The artist who convinced Bono to be a singer: “That was my way in”
U2 are the original fanboys. I think that’s both a key part of their appeal and a key part of why people find them so particularly nauseating. They believe in the power of rock ‘n’ roll to change minds, lives and the world because it did exactly that to Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr and Adam Clayton nearly half a century ago. Thus, they believe it’s their sacred duty to try and do the same. For lack of a better way of putting it, they mean it, maaaan.
Thus, they have always been a band that wears their influences on their sleeve. When they first became the biggest band in the world with 1987’s The Joshua Tree, they were the world’s most American non-American band — Springsteen’s scope, Eagles’ mysticism and Marvin Gaye’s social commentary. With Achtung Baby in 1991, they were mainlining Bowie’s Berlin trilogy, My Bloody Valentine’s guitars and The Bomb Squad’s production style.
For All That You Can’t Leave Behind and How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, their main inspiration was… well, U2, really. However, that wasn’t the effect of success on them. Their overwhelming popularity may have made them simplify their sound somewhat. However, the band roared out of 1970s Dublin with music that was also fairly easy to perform some audio genealogy on. The band were clearly devotees of post-punk.
Joy Division in particular a huge inspiration with their prominent basslines and propulsive, motorik beats. The Edge had clearly studied his Keith Levine shards of guitar noise. However, for all the “post” part, the “punk” part also loomed large over the band. The Clash at their most ambitious were an obvious influence but arguably the biggest influence on Bono in particular came from a band that, on the surface, has little in common with U2.
Which punk legend inspired Bono to be a singer?
That is, until the band wrote a whole song about how much they loved this singer. What’s more, since it was the lead track on Songs of Innocence, there’s a fairly high chance you’ve at least heard the start of it, been confused why it’s in your music collection, and then almost certainly skipped it. A sad fate for ‘The Miracle of Joey Ramone’, which is actually one of the better U2 tracks they’ve released in the past few decades.
In an interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook around the release of the record, Bono gave some insight into why they named the lead single and opening track of the album after The Ramones frontman. “I found my voice through Joey Ramone because I wasn’t the obvious punk-rock singer, or even rock singer,” he said. “I sang like a girl – which I’m into now, but when I was 17 or 18, I wasn’t sure. And I heard Joey Ramone, who sang like a girl, and that was my way in.”
While it was a fairly catastrophic move on the band’s part, it was at the very least sincere. While it is a key reason the band get so much stick, you can’t fault them for trying. No matter how much you might really, really want to.
