"American Prayer"

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Bono didn't write a song for Barack Obama. This song is a good 4 years old, if not older. He wrote it for his DATA tour in 2004.
 
popacrobat said:
Bono didn't write a song for Barack Obama. This song is a good 4 years old, if not older. He wrote it for his DATA tour in 2004.
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2002. I saw him sing it Dec. 1, 2002. Those original performances are my favorite. If the OP wants to hear it, I have the mp3 recorded at Wheaton College in 2002. The version in the vid Bono83 posted is pretty much the same as the original performances, unlike the 46664 performance in 2004. I like it, but it definitely was not originally written for Barack Obama.
 
If U2 wrote a song for Barack Obama, I'd throw my autographed album into the street. If he were president and actually did something amazing or wonderful, then fine. But in a campaign, blargh.

I always wished they would have recorded a proper version of this song. It had such great potential.
 
Please check out the thread below for more info on the origins of "American Prayer" including its first EVER performance that I was a part of witnessing.


http://forum.interference.com/f189/bono-co-writes-with-eurythmics-dave-stewart-hear-it-188603.html



Personally, I'm really p*ssed that this song, written as a plea for Americans to pay more attention to the plight of people in Africa suffering from AIDS and extreme poverty can now be turned into what appears a partisan pull for Obama! :down:
 
Jamila said:
Personally, I'm really p*ssed that this song, written as a plea for Americans to pay more attention to the plight of people in Africa suffering from AIDS and extreme poverty can now be turned into what appears a partisan pull for Obama! :down:
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At least it's not U2/Bono doing the endorsement. Since Dave Stewart wrote it with Bono (all credits I've seen as far as writing/composition list both), I guess Bono used it for his platform and now Dave's using it for his.
 
Still, I think that this is a bastardization of the song and really don't like the idea that people will think that this is a song that Bono & Dave Stewart wrote for Obama when nothing could be further from the truth!

And I say this as an Obama supporter.:ohmy:



www.mpwn-uganda.org :hug:
 
scottyT said:
If U2 wrote a song for Barack Obama, I'd throw my autographed album into the street. If he were president and actually did something amazing or wonderful, then fine. But in a campaign, blargh.

I always wished they would have recorded a proper version of this song. It had such great potential.
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I agree. It was sweet when Bono did the guitar solo and mocked himself for its lameness. I hate the ending when he brings in the rest of the audience, though. It definitely needed work, but it could have been cool, albeit quite nationalistic; it's not as though America invented charity or is living up to the amounts many Western nations provide.
Jamila said:
this song, written as a plea for Americans to pay more attention to the plight of people in Africa suffering from AIDS and extreme poverty can now be turned into what appears a partisan pull for Obama! :down:
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Huh? I didn't know that's what he intended. The lyrics don't convey that message really. Bono seems more interested in pandering to Americans, while heavily criticizing other people's for not giving to Africa.

Obama's song picks for his campaign kinda suck, but I understand them. "Beautiful Day" and "City of Blinding Lights" are just okay songs, nothing special, but I wouldn't get elected with my campaign background picks of The Cure and darker U2 songs! :lol:
 
The song was originally written by Bono and Dave for Africa and first performed, although in a rough version, on World Aids Day, December 1, 2002, for the start of the Heart Of America Tour. At the 46664 concert in South Africa 2003 Bono performed it with Beyonce, it was a different version with a proper chorus (something I missed on the original version, though generally I prefer the Bono solo/accoustic guitar version). I think they should have recorded it properly and made a charity single out of it. It shouldn't be used for any kind of political endorsement.
 
Muldfeld said:
I agree. It was sweet when Bono did the guitar solo and mocked himself for its lameness. I hate the ending when he brings in the rest of the audience, though. It definitely needed work, but it could have been cool, albeit quite nationalistic; it's not as though America invented charity or is living up to the amounts many Western nations provide.

Huh? I didn't know that's what he intended. The lyrics don't convey that message really. Bono seems more interested in pandering to Americans, while heavily criticizing other people's for not giving to Africa.

Obama's song picks for his campaign kinda suck, but I understand them. "Beautiful Day" and "City of Blinding Lights" are just okay songs, nothing special, but I wouldn't get elected with my campaign background picks of The Cure and darker U2 songs! :lol:
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Hey Muldfeld, last unicorn did a good job of synopsizing the history of "American Prayer" and in the link that I provided above, I gave an eyewitness account of the first public performance of the song and then Liesje gave everybody to hear the original version of the song from 2002.


Here is a bit of what I wrote in the link provided above:



Actually, "American Prayer" predates the 46664 concert performance by Bono, Edge, Dave Stewart and Beyonce....


The first public performance of "American Prayer" was on 1 Dec. 2002, in Lincoln Nebraska, as Bono and DATA started their "Heart of America" Tour on World AIDS Day.

I was one of about 2,000 people in the audience that night to support Bono and DATA in their efforts for Africa.



Bono had a singing group of children from Ghana to perform for us and he recruited them as his "back up" singers for the first public performance of "American Prayer".

It was a bit of a "rough draft" performance of the song which would get better as the "Heart of America" tour progressed.


In true Bono fashion, he had to introduce the song to us with a joke. At the back of the stage was a boom box on a stand.

As Bono introduced himself & mentioned that he was in a group called U2 , he walked over to the boom box and pressed the play button while saying "And here's Larry, Adam and Edge"!



The audience exploded with laughter as the pre-recorded music started and Bono began singing his "American Prayer".



:bono::heart::heart::hug:
 
Didn't they sing this on American Idol last year for Idol gives back when Bono showed up during rehersals?

Since Obama's name was brought up, I too am a supporter, and think it's great whenever the slightest U2 connection is made with him! I love that he uses their music during rallies and lists U2 as one of his top 10 favorite bands.
!! I am so excited!! I get to go witness HISTORY in Denver!!
WHOOT WHOOT! I got tickets for the big speech on Thursday and guess who is playing before Obama takes the stage at Invesco Field?? SPRINGSTEEN!! Ya baby. I think Dave Matthews and serveral other BIG acts yet to be named are playing also! I could not be more excited!!
 
Muldfeld said:
I agree. It was sweet when Bono did the guitar solo and mocked himself for its lameness. I hate the ending when he brings in the rest of the audience, though.
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If you are referring to the 2002 version, he performed it with the Gateway Ambassadors, a children's singