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WAR
(1983)
.::
SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY ::. [back
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Host:
"Sunday, Bloody Sunday," one of the cuts from the current album... is that
about that day in Ireland when, what, 13 people were killed in a protest...?
Bono:
It's not important even what was the incident. That's not the point.
It's not a rebel song. We're not taking sides. We're just saying,
"HOW long must we sing this song?" I'm trying to say that worse than
the buildings that have been torn down, worse than the wreckage of Northern
Ireland is the BITTERNESS in peoples' hearts. That's what you've
got to fight against. That's why music has the ability to LIFT people
up. It lifts me up when I listen to our music, or to other peoples'
music that inspires me. It lifts me up and makes me want to fight
back, not with sticks and stones, but fight back in yourself -- refusing
to compromise your own beliefs and standing up and saying, "NO, there's
MUCH more, much more!" That's what it's about, isn't it really, when
you're faced with an audience... not to hide behind your haircut, not behind
your stance or your statement. Just be who you are FOR people.
(from
MTV's
"Fast Forward" (?) series, 1983, transcript posted on Wire by G.G.)
War opens with the claustrophobic attack of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," whose violent imagery tackles the Northern Ireland situation head on. But the mention of Jesus at the song's end implies it isn't just about politics.
"In the Republic of Ireland," Hewson says gravely, "if you make a statement against a man of violence you are in danger of coming into a certain amount of violence -- a brick through a window. Some of the lines in that song were very strong in castigating the IRA. At the time I felt very angry. But that had to be tempered, 'cause I realized I was dealing with a blinkered situation, where people really believe in what they're doing; they're not just bad men. I'm prepared to say it's wrong, but I wanted to make it more than a song about the IRA. That's why I contrast it with Easter Sunday, the ultimate Bloody Sunday."
He acknowledges the lyrics were "tempered by other members of the band. They redeemed a very volatile situation." Still, "we have the right to speak out."
(from
"Operation Uplift" by Scott Isler, Trouser
Press, July 01, 1983)
Bono:
"'Sunday Bloody Sunday' is a day that no Irishman can forget but should
forget which is what we were saying -- 'how long must we sing this song?'
When I introduce it I say: 'this isn't a rebel song.' The name comes
up all the time and we're saying 'how long must we have songs called 'Sunday
Bloody Sunday.'' That's one area in which I agree with Bob Geldof
-- history is just one mistake after anotther."
"And
what I was trying to say in that song is: 'There it is. In close-up.
I'm sick of it. How long must it go on?' It's a statement.
It's not even saying here's an answer."
"It's
just saying -- how long must this go on?"
(from
"Articulate Speech Of The Heart" by Liam Mackey, Hot
Press, July 22, 1983)
Bono:
"It means so much to me, that song, because... I'm not sure I got it right. I mighta got it wrong, I'm not sure. I originally wanted to contrast the day, Sunday Bloody Sunday, when 13 innocent people were shot dead in Derry by the British army, with Easter Sunday. I wanted to make this contrast because I thought that it pointed out the awful irony of the fact that these two warring faiths share the same belief in the one God. And I thought how... it's so absurd, really, this Catholic and Protestant rivalry. So that's what I wanted to do. In the end, I'm not sure I did that successfully with the words. But we certainly did it with the music. The spirit of the song speaks louder than the flesh of it."
(from "Timothy White's Rock Stars", radio interview, June 01, 1987)
[...]
By 1982, heavily influenced by the Clash, Bono was writing political songs.
However, the lyrics to "Sunday Bloody Sunday" were actually begun by The
Edge while Bono was away on his honeymoon. The guitarist who was
in his seaside holiday home writing songs, was inspired by how the friendly
and humorous Belfast people were being torn apart by their religious problems.
"Sunday Bloody Sunday" referred to two incidents -- a football match in
Dublin 1920, and the streets of Derry in 1972 -- when British soldiers
opened fire on unarmed civilians. It was not an angry condemnation
but, like "New Year's Day" asked for understanding and forgiveness.
