I actually like this a lot. Add 13 in too.
I’ve been listening to this track list today — first time I’ve listened to these songs in months, watching the Berlin show reminded me these albums exist — and am enjoying it. A lot. Yes, this era has a modern pop sheen that won’t age well, and they’ve clearly lost a few beats creatively from the ‘85-95 glory years (just listen to the bursting, almost effortless creativity in the AB songs from the Berlin show), but these are good songs with interesting concepts and occasionally thought provoking lyrics that very much are in service of The Big Idea (2nd Naïveté).
Bono is aiming high, and I’d say the SOI songs are generally more successful because they make big pronouncements off of intensely personal observations and anecdotes — some of the details he’s offering are really gut wrenching in their intimacy (“she buries the boy beneath the sand” “I was told I’d feel nothing the first time” — it recalls teenage details like “Mrs Brown’s washing is always the same”). Good stuff. “A heart that is broken is a heart that is open” is a gigantic pronouncement, but one that resonates when understood in the context of her death because it is earned . Right there, that’s the U2 origin story.
SOE has the U2 grandeur musically, but winds up tripping over its own word play, and words that wind up being so universal as to mean almost nothing. “Free yourself to be yourself” sounds much better coming from Iris than it does dad Bono.
However, SOE takes flight in its best moments in a way that SOI never really does, at least musically. It has the ecstatic quality — the end of LIB, the strings in LOH, the thumping in Blackout — even if SOI is the tougher, tighter, more honest and maybe rewarding listen. You really get a sense of these guys, and Dublin in the 70s, in a way that SOE has no such grounding. Are we getting a sense of yacht spirituality? Of transcendence through celebrity charity? And I don’t mean these as digs. These are nice guys. But they have a bajillion dollars and nice families and homes in the south of France. What could they possibly be writing about now? The best Bono does lyrically on SOE is in “Sometimes” when he says what ever all been wondering since at least 2009 (if not earlier) — they’re not what they once were. The death songs have the honesty we want, as opposed to the “advice” songs.
This order works, generally, but could easily swap one song for another. RBW and CW are generally thematically similar, which is the stronger song? Also, I don’t love SFS, but I think it’s thematically critical and meant to be an album centerpiece. I love SOL, but went with RFD because they’re similar but I think RFD is a remarkable song, easily top 3 of this decade. I don’t love the flow between The Troubles (best song on SOI) and LOH, but if we had a longer ending then maybe?
This was a decade that had their biggest ever face plant, but also perhaps their second best tour — SOI/E blow Elevation and Vertigo and 360 out of the water — and fans who pay close attention are rewarded with a clear thematic focus across two albums, and Bono has offered himself up in uncharacteristically unheroic terms, at least on SOI, which is refreshing. All this is to be applauded and appreciated. As I’ve said many times about U2 and in terms of their age and stature: no one does this. They don’t have to do this. But they do. We are lucky.
I know this thread is about a nice few thoughts Bono put to music because he (and we all) love Italy and our heart goes out to them. Sorry for the tangent. Quarantine thoughts.
. Enjoyed the new diddy for what it was, a nice little unexpected one off that reflected current events. Since most U2 ideas never die, would not be shocked to see it or pieces of it crop up years from now.
