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"One of the most valuable things about [Bono's] lyrics is that you can adapt them to any particular situation." -- Larry, 2002 |
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"One of the most valuable things about [Bono's] lyrics is that you can adapt them to any particular situation." -- Larry, 2002 |
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Column: off the record...,vol. 9-388
@U2,
December 13, 2009
If you don't get The Sundance Channel or CTV, be sure to check out the musical performances from Spectacle -- at least the ones that made it to the program. They didn't include Elvis Costello and his band doing covers of "Please" and "Dirty Day," nor did they include the whole ensemble doing Costello's song, "Alison." As I mentioned on the home page, I loved hearing "Boots" and "Pump It Up" together, and I thought Bono pretty much nailed "Two Shots of Happy," and "Stay" was great, too -- though Bono obviously isn't able to hit some of those notes these days. A friend of mine who's a casual U2 fan but a big music fan in general said on Twitter that he thought "Two Shots" was "mesmerizing." Good choice of words. More than the music, though, I really loved the conversation Bono and Edge had with Elvis Costello. When they were talking about specific songs, the chat really took off and I thought it was the closest U2 will ever come to doing a Storytellers-type of program. (If you're like me, you've always wished U2 would've done that show.) There's a part I want to go watch again: Costello asked the question we've heard people ask time and time again, Has Bono's extra-curricular work affected the band? Only he phrased it differently. He said something like, What has it all cost? What's been the cost of all that for the band? And rather than the stock answer that we've heard the whole band give before, Bono tossed out a Nietzsche quote that I've never heard him use before: "For anything to be really amazing, there has to be a long obedience in the same direction." Bono's actually paraphrasing there; the actual quote is
But no matter; Bono went on after that quote to say some things I don't recall him saying before about how his outside work has impacted and restricted his own "obedience in the same direction" as the band. It was, I thought, one of the more revealing and honest answers I've heard on that subject. Hopefully, the entire show will eventually be more widely available. It's worth watching. At the risk of being accused of name-dropping, Carter Alan emailed this past week. He wanted to let me know (and wanted me to let you know) that he's updated his book, Outside is America: U2 in the U.S. (and later republished as The Road to Pop). The new edition maintains the title of the original version and is available in either download or hard copy at Lulu.com. Here's how Carter describes the updates in the new edition:
He's self-publishing this, so again - no photos, just text. Carter was the first DJ to play U2 on the radio in the U.S. back when he was at the now-defunct WBCN. He's currently on-air and the Assistant Program Director at WZLX-FM in Boston. As reported in our forum, "No Line On The Horizon" -- the song -- was rated #3 in a TIME magazine list of top songs of 2009. A fairly random song choice, to say the least. Oh, and this was announced a few weeks ago, but Amazon.com says No Line On The Horizon -- the album -- was its best-selling CD of 2009. If you have an iPhone, the Words With Friends game is super-cool and super-addicting. It's basically a networked version of Scrabble. I've been playing one game against my wife (who's using her iPhone in the other room) and another against some total stranger in some other part of the world ... all while writing this column. (Don't say, "It shows.") If you want to start a game with me, my username there is "mattmcgee." (Hope I don't regret doing that!) And finally ... where the streets have the same name. (click then scroll to the right for more)
See you next time! (c) @U2, 2009.
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