"How long must we sing this song?"
"The
song's not specifically about those two incidents," points out the singer.
"We borrowed the title to convey the power of the song. We were really
nervous the first time we played it in Belfast. We told the crowd,
this is about what's happening here. If you don't like it, we won't
play it again. But they just went wild for it."
(from
an interview in Sanity
record store's magazine by Jenny Raine, November 1998)
Sunday
Bloody Sunday -- Suddenly, U2 entered the political arena with a song which
linked Ireland's two Bloody Sundays, 1920 and 1971, with the crucifixion
("The real battle is begun / To claim the victory Jesus won / On a Sunday,
bloody Sunday"). The Edge reckons they wrote it naively, without
considering the consequences. But it might have caused a more serious
backlash if the guitarist had got his way. Unusually he conceived
the original lyric as well as the music. It began, "Don't talk to
me about the rights of the IRA." He can smile about it now: "My words
were pretty clumsy, a polemic. Bono shifted it to being much less
political, more of a personal reflection." After Noraid-supporting
Irish-Americans misunderstood and began throwing money on the stage when
U2 played the song, Bono responded with the introduction: "This is not
a rebel song!" When they played it the day after the Enniskillen
bombing in 1988, as immortalised by the Rattle And Hum movie, he added
a raging "Fuck the revolution!" Sunday Bloody Sunday resulted in
enduring opprobrium from Republicans, and prompted a denunciation from
Gerry Adams. "Thankfully those days are long gone," says Edge.
"We're optimistic about what's been happening."
(from
"Boys To Men" by Phil Sutcliffe, Q
Magazine, November 1998)
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.::
SECONDS ::. [back
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The most obvious context at the moment is the nuclear threat. You deal with that on "Seconds," but you'd also touched on it before on last year's "A Celebration" single: "I believe in the Third World War / I believe in the atomic bomb." Was that a pointer of sorts to some of the songs on the LP?
Bono: "All I was saying was that the realities of the bomb must be faced: 'I believe in the powers that be / But they won't overpower me'."
Edge: "People are starting to ask more questions about the bomb. In the past, people have been more apathetic. They have become so caught up with their own lives that they haven't looked outside. Now they are asking what the hell is going on."
Adam: "I think people are ready to take a more militant stance to protect their future as the rise of the CND movement shows."
Bono: "Before we can overcome these things we have to face them. There is a line in 'Seconds' about a fanatic assembling a nuclear device in an apartment in Times Square, New York, but it could be anywhere. We are now entering the age of nuclear terrorism where a group of fanatics could have the capabilities of bringing a bomb into a city and holding millions of people for ransom."
(from
"War & Peace" by Adrian Thrills, New Musical Express, February 26, 1983)
George: I wanna play the other side of that ["Trash, Trampoline And The Party Girl"], which is "A Celebration", since we have no hope in the world of hearing this tomorrow, since the band's forgotten it we're gonna play that. This is a terrific track, is it ever going to appear on an album?
Bono: No... (laughs) I don't think so. It ah --
George: Do you not like it?!
Bono: No I do like it actually, I'm... Sometimes I hate it, I mean it's like with a lot of music, if I hear it in a club it really excites me, and I think it is a forerunner to War and a lot of the themes. It was great in Europe because... A song like "Seconds" people thought was very serious -- on the LP War "Seconds" -- it's anti-nuclear, it's a statement. They didn't see the sense of humour to it, it's sort of black humour, where we were using a lot of clichés; y'know "It takes a second to say goodbye", blah blah, and some people took it very seriously. And it is black humour, and it is to be taken sort-of seriously, but this song had the lines in it, "I believe in a third world war, I believe in the atomic bomb, I believe in the powers that be, but they won't overpower me". And of course a lot of people they heard I believe in a third world war, I believe in the atomic bomb, and they thought it was some sort of, y'know, Hitler Part II. And Europeans especially were (puts on outraged French accent) "Ah non! Vive le France!" and it was all like, all sorts of chaos broke out, and they said, "What do you mean, you believe in the atomic bomb?" And I was trying to say in the song, I believe in the third world war, because people talk about the third world war but it's already happened, I mean it's happened in the third world, that's obvious. But I was saying these are facts of life, I believe in them, "I believe in the powers that be BUT, they won't overpower me". And that's the point, but a lot of people didn't reach the fourth line.
