The singer Bono said was painful to listen to: “I find it the most emotional”
Bono didn’t get into the music business to be a simple crooner whenever U2 made a new record.
There were plenty of artists who sounded phenomenal whenever they stopped in front of a microphone, but whereas most of them had a bit of a husky tone or a distinct character in their voice, Bono preferred to follow in the footsteps of people who may have been a little bit rough around the edges. He was more interested in seeing the person underneath all of the window dressing, and while rock and roll had more than a few eclectic characters, he felt that the right artist could make his heart ache in just the right way.
But any singer shouldn’t be getting into the music business to upset people. Bob Dylan may have pissed off more than a few parents because of how much he spoke about the terrors of the world, but it wasn’t because he wanted to push people’s buttons. He needed to show the world the real problems that were happening, and if everyone else chose to roll over and ignore the problems, Dylan was the one tackling them head-on.
The same could be said of Bono whenever he got up onstage. He could be a lot more long-winded than Dylan ever could when he started to make entire speeches in the middle of songs, but would you expect anything less from the guy who sang ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’? He was out for blood when he called out the horrors of the world, but it turned out that nothing managed to hurt someone more when their favourite singer talked about how they were really feeling.
After all, Bono was stunned the first time he listened to John Lennon sing on Plastic Ono Band, and while that album was really rough around the edges, you couldn’t deny that Lennon was wearing his heart on his sleeve. He wanted the world to know about how much he had changed in only a few years, and even though people weren’t ready to see The Beatles come to an end, Lennon figured that it was the only way for him to keep his artistic self.
Lennon was going to remain a true artist, but it turned out that not all of his heroes were able to keep themselves together. In fact, the era right before the Fab Four was a particularly dark time for rock and roll, and while Bono could appreciate what the early days of Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry were doing, there was no way for him to accurately describe what it was like to hear Elvis Presley towards the tail end of his career.
‘The King of Rock and Roll’ may have looked like a parody of himself by the time he hit the Vegas period, but even if he wasn’t the same person he was in his prime, Bono couldn’t help but ache in pain when he heard Presley sing, saying, “I think the Vegas period is underrated. I find it the most emotional. By that point Elvis was clearly not in control of his own life, and there is this incredible pathos. The big opera voice of the later years — that’s the one that really hurts me.”
And while Presley didn’t quite have the same moves that he had when he first played on the Ed Sullivan Show or anything, the voice hadn’t gone anywhere. There were moments where he might have needed to catch his breath a little bit more, but even if everyone clowns on this era of his career, there was no one willing to put everything they had into the songs, especially when bringing the house down with songs like ‘An American Trilogy’.
He was definitely a much different singer than he used to be, but even if he wasn’t moving into the next era of his career gracefully, Bono couldn’t help but feel the person that was trapped underneath that sequinned suit, and God knows how many stage lights. This was someone willing to do everything for their art, and although the actual performances could be hit and miss, there was no chance that you would ever go to see a show where Presley was going to phone it in.
