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"We may well be the future of rock 'n' roll, but so what? When I go back to Dublin, to my girlfriend it's more of a distraction that I'm in a band than any big deal -- and my old man shouts at me for not doing the dishes before I go to bed." -- Bono, 1982 |
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My Fan Year - #3
@U2,
January 22, 2005
If anyone out there knows the whereabouts of Matt Canale, I'd love to hear from you. Matt -- who went by "Mateo," because he could -- was a classmate of mine at St. Louis University circa 1996. He was more creative than anyone in the room in our creative writing classes -- all raw talent and instinct. I'd like to see if he has kept his enthusiasm for life alive in spite of everything this world does to try to kill it. But mostly I'd like to tell him why he came to mind in 1997. During our college years Matt worked at a coffee shop. I'd drop by to visit some Sunday mornings. He'd always greet me like a long-lost friend and fix me hot cocoa on the house. Then we'd discuss books of history or Jane's Addiction or our Pre-Socratic Philosophers professor's fascination with the Sex Pistols. There was something unusual in the way he dealt with customers. It was tough to identify. I watched him chat with skater dudes and businessmen in suits and ties, and that's how I figured it out. Most people have a bias -- either they are nicer to the nicely dressed (on the practical principle that it's a good idea to make friends with rich people) or they decide they identify more with the "poor slobs" of the world (and treat the rich with contempt mixed with envy). I've met very, very few who seem comfortable with any class, who can treat a street bum like a king and a CEO like an equal. But that's the kind of rapport Matt had. So in 1997, when I jogged down a hillside with a small crowd of U2 nuts to greet Bono as he arrived for soundcheck before PopMart in Kansas City, and Bono told us that he was sorry he had to go in and take care of business but he promised he'd be right back out to chat, this was so unlike anything I'd expected but still somehow familiar. Adam and Larry had zoomed into Arrowhead Stadium on some golf-cart-like contraption without even glancing at us fans. Edge had given us a peace sign and we'd reacted like it was a papal blessing. Bono was talking to us like long-lost friends, completely at ease. "Want a mirrorball?" one fan asked, waving the miniature kind you might see dangling from a rearview mirror. Bono simply put up a hand and made a perfect catch when it was tossed to him. He had the easiest sort of rapport you could imagine. I've seen this trait described many times in articles about Bono meeting with various heads of state or with guys at truckstops. I've never seen it given its proper name. That day in '97, the highest compliment I could have paid Bono would have been to tell him, "You remind me of Mateo Canale." This week's song is "Gloria." I found myself thinking about choir practice when I was listening to it this morning. I've got a low voice, so I usually had to sing the alto lines. I don't know if you've sung much in choir, but you've probably noticed the melody of a song hardly ever "lives" on the alto line -- we're called on to sing harmony, to fill in the spaces that the melody isn't touching. Sometimes the harmony can be interesting in itself -- there's a pretty one for the old German Christmas carol "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming," for example. Other times it's dead dull, like the common one for "O Come, All Ye Faithful," which stays on one note for what feels like fifty measures. But even when it's an interesting thing by itself, a harmony tends to sound incomplete. Even if it's jumping around from pitch to pitch, it doesn't seem to "feel" like a song the way a melody does. You know where I'm going with this, right? I've decided that what Bono sings in the verses of "Gloria" -- the way he skips around so oddly when he's singing "I try to sing this song I/I try to stand up but I can't find my feet" -- is the harmony. The melody of the song is the guitar part. Bono's just filling in the spaces left by the guitar. © @U2/Pancella, 2005.
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