(from a radio interview on KZEW Dallas, June 12, 1983, transcription by Scarlet of U2 Interviews)
[During live performances,
Bono would introduce "Seconds" as a message to various powers that be,
including "the President," "the Prime Minister," "the King and the Queen,"
Mrs. Thatcher, Gorbachev, and Ronald "Ray-gun."]
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.::
NEW YEAR'S DAY ::. [back
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It's the same dilemma that the Undertones had to face before they wrote songs like "Crisis of Mind" and "It's Gonna Happen" -- coming to terms with something on your own doorstep [ref. to "Sunday Bloody Sunday"]. But what about "New Year's Day," which is about Poland? What qualified U2 to make pronouncements about something like that?
Adam: "It's not a comment on the situation, more an acknowledgement of Solidarity. At the time we wrote the song, we didn't know that martial law was going to be lifted on New Year's Day. We were just saying that no matter how much people try to change the situation, things are always more or less the same at the start of every new year."
(from
"War & Peace" by Adrian Thrills, New Musical Express, February 26, 1983)
About
a year ago, Bono started getting interested in Gandhi, Martin Luther King
Jr. and the idea of idea of passive resistance. "I realised that
you can't be a passive pacifist, you must be an aggressive pacifist.
I had to make a strong statement about what was happening, and 'Sunday
Bloody Sunday' is that statement. War is not all conflict and violence.
Love is still a central theme. 'New Year's Day' is really schizophrenic.
It was sparked off by Lech Walesa and Solidarity, yet at the same time
it's a love song. Love is always strongest when it's set against
a struggle. And even in 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' there's a line 'Tonight
we can be as one.' Rock 'n' roll can do in some practical ways what
politicians can only do in theory. I really do believe that music
has the power to break down barriers.
(from
"Love, Devotion & Surrender" by Tristam Lozaw, republished in U2 Magazine,
No. 11, June 01, 1984, original publication unknown)
Bono:
The piano gave the track a sort of icy feeling, very European, and the
image I came up with was one of striking workers standing outside in the
snow in Poland during the time of Solidarity, when Lech Walesa was imprisoned
and cut off from his family.
(from
"U2's Pride (In The Name Of Songs); Achtung, Babies: Bono And Edge Evaluate
One Critic's Choices For The Group's 10 Best Recordings, From 'I Will Follow'
To 'One'" by Robert Hilburn, Los
Angeles Times, September 12, 1993)
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.::
DROWNING MAN ::. [back
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[Perhaps
a bit off topic in parts, but interesting none the less:]
When
U2 first came on the scene, "atmosphere," sooner than rhythm, was their
strong point. To fill in colors the three-piece couldn't provide,
Bono and The Edge sprinkled the Boy tracks with glockenspiel, punctuating
"I Will Follow" with a knife jammed into whirring bicycle spokes.
For October, Edge taught himself piano, supplanting the glockenspiels,
and injected searing slide guitar on "Gloria," "I Threw A Brick Through
A Window" and elsewhere. (On War's "Surrender" he plays a 1945 Epiphone
lap steel guitar he found in Nashville.)
