The one singer Bono called too wild to be his friend: “Recreational drug use that had become hard work”
Bono didn’t get into the rock and roll industry thinking that everything was going to be on the straight and narrow.
The entire history of the genre comes from people partying a little too hard every now and again, and while there were more than a few times where legends went off the deep end, it’s not like anyone expected their favourite artists to go back home and live completely normal lives when the houselights came up. And while Bono’s life hasn’t been normal by any stretch, he did have limits on where he wanted to go every single time he made a record with U2.
Because, sadly, the members of the Irish powerhouse knew the pitfalls of addiction a little too well. During the tour cycle for Achtung Baby, Adam Clayton was already going through some problems with substance abuse, and while there were many times when the band was scared for his well-being, it was all about supporting each other and carrying each of their mates through life just like Bono had talked about in ‘One’.
But there comes a point where carrying someone who doesn’t want to help themselves becomes a little bit frustrating. The issues that Bono was talking about on a song like ‘Running to a Stand Still’ are already pretty graphic when it comes to those who struggled with heroin addiction, but even if the biggest artists in the world saw the glamorous side of their chemical dependency, Bono didn’t want to see someone like Michael Hutchence tear themselves apart every time they met.
Hutchence was far from the biggest drug fiend that the world had ever seen by any stretch, but when you look at the downward spiral that he had taken towards the end of his career, the whole thing reads like some bad soap opera. The mudslinging that he got from people like Noel Gallagher probably didn’t help matters all that much, but given the toxic relationship he had throughout the final years of his life, Bono felt that he was only enabling him if he stayed around for too long.
They were both willing to play the game of rock and roll, but Bono felt that if he wanted to remember Hutchence as he was, it was better to cut ties with him, saying, “[Things had changed when he] spiralled down the vortex of a recreational drug use that had become hard work for everyone, especially [his] family, especially the younger ones. As their behaviour changed, our friendship became strained, and we grew uncomfortable during their visits.”
If Bono was already uncomfortable with him in his company, though, he could never have predicted that Hutchence would suffer the sad end that he did. All he needed was someone to help him find the right cure for all of his pain, and while he was caught in a terrible state during his final hours, Bono didn’t want to remember him as a rock and roll casualty. He was his friend, and he wanted to show everyone the love he still had for him.
Then again, ‘Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of’ is one of the best examples of tough love in the band’s songbook. Compared to the pure sadness in ‘Running to a Stand Still’, Bono seems genuinely pissed off throughout the song, almost like he’s using the song as an ultimatum and singing all the words that he should have said to Hutchence before he passed away.
And while the more cynical sort can say that Bono was profiting off of Hutchence’s death by making the song in the first place, that’s only a bad-faith interpretation of what he was doing. Everyone involved in Hutchence’s life was suffering, and the only way that Bono could deal with that pain was to make something beautiful to remind himself of the person that he once knew when INXS were the biggest band in the world.
