The singer Bono called the voice of an angel: “A very wise man”
U2 might be one of the most controversial bands ever to exist, but there’s no denying that the group, led by Bono, only ever wanted to revive the true spirit of rock in ways that felt endearingly fresh and completely timeless.
However, many misinterpret this and struggle to understand why they deserve credibility at all. But while there are certainly moments that strengthen the case of those pesky critics, like the infamous Songs of Innocence controversy or the countless times their so-called sonic experimentalism has been mistaken for a band lacking direction, they merely prove that one thing to be true: that U2 are risk takers.
As Bono has explained on countless occasions, usually whenever he feels compelled to hit back at those who regard the band’s slip-ups and mishaps as poor attempts at selling out, nothing they ever did was so much a cash-grab as it was a genuine pursuit of musical innovation.
That said, maybe the issue was never actually about the nature of their intentions. Perhaps, instead, it was that most sceptics already knew just how much of a force they really were beneath it all, unsettled by the fact that the band were constantly reinventing themselves and proving that remaining stagnant in the rock scene didn’t always guarantee lasting relevance. Often, it was the opposite that carried the most value.
Because, come to think of it, there are very few U2 tunes that could actually be considered straight-up rock tunes anyway (The Edge once said the closest they ever came to true rock ‘n’ roll was ‘Vertigo’), which ultimately speaks more to the band’s eclectic tastes and desire to shatter boundaries than it does to any other implications about commercial pandering. And that was ultimately their superpower: the ability to stir together anything they wanted and become an unpredictable force in an otherwise conventional arena.
Mainly, though, most of their choices were also built around feeling, and the emotional response they could provoke through beautiful, well-thought-out pieces of music that stayed with you forever. Funnily enough, many of Bono’s personal influences were masters of this too, like one of his ultimate heroes, Roy Orbison, who significantly influenced Bono’s ability to craft timeless soundscapes built around the simple art of feeling.
In the 1980s, Bono and The Edge worked with Orbison on one of his final songs, ‘She’s a Mystery to Me’. In 1988, Bono, who had previously described Orbison as “the Caruso of rock”, recalled how the song stemmed from listening to Orbison’s 1963 tune ‘In Dreams’, which stuck out to him because it “breaks all the rules of pop music”.
The next day, he started working on a new song, ‘She’s a Mystery to Me’, without knowing that it’d eventually become one of the baroque singer’s own compositions. At least, not until after performing at Wembley Arena one night when the band’s security man knocked on the door to let them know Orbison was waiting outside – to the complete and utter surprise of Bono, who had no idea he’d even been at the show to begin with.
The pair then got talking, and Orbison asked whether Bono had any songs for him. This is when he took out a guitar and started playing ‘She’s a Mystery to Me’. “Later, when I was in Los Angeles, I met him a few times, and we started off a few things together,” he explained. “And his family opened up to me, were very good to me.”
He concluded, “I found him to be a very wise man, he had a lot to say. He seemed to be a man who was incredibly surprised at his own talent. I mean, he had the voice of an angel – and, well, now he is one.”