For
War, the band caved in the soaring cathedral they'd created with Lillywhite,
stripped down to a kind of "club" sound, and added violin ("Sunday Bloody
Sunday" and "Drowning Man") from Stephen Wickham, whom Edge met at a Dublin
bus stop. They also imported la-la's from Kid Creole's Coconuts and
trumpet from Kenny Fradley. With the abandonment of that big, atmospheric
sound came a greater degree of realism in the lyrics, although one cut,
"Drowning Man," retains the "wide-screen" feel of the earlier LPs.
While his bandmates went on holiday, Edge doctored the song. In a
fashion similar to "bowing" a guitar, he set his electric piano at zero
volume, struck a chord, then turned it up, for a chiming, modal sound that
Bono finds "Gaelic." Adam added a 6/8 bassline, and Larry, for the
first time, played with brushes. Something in the song's Celtic feeling
set off one of Bono's more forthright spiritual forays, and he allows as
to how it may be his notion of God speaking: "You know, 'Take my hand,
I'll be here if you can -- I don't want these famines to take place, these
car accidents, this world of chance, this is not how I intended' -- but
what comes out is also a love song."
(from
"U2" by Fred Schruers, Musician, May 01, 1983)
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TWO HEARTS BEAT AS ONE ::. [back
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If
people think that Bono sets himself up as some sort of spokesman, he refers
them to "Two Hearts Beat As One," a song where he also tries to explain
the emotion of love. "It's explained in very straightforward terms:
I don't
know how to say what's got to be said
I
don't know if it's black or white
There's
others see it red
"I'm
saying that nothing's black and white, most things are grey, and that everyone
sees things differently."
(from
"Love, Devotion & Surrender" by Tristam Lozaw, republished in U2 Magazine,
No. 11, June 01, 1984, original publication unknown)
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RED LIGHT ::. [back
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Adam:
I think having been over here in America much of the time, a lot of the
white rock 'n' roll bands that you hear were very dull and unstimulating.
I think Larry and myself, and indeed the rest of the band, have discovered
that the only really progressive music happening over here is R&B.
We were listening to a lot of R&B and it made us more aware of the
role of the rhythm section. I think these are our tentative explorations
into the field of R&B.
Bono:
It's also reflected in the subject material. A lot of the songs on
side two of the album were inspired by New York and the friction of the
city, the whole claustrophobic thing, how people were living on top of
each other, how it affects them, their way of life, their characters.
"Surrender" and "Red Light," in particular, and even "Two Hearts Beat As
One."
(from
"U2 in America: Pop Morality vs. the Irish Way" by Kevin Knapp, Creem,
September 01, 1983)
With
Bono being an avid filmgoer, movies and documentary footage provided the
inspiration for much of War. Two songs, "Red Light" and "Surrender,"
are based around New York experiences and some cityscapes from Martin Scorsese's
Taxi Driver. "These two songs are about a character who was steeped
in herself, alone in the spotlight of her own tragedy, who eventually commits
suicide. Some images from the start of Taxi Driver were my inspiration,
so I was quite pleased to hear (through a friend) that Scorsese has complimented
the LP. We drew some of the images for War out of the cinema and
as a result, some of the songs, like 'Surrender,' sound very cinematic."
(from
"Love, Devotion & Surrender" by Tristam Lozaw, republished in U2 Magazine,
No. 11, June 01, 1984, original publication unknown)
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.::
SURRENDER ::. [back
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Bono'd
met Sadie -- not her real name -- in New York. She was living on
the street, hustling and doing whatever was necessary to keep body and
soul together. Over 10 years on, she's still at the same game, only
by now she's got a smack habit to feed. Back then, he was attracted
to her and to the way in which she'd been able to let go of all of her
trappings of domesticity and respectability. He probably still is.
There's
an ambivilance here that involves a huge leap forward to the biblical certainties
of October and hints at the more complex world of Achtung Baby and Zooropa.
The concept of surrender is a spiritual one, but it's rooted not in any
conventional concept of virtue. It wasn't enough for Sadie to be
a good wife, to raise a good family, to lead a good life. And so
she took to the streets.
