dark evening, I was about to drive home - driving being something I hated doing, but didn’t then grasp why I hated it - and suddenly I was feeling very alone and very, very sad.
I turned the key in the ignition, and the radio switched itself back on. The lyrics of the song playing …
“And I know it breaks/Your heart it aches/And you can only take so much/Walk on.”
A few months later, I would be at London’s Earls Court concert venue, fortuitously reseated from the back of the arena to the front, a handful of rows from the stage due to our original seats being needed for a lighting rig, with the singer seemingly staring straight at me from just over touching distance, singing those self-same words. Amid the noise of the crowd and the band, I wept. And wept. And wept. I spent much of the two-plus hours of that gig weeping, as I had wept for a couple of minutes alone in the driver’s seat of a stationary car as the radio’s tinny speaker played the song.
The song is ‘Walk On’ by U2, from their 2000 album All That You Can’t Leave Behind. It is a political song in its original context, but like so much art has plenty of other resonances - with all art, what we get from it is often deeply influenced by what we take to it. As has been the case for me many times with a spectrum of pieces of art I love, and especially the music of U2, I take to their music a sense of not quite fitting in anywhere and in them I find a place of belonging. As the opening track of their 1984 album The Unforgettable Fire might describe it, it’s A Sort of Homecoming.
It’s well recorded now that 3 out of the 4 members of U2 would call themselves Christians. At different points in the band’s career, there have been debates amongst certain types of Christians as to whether the band members really are Christians (as if other people can judge the direction of another’s soul), but in recent years that babble has quietened somewhat and an acceptance of the sincerity of their faith - especially that of lead singer, songwriter, spokesman, and activist Bono. His memoir, Surrender, has a lot to say about his faith. To this day, they remain popular and influential, though by no means at the scale they once were. From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s they were enormous; one of the biggest acts in the world, occasionally adorning the cover of Time magazine - a status usually resolved for global political leaders. Their 1987 album The Joshua Tree is widely considered a masterpiece, is the work that launched them into the stratosphere, and is one of the most influential albums of all time; there’s little doubt about its greatness. For me, the album of theirs that means the most to me is 1991’s Achtung Baby. Released during my first year away from home at university, it was a shocking, brilliantly received release. It was a rare example of a band at peak popularity doing something genuinely different with their music, taking risks with their sound and lyrics. The accompanying tour reinvented live stadium rock; the second leg of that tour was one of my first experiences of a major rock gig. I went to that gig one Sunday, home for the summer from university, when I also had a re-sit to revise for. When I told my disbelievingly furious Mum how I’d be spending this one Sunday, I was met with the reply “I always thought you’d grow up to be such a nice boy. But now you’re going to rock concerts on a Sunday.”
Up to 1991, U2’s sincerity and their Christian faith were both widely accepted as genuine and to many an annoyance. Achtung Baby was different, a departure point - dark and difficult, soaked in doubt and fear and alienation; it came on to some of their Christian fans as starkly unsettling blast of cold water. It even included a song written to Jesus …. from the point of view of Judas after the betrayal. The tour was an audio-visual post-modern assault on the senses during which Bono played different on-stage characters; one of them wore mock devil horns. I remember well the sense of shock in some Christian quarters, many of them friends. Some returned the CD (remember those?!) to the shop they had bought it from, so upset were they by the apparent loss of faith. They hadn’t lost it, of course - they were simply in an Ecclesiastes sort of place, but some fans weren’t able to hear that.
All this in my first year away from home, doing what you always do at that life stage as you try to articulate your views, politics, sexuality, and religion for yourself. I was in an abusive relationship; my parents discouraged both romantic relationships and rock music, so of course as soon as I left home I dived into both (not to mention pubs, which my parents also wanted to ban me from). Achtung Baby was to me the sound of people finding their authentic voice, that fear and sexuality and uncertainty were all OK, not so bad really, and part of working out your faith and sense of self. Some Christians ran from them, angry and disappointed; I ran towards them, sensing something of a home from home.
As a discerning student of English Literature at university, and since then as someone who always likes to get to grips with what makes art work or not, I’m not immune to U2’s faults and problems. The group in general and Bono especially like to swing for the fences, make big bold, decisions … some of which crash and burn. They - and he especially - can be hectoring and annoying. But I find perfection dull; I’m suspicious of people who appear to get things right every time. I’m far more interested in people and art with visions and ideas that don’t always work, that sometimes lead to big face-plants in the process; you don’t find new and interesting things by doing the same thing the same way all the time, without a few bruises and breakages as part of the process.
Over the years I’ve seen them live several times, in three different cities - usually in massive venues, once on a central London street. Like other types of art and (pop) culture I will look at in this occasional series, I can’t imagine my life without their music. And I don’t want to. It’s no exaggeration to say that I may not still be alive if I didn’t have their music in my life. One of the tracks on Achtung Baby that caused the most consternation to some Christians was, towards the album’s end, a song called Acrobat that to me articulated the sense of spiritual struggle to keep afloat and alive. It was seen by some as a sign of backsliding, lost faith and uncertainty. To me, it was a lifeline amid that self-same process.
Don't believe what you hear, don't believe what you see
If you just close your eyes you can feel the enemy.
When I first met you girl, you had fire in your soul.
What happened to your face of melting snow?
Now it looks like this!
And you can swallow or you can spit
You can throw it up, or choke on it
And you can dream, so dream out loud
You know that your time is coming round
So don't let the bastards grind you down.
No, nothing makes sense, nothing seems to fit.
I know you'd hit out if you only knew who to hit.
And I'd join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah, I'd break bread and wine
If there was a church I could receive in.
'Cause I need it now.
To take the cup
To fill it up, to drink it slow.
I can't let you go.
And I must be an acrobat
To talk like this and act like that.
And you can dream, so dream out loud
And don't let the bastards grind you down.
What are we going to do now it's all been said?
No new ideas in the house, and every book's been read.
And I must be an acrobat
To talk like this and act like that.
And you can dream, so dream out loud
And you can find your own way out.
And you can build, and I can will
And you can call, I can't wait until
You can stash and you can seize
In dreams begin responsibilities
And I can love, and I can love
And I know that the tide is turning 'round
So don't let the bastards grind you down.
Click here for U2’s YouTube channel, which has an extensive collection of their music
Click here for U2’s official website, which includes a comprehensive database of their lyrics.