Boy Songs = Easy to Play

[drleather2001]

Has anyone considered that perhaps the reason that U2 has inserted the Boy songs into the set, and not played many 90's songs, is they are EASIER to play and require less rehearsal with backing tracks and lighting? They did mention that they were pressed for rehearsal time.

And I'm not quite sure I buy the "Boy is a cult classic." statement Bono gave...as far as rock albums go, it is almost universally viewed as a strong debut that shows lots of potential. In fact, I often think the remarkable thing about Boy is that they developed so far BEYOND it in a short period of time.

 

[typhoon]

I think it was probably harder for them to relearn all these old songs than to dial out another performance of "Until the End of the World" or "Gone."

The reasons for the Boy songs have been discussed in depth many times before. Summary: the band has drawn parallels between their first album and their last one, calling Bomb their first album and all that. Boy dealt with the innocence of youth, Bomb mostly concerns a return to that. They're both also kind of raw musically (compared to their in between efforts, anyway).

 

[Macfistowannabe]

I completely agree with typhoon.

 

[neilm]

After not playing certain songs for a long, long time, the chances are you will have forgotten how to play them. I know from my years of being in a touring band, re-learning old songs and getting them right can be a pain in the arse!

I'd imagine that it probably took a fair bit of work to get An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart/The Ocean and even The Electric Co, Gloria and 40 to a standard that the band were comfortable with to be able to include them in the set list.

Even then things can go wrong...check out 40 from the second San Diego show when Adam decided to play in a completely different key to everyone else!!! That was a howler of a mistake!!!

 

[mikal]

i'll gaurantee you that Electric Co. is no push over on the guitar.

 

[discothequeLP]

I'd imagine that it probably took a fair bit of work to get An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart/The Ocean and even The Electric Co, Gloria and 40 to a standard that the band were comfortable with to be able to include them in the set list.

yeah, i bet it did. and i'm sure they could easily pull off UTEOTW or Gone, but the Boy songs really bring the band back to their roots.

 

[TheBrazilianFly]

i'll gaurantee you that Electric Co. is no push over on the guitar.

Very true.

 

[Infinity]

Electric Co. is pretty hard to play on the drums compared with other U2 songs. The studio version is, I don't know about the live version.

 

[korczykp]

first time I picked up a guitar last week, and I learned I Will Follow.... although I have been playing bass for a few years

 

[U2DMfan]

Edge can play all the songs frontwards and backwards, his difficult style is in his timing, and the use of the delay/echo. He basically plays major and minor chords, nothing too difficult at all. I think if you "reminded" him of the chords, he would nail any song you asked him to play.

The problems are actually remembering all the chords, changes and style of play, not actually playing them. It's not as easy as it sounds to remember, and I bet there are songs that he hasn't actually played in many moons. But if you said, hey this is "C, Am, Em, F#) whatever, it would be a breeze with a run through, maybe even without.

But that's U2, 3 or 4 chords, sometimes less, basic rock tempo, you could play most of their songs around the same tempo, and Adam has an easier job than Edge most of the time.

So I don't buy the argument of easier music, honestly, I buy that Bono can't remember his own fucking lyrics, so the window of songs to play narrows, so they chose Boy songs to keep the window small for Bono.

And I am not trying to demean the complexity or quality of what they play. I am actually complimenting them, saying I think they could play any of it, it's Bono who can't remember shit.

One example, when asked about the much requested song, Acrobat, a song that has never been played live, Bono said "we'd have to mediatate in a tree to play that one", which I can tell you is horseshit. There are any number of guitar, bass and drums players who could pull off a shitty version of that song on this board, myself included. Edge, Adam and Larry could do it and do it very well, I assure you. The reason they don't play it? Bono.

Bono rehearsed The Fly for this tour, has played it over 100 times live, the song is 14 years old, and he still can't remember the lyrics. Now, there are reasons, I don't remember all of my songs either, so I am notjust chastizing Bono. I am saying this is why the song selection is what it is, among many other things, I am not sure it's because any of it is easier to play than others.

Boy, however is probably the easiest of the stuff overall.

 

[neilm]

i'll gaurantee you that Electric Co. is no push over on the guitar.

You'd be surprised! It's not actually that difficult. It's all in the timing.

 

[ImOuttaControl]

You'd be surprised! It's not actually that difficult. It's all in the timing.

You're right. The songs on U2's first few albums are VERY easy to play on guitar. It all boils down to getting the right delay levels for the most part. I'd say re-learning these old tunes wasn't too difficult for the band. If I can pick up a guitar, listen to a song like An Cat Dubh or Electric Co and figure out the guitar part to in a day, I think Edge can do it much much quicker.

 

[tilen]

so boys, if you're saying u2 is that easy to play and all, why didn't you come up with it and become famous and not them??
They make a unique formula, and you know it!

 

[zwervers2]

so boys, if you're saying u2 is that easy to play and all, why didn't you come up with it and become famous and not them??
They make a unique formula, and you know it!

