The album Bono said turned U2 into a political band: “They loved it”
The entire appeal of U2 has always been lost on certain rock and roll fans. Yes, their music is among some of the most celebrated in the world and deserves more than its fair share of accolades, but there comes a point in every listener’s life when they hear Bono drone on about political affairs one too many times and wonder when the hell he’s going to shut up and play the music. Then again, every rock and roll star has the right to speak their mind, and Bono would have been nowhere if it weren’t for the records that helped shape him during his early years.
Throughout the band’s salad days in Ireland, they were already children of the punk revolution. No member of The Clash wanted to simply make music for the masses, and whenever Bono or The Edge listened to Joe Strummer sing versions of ‘I Fought the Law’ or write ‘London Calling’, they could hear the desperation in his voice as he begged for the kind of change he wanted to sing in the world.
But looking through U2’s body of work, their first albums didn’t always start with calling out politicians by any stretch. Boy was more about someone’s struggles with their own existence, and though October did divide a few people by bringing up Bono’s relationship with religion, it was a welcome change-of-pace from what Bob Dylan may have done during his born-again period.
Once they hit on War, though, something felt different, and even looking back during The Unforgettable Fire, Bono thought that they had been turned into a political group, saying, “War came out and to some people in America again, it was ‘the political band’ and they loved it and they failed to see that War was an emotional LP rather than a political one. So there have been misconceptions all the way and it’s like chasing your tail. So I just stopped.”
Then again, Bono saying that the album isn’t about political matters at all would be missing the point entirely. Many parts of the record are more about personal lifestyle choices, but there are also tracks like ‘Drowning Man’ that capture the band in its rawest form, with Bono twisting his voice and sounding like the rock and roll equivalent of a jazz crooner over The Edge’s layered guitar parts.
Even when they did touch on politics, though, they were far more poignant than what Dylan might have done. Whereas most political matters have many questions and no answers, Bono is the one person willing to suggest solutions. ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ is a firm indictment of the atrocities that went down in Ireland that fateful day, but while ‘New Year’s Day’ implies that the world will keep turning and people will fail to change, that doesn’t mean that everyone should stop trying to make the world a better place, either.
If they were suddenly cast as a politica outfit, though, Bono figured that he might as well play into it hook, line, and sinker. There was already a messianic complex that came with singing most of the songs on The Joshua Tree, but once Achtung Baby came out, the frontman turned into everything polarising about a rock star, from the shades hiding his soulless eyes or coating the music in effects on songs like ‘Zoo Station’ or ‘Until the End of the World’.
Hiding one’s true feelings is nothing new in rock and roll, but the best way for Bono to grow as a lyricist is to be honest about his position in the world. Nothing would change people’s minds on U2 being a political band, but if he had the platform, it would be a missed opportunity if he didn’t use it for something, even if it did mean making a few enemies along the way.