"You've
got to learn to let go in order to really live. That's what 'Surrender'
is all about." Bono explains. There's a reminder of the fascination
with suicide on Boy when Sadie takes herself up to the 48th floor to find
out, in the words of the song, "What she's living for." "In one sense
everyone's got to jump off. That's what it's all about -- the idea
that if I want to live, I've got to die to myself."
(from
"Into The Heart" by Niall Stokes)
What's
the implication of the notion of surrender?
Bono:
Surrender is not what it used to be.
What
is it?
Bono:
In "With Or Without You" when it says "and you give yourself away and you
give yourself away" -- everybody else in the group knows what that means.
It's about how I feel in U2 at times -- exposed. I know the group
think I'm exposed and the group feel that I give myself away. And
funny enough, Lou Reed said to me, 'what you've got is a real gift: don't
give it away because people might not place upon it the right value.'
And I think that if l do any damage to the group, it's that I'm too open.
For instance, in an interview, I don't hold the cards there and play the
right one because I either have to do it or not do it. That's why
I'm not going to do many interviews this year. Because there's a
cost to my personal life and a cost to the group as well.
But
there is a spiritual value about giving yourself, your ego, away?
Bono:
That goes back to the song "Surrender". I always believed in the
Biblical idea that unless the seed dies, is almost crushed into the ground,
it won't bear fruit. Again Lou Reed was telling me how he grew up
in the 50's when machismo was a way of life and you did not give yourself
away, in fact the opposite, and he said he found the fifties idea of Cool
a real strait-jacket in his life.
(from
"The World About Us" by Niall Stokes, Hot
Press, March 26, 1987)
[for
more, see also: RED LIGHT]
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"40" ::. [back
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George: In "Sunday Bloody Sunday" you had the line "How long must I sing this song." It turned up again in "40".
Bono: Yeah, they're like bookends to the LP. I consider "40" to be the refrain of "Sunday Bloody Sunday". "Sunday" starts the album and "40" closes it, and again, it was just emphasising the point, y'know, we don't have to continue in the way we're continuing in our homeland. It was a message to the people of Ireland, really.
(from a radio interview on KZEW Dallas, June 12, 1983, transcription by Scarlet of U2 Interviews)
[Bono:] Years ago, lost for words and forty minutes of recording time left before the end of our studio time, we were still looking for a song to close our third album, War. We wanted to put something explicitly spiritual on the record to balance the politics and the romance of it; like Bob Marley or Marvin Gaye would. We thought about the psalms... "Psalm 40"... There was some squirming. We were a very "white" rock group, and such plundering of the scriptures was taboo for a white rock group unless it was in the "service of Satan". Or worse, Goth.
"Psalm 40" is interesting in that it suggests a time in which grace will replace karma, and love replace the very strict laws of Moses (i.e. fulfil them). I love that thought. David, who committed some of the most selfish as well as selfless acts, was depending on it. That the scriptures are brim full of hustlers, murderers, cowards, adulterers and mercenaries used to shock me; now it is a source of great comfort.
"40" became the closing song at U2 shows and on hundreds of occasions, literally hundreds of thousands of people of every size and shape t-shirt have shouted back the refrain, pinched from "Psalm 6": "'How long' (to sing this song)". I had thought of it as a nagging question –- pulling at the hem of an invisible deity whose presence we glimpse only when we act in love. How long... hunger? How long... hatred? How long until creation grows up at the chaos of its precocious, hell-bent adolescence has been discarded? I thought it odd that the vocalising of such questions could bring such comfort; to me too.
(from Bono's introduction to "Selections from the Book of Psalms: Authorized King James Version", Grove Press, 1999)
[This seems to be the version of Psalm 40: 1-3 that is closest to Bono's rendition:
I waited patiently for the Lord
And He inclined to me, and heard my cry
He brought me up out of the pit of destruction
out of the miry clay
And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm
And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God
Many will see and fear
And will trust in the Lord]
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