Nobody is saying it's easy to invent. creating music is something completely different than covering a song. I write music myself. THE album is almost finished and I wrote the guitarparts for it.(I'm the leadsinger). the boy songs demand timing not great playingskills in terms of quickness and I should know because I'm certainly not the best guitarplayer in the world (understatement) but my timing and the willingness to create sounds and "invent"stuff makes the songs come alive..

So in conlcusion.
Yes: boy is easy to play
No: boy wasn't easy to invent

 

[Muad'zin]

IMHO the songs from Boy are far more difficult to play. Edge did some interesting guitarplaying back then when he didn't have that whole SFX rig he has nowadays. His later work is far more simpler, straight forward, leaning heavily on the SFX. Compare his guitarwork on Twilight vs. that of Mysterious Ways and Twilight comes off in a whole different league.

If you ask me, he was a better guitarplayer in those days then he is now.

 

[drleather2001]

Edge himself has admitted that the early U2 songs are the sound of 4 guys who "don't know how to play their instruments."

There are many guitar enthusiasts (if you want to call them that) who bemoan Edge's use of effects, because it hides the fact that for a long time he was a less than stellar soloist, for one. Listen to the solos up until Achtung: they aren't "solos" so much as guitar breaks. In God's Country, for instance.

To say that he's a worse guitar player now than in 1982 is horseshit. There's no way that he could have played the Zoo version of Bullet the Blue Sky back then, nevermind In a Little While. Boy leans heavily on delay and reverb, and truthfully as a half-assed guitar player myself, there are no better effects to hide one's deficiencies. Delay covers up most mistakes that you make, and turns the quarter note strumming of most songs into a wall of sound.

 

[zwervers2]

IMHO the songs from Boy are far more difficult to play. Edge did some interesting guitarplaying back then when he didn't have that whole SFX rig he has nowadays. His later work is far more simpler, straight forward, leaning heavily on the SFX. Compare his guitarwork on Twilight vs. that of Mysterious Ways and Twilight comes off in a whole different league.

If you ask me, he was a better guitarplayer in those days then he is now.

Interresting thought. do you realy think Mysterious ways is straight forward??? I realy disagree here...it sounds inventive..

Edge has always leaned on his effects eventhough he didn't have the U.F.O on the ground he has nowadays.

The strange thing is that I find it very difficult to get Mysterious ways right when playing it but twilight and the other boystuff comes pretty easy to me.

 

[zwervers2]

Edge himself has admitted that the early U2 songs are the sound of 4 guys who "don't know how to play their instruments."

There are many guitar enthusiasts (if you want to call them that) who bemoan Edge's use of effects, because it hides the fact that for a long time he was a less than stellar soloist, for one. Listen to the solos up until Achtung: they aren't "solos" so much as guitar breaks. In God's Country, for instance.

To say that he's a worse guitar player now than in 1982 is horseshit. There's no way that he could have played the Zoo version of Bullet the Blue Sky back then, nevermind In a Little While. Boy leans heavily on delay and reverb, and truthfully as a half-assed guitar player myself, there are no better effects to hide one's deficiencies. Delay covers up most mistakes that you make, and turns the quarter note strumming of most songs into a wall of sound.

Could not agree more!!!!

That's why I use the delay so much

 

[drleather2001]

And yeah, Mysterious Ways is a lot harder to pull off than it sounds. He mixes up the strumming with arpeggios pretty subtlely, but if you try to play it the way it sounds initially without listenening to it carefully, it comes off as "Wah-WAH...[silence] Wah-Wah...[scratchedy-scratch] WAH WAH...[silence].."
Although, he does benefit from some backing tracks/below stage organ on that song.

 

[Muad'zin]

Edge himself has admitted that the early U2 songs are the sound of 4 guys who "don't know how to play their instruments."

There are many guitar enthusiasts (if you want to call them that) who bemoan Edge's use of effects, because it hides the fact that for a long time he was a less than stellar soloist, for one. Listen to the solos up until Achtung: they aren't "solos" so much as guitar breaks. In God's Country, for instance.

To say that he's a worse guitar player now than in 1982 is horseshit. There's no way that he could have played the Zoo version of Bullet the Blue Sky back then, nevermind In a Little While. Boy leans heavily on delay and reverb, and truthfully as a half-assed guitar player myself, there are no better effects to hide one's deficiencies. Delay covers up most mistakes that you make, and turns the quarter note strumming of most songs into a wall of sound.

Just because you don't know how to play does it mean you make bad music.
Because you lack training you aren't hindered by all sorts of conventions and ideas how to play guitar. Whereas today he plays chords, back then he plays around chords, plays with them. It was different from the Jimi Hendrix style bluesy solos we were used to and the 80's race for the fastest guitarplayer. Its what I liked about his guitarplaying. I love the Zoo TV Bullet the blue sky guitarsolo but although Hendrixesque its hardly Hendrix. I can do it easily and like you am only a half-assed guitar player. IMHO because back then he had only delay and feedback he had to make up for it by creating interesting melodies and stuff. Wheras today its more about sounds. Its what what he says in the Joshua Tree classic album DVD, all songs develop from creating a sound first, then the song. Its not that I'm saying one is better over the other, but ever since UF for me it became easier to learn to play his guitarwork then before. Its more straightforward and the few guitarsolos I can do after few listenings. The real bitch becomes in recreating the sound.

