The punk rock classic that helped The Edge form U2: “Mix it up with the sexual”
The mechanics of working in a band like U2 aren’t lost on The Edge.
There are a lot of moving parts that make all of their songs great, and even when it looks like they aren’t getting the lead out like the rest of their contemporaries, there’s no one that can mess with the power behind some of their classic tunes that found their way onto The Joshua Tree. It was always about harnessing the energy that they created in the studio, and that involved making choices that were based on feel rather than being perfect.
Because, really, no U2 album is ever “done” in the traditional sense. Sure, they come out, and fans can hear them for the rest of their lives, but each track comes alive whenever they hit the stage. They were willing to throw in some new ideas every now and again when they started working with new technology, but if it wasn’t good enough to be played by someone like Patti Smith, it was no use trying to go any further with it.
Then again, Smith isn’t the first name that springs to mind when you think of tunes like ‘With Or Without You’ or ‘One’. Her music was a lot more guttural when she had a full band behind her, and even when she made her pure solo albums, she was looking to make music that was about taking the rudiments of rock and roll and turning them inside out whenever she started working with Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith.
That doesn’t exactly fit in with the multi-delayed guitar lines that The Edge worked on, but he could still see the power of Smith’s music throughout every record she put out. He had a lot of love for what guitarists like Steve Howe were doing with harmonics when listening to some of Yes’s finest records, but even if you take away all the bells and whistles, a song like ‘Gloria’ was all the band needed to get started. Smith didn’t write the tune, but her rendition became the blueprint for what U2 were going to become.
Her performance on the record was absolutely spellbinding, and being able to play that tune with any sense of conviction is what sealed the deal when the Irish legends first started playing, with The Edge recalling, “That changed everything for me at the time because we were starting to play as a band. The ideas… we’re a band who loves to mix it up with the sexual, the spiritual, whatever, the political, and there in that song she did that so incredibly.” And you can feel that sense of passion on every single record that they have made ever since.
Even if the way they roll out their records is more than a little bit questionable, Bono seemed to have the same sense of power in his voice that Smith had. He was never meant to sing like an angel above every song they made, and a lot of his best moments involved him shouting from deep within the music to talk about the deepest feelings inside his heart. ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ might be him lashing out in anger, but it’s important to see both sides, like when he’s singing about the harsher side of love on ‘So Cruel’.
And, in a way, that’s where U2 get the same punk rock energy that Smith used to have. Any common punk would look at the band and claim that they sold out years ago, but their idea of going against the norm and trying to push themselves into new territory every time they play is all about reshaping what they think a rock and roll band is capable of when they walk onto the stage.
Some of it is more than a little bit pretentious, but a few eyerolls is nothing that the band couldn’t handle as long as they were keeping Smith’s ideals in mind. They could still do whatever they wanted to do as long as they believed in it, and that kind of self-belief is more than a little bit contagious even when they are singing ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ in the biggest arenas around the world.
