'The Voice' on Channel 4

[Jim]

I just wathced the second part of a series called 'The Voice' on Channel 4 (see u2log.com for details).

Tonight's 1 hour show was about the male voice going right back to Caruso and mainly covered male singers though to the 1960s. Bono contributed throughout and for the last 10 minutes the focus went straight from Elvis to Bono. Bono spoke of his own voice and how his voice dictates what he can sing. He said that many of his lyrics have ended up on the floor because his voice works best when he is singing vowels and not constanents and how this provides a limitation to his songwiring. He used 'The Fly' as an exampleof how he used distortion to enable him to sing the constanents and for them to come across with meaning (I can't remember his exact words).

The film ended with Bono saying: "My voice is the only thing that I can't lie with".

A very interesting programme and it's good to see that the producers chose to put Bono alongside the greatest singers of the last century. Sorry I can't give more details - I'm shattered!

 

[cass]

hello Jim
Hopefully discussion will ensue as a new batch of people enjoy this doco. There was some discussion about it earlier here when it was shown in Australia. Unfortunately there is a lot of me burbling on in this particular thread, but I really did enjoy the series.
http://forum.interference.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80535&perpage=15&pagenumber=2

 

[cass]

if you don't wish to wade thru all the


I transcribed the Bono bit...here is the crux

08-21-2003 12:41 PM - Getting Intimate- The Enchanted Boy - Bonovox
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from the TV series, "The Voice" Episode 2 "Getting Intimate, The Male Voice"
"...........My dad listened to opera all the time, so I think opera, not just the melodrama, which I'm certainly attracted to, the outpouring of emotion, but also in the force. Long before I got my voice trained, I had the desire to use the full instrument, but unfortunately it just sounded like me shouting at people. But the opera thing, the force, is the taking the horses out for a gallop type singing.

Rock and roll music is of course the melodramatic tradition of Europe and the rhythmic tradition of Africa. Elvis was the first person to put one hand on the plus and one hand on the minus terminal. I guess that dance was what actually happens when you hold onto those two things and let them go through you.
I came from a much whiter tradition, you know, we're Irish, a sort of pink you could say...pink and rosy.
U2's not really a rock band, we're more of a folk band actually. A big loud folk band. That's where I came in really as a singer.I really haven't got much of a voice. I came out of punk rock But , I had the desire to communicate and I had enough...umm...brazeness, to be uncool enough, to be raw enough, to express it.
Later I found out that I had a voice and that if I could only record it in the studio, we could get by with it.
It's a strange thing, the voice itself, because it tells you the material that you can cover. My voice was all about vowel sounds, which is really annoying because most lyrics have consonants. So I was left you know with all the lyrics I wrote just left on the floor because when I was singing them in a U2 song, they didn't sound believable. My voice just worked with the vowel sounds.
In fact, on the turn of the 90's, I started putting my voice through distortion pedals in order to change the tone of it so I could get a new vocabulary.
There's a song called Fly where I began that process. That's something you don't expect, your voice actually decides your subject.

A lot of the time rock and roll is about a pose or an attitude. But I often say this- a lot of people want to have the attitude like John Lennon, or dress or hang like him, but they don't want to actually open up their rib cage and pull it apart like him.
It's about the subject matter and are you getting it across? Are you making real what you're on about? Are people feeling it?
Some of the great voices now are spoken voices, rappers. Chuck D from Public Enemy is a great voice. He'd put the fear of God in you.
Theres' nothing worse than perfect singing. I break out in a rash when I'm around it.
It's expression and what are you trying to express.
Bob Dylan, he's one of my favourite singers. He sounds like a barking dog one moment and a nightingale the next. He goes from sublime to, you know, a buzz saw.
As a performer you can be as insincere as any singer can and has to be. But the voice is really the raw nerve. My voice is the only thing I can't lie with."

May the force be with you, always
signed
"pink & rosy cass"