 

[drleather2001]

Ok. Valid points. But I guess what it comes down to is sort of like if you were seeing the Beatles, would you want to hear their Sgt. Pepper stuff and Magical Mystery Tour songs...or their Meet the Beatles crap like I Want To Hold Your Hand?

I mean...you could say that they are of equal quality and that "A Day In The LIfe" is only considered better because its harder to reproduce, but that's hardly George Harrison's fault.

 

[thrillme]

After not playing certain songs for a long, long time, the chances are you will have forgotten how to play them. I know from my years of being in a touring band, re-learning old songs and getting them right can be a pain in the arse!

I'd imagine that it probably took a fair bit of work to get An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart/The Ocean and even The Electric Co, Gloria and 40 to a standard that the band were comfortable with to be able to include them in the set list.

Even then things can go wrong...check out 40 from the second San Diego show when Adam decided to play in a completely different key to everyone else!!! That was a howler of a mistake!!!

Adam plays in a different key to everyone else on "Bullet." I also heard Edge played the right notes on bass, but on the wrong string for "40."

 

[U2DMfan]

Ok. Valid points. But I guess what it comes down to is sort of like if you were seeing the Beatles, would you want to hear their Sgt. Pepper stuff and Magical Mystery Tour songs...or their Meet the Beatles crap like I Want To Hold Your Hand?

I mean...you could say that they are of equal quality and that "A Day In The LIfe" is only considered better because its harder to reproduce, but that's hardly George Harrison's fault.

In both cases, I would say I'd rather hear U2 songs post '84 than pre '84, and Beatles songs post '66 than pre '66.

So yeah, I'd rather hear one song from Zooropa than ANY from Boy, but I don't think that will happen anytime soon.

I'll probably only go to one show this tour anyways and look forward to a DVD release maybe later this year, that's the difficulty with a band like U2, their catalog gets bigger and as a result they play less of the songs that hardcore fans want to see because they have so many "staples" and "hits". They can't rightfully charge so much for a ticket and not play 'Pride' and 'New Years Day' even though a lot of us are sick of them.

 

[the tourist]

The Edge could probably learn any U2 song again in a day. It's nice to hear songs like Electric Co, though, because it's been so long since we've heard them.

 

[Ladera Heights]

All their songs are easy to play, but they have a solid catalog that has great songs all the way through it. Most bands put out shite after 25 years. U2 just doesn't fuckin stop putting out good shit. That's harder than writing a song in an 11/8 time signature.

 

[drhark]

Vertigo is one of the all time easiest songs to play. It could be a Ramones song. Apart from I will follow, Boy is not easy to play. It's the Edge's most complex and abstract guitar work. It's not just major and minor chords. The Boy material was developed before he knew a lot of chords. Instead he used fretted notes mixed with open drone strings and harmonics. It's not always easy to pick out all the notes for this reason, Try the verses in twilight, ACD, Stories for boys, Another time. Not fast, but very harmonically complex.

Joshua tree, on the other hand, was extremely simple. Play a D chord and you're right 90% of the time.

All Because Of You? easy barre chords. Sometimes? Great use of effects but simple. Anyone want to compare the solos from Another time Another Place and Miracle Drug? The Bullet solo? Shite pentatonic scale played poorly. The Edge used to say in interviews that he stayed away from blues playing because it was so cliche. Not anymore.

Boy and October are 2 of the greatest guitar albums EVER.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

I had a feeling you were going to be on top of this thread, Dr. Hark.

 

[the tourist]

I wouldn't say Bullet's solo is played poorly. I'm a guitar-hero nut and I think it's amazing every time. At least from Zoo TV on....

 

[ZeroDude]

I wouldn't say Bullet's solo is played poorly. I'm a guitar-hero nut and I think it's amazing every time. At least from Zoo TV on....

Played poorly my arse although blues solos can be cliche, Edges on Bullet is the opposite of this imo it's Edge Blues making it somethingelse altogether,

 

[BrownEyedBoy]

I think it was probably harder for them to relearn all these old songs than to dial out another performance of "Until the End of the World" or "Gone."

The reasons for the Boy songs have been discussed in depth many times before. Summary: the band has drawn parallels between their first album and their last one, calling Bomb their first album and all that. Boy dealt with the innocence of youth, Bomb mostly concerns a return to that. They're both also kind of raw musically (compared to their in between efforts, anyway).

You mean "last album" as in "last one"? Surely they intend to put out another one. If you'd like to connect the first one with anything it should be the really "last" one that no other follows.