The one singer Bono said was like “meeting God”
No artist is ever ready to meet their heroes.
As much as they might put on a brave face, the people who got them into music are usually enough to reduce even the most cocksure artists into a nervous wreck, and even for someone as iconic as Bono, he wasn’t exempt from having a few moments where he was shaking in his boots.
Then again, there’s hardly any band from the 1980s that didn’t have as meteoric a rise as U2 did. Despite being born and bred out of the same post-punk scenes that many English kids were playing in, Bono’s voice was already ready for the arena before they had hit the bar scene. It was only a matter of time before the rest of the world caught on, but once they played gigs like Live Aid, something started to shift that made them look like they were calling their shot as one of the biggest rock bands of all time.
Of course, that was all proven precisely true during the Joshua Tree album cycle, but looking at what turned up on Rattle and Hum, the band seemed completely comfortable with becoming rock and roll legends. They wanted to use their platform for good in any way they knew how, but the thought of them rubbing elbows with legends like B.B. King and visiting Graceland in the US was either going to come off like a very serious sonic exploration or one of the most pretentious things imaginable once the movie hit theatres.
But underneath all of the massive guitar effects, Bono was always looking at the quality of the song before he laid down his final vocal. He needed to make sure the audience could feel something whenever he sang his material, and while that kind of passion emanated from his heroes like Joey Ramone and Joe Strummer, going toe-to-toe with Van Morrison felt like he walked into a dream.
After all, Morrison had practically perfected the art of emotive singing when he first began. It wasn’t always easy to figure out what the hell he was saying all the time, but throughout every one of his classics like Astral Weeks or Moondance, Morrison was able to filter all of his pent-up feelings and spit them back out into the world, even managing to breathe new life into songs like ‘Comfortably Numb’ when he performed the Pink Floyd classic with Roger Waters in the 1990s.
But beyond being one of the greatest interpreters to ever come out of Ireland, Bono felt that Morrison’s voice was practically a gift from on high, saying, “His voice for me is like the angels singing for me, especially for Irish people. Van Morrison means so much to us. He knew that I was one of his disciples. When I met him, it was like meeting God for me.” But when listening to his music, there’s that subtle bit of spirituality in everything that he touches.
It’s not as outright as some of George Harrison’s greatest spiritual tunes, but tunes like ‘Domino’ have that kind of longing for something greater than yourself that can be traced all through U2’s work. Although Bono did have a great respect for his faith, there’s a good chance that he would have never been able to reach his own version of ‘Gloria’ on October had Morrison not paved the way for him.
And judging by the frontman that Bono has turned himself into, he knows to follow Morrison’s lead whenever playing one of U2’s hits. He may have played the song a thousand times over, but the reason why the song has so much power is from how the person is singing it and the way it feels when millions of people are singing it back to them.
