I hope you weren't actually in her stomach. It isn't supposed to work that way
Cool insight though, I love reading true fans' differing perspectives. It really does feel like a bit of a privilege!
I got hooked as a wee fella, 8 years old, hearing the Joshua Tree on the radio constantly, loving the tone of the guitar. That was it for me. I didn't play the guitar at the time but that tone - I loved it. And I vaguely knew a few songs from War and Unforgettable Fire from the radio, and loved them too.
When Rattle and Hum came out it just carried that tone on. In 1989, for a spell, All I Want is You seemed to be everywhere. My dad took me to a theme park (I use the word loosely - google Footrot Flats Amusement Park if you non-kiwis want to know the shit we have to put up with) in the spring/summer of 89. I was 10. It was just me and him. All I Want is You played on the car radio on the way there, about 4 times while at the park, and again in the car coming home. It was the best song I'd ever heard.
U2 came to Auckland that years but despite much pleading and many tears, my parents wouldn't let a 10-year-old go to a massive heaving rock concert. Fucking bastards.
That Christmas I got the back catalogue on tape. I sat there on the living room floor Christmas morning listening to Boy, then October, before getting kicked out and told to take the music elsewhere.
But I was enthralled. I was hearing those albums for the first time and the hook (for me) was still there. Space, tone, melody, uniqueness, a sort of heart on the sleeve feel.
Pop I now respect, but at the time I was disappointed. It didn't seem like my band. All the albums subsequent (with the exception of No Line, which, for a time, I thought was a classic hampered only by a repulsive middle three) have failed to hit me with the sense of inventiveness, individuality, sparseness and integrity I grew up admiring.
To each their own! I'm still a fan and still amped for the new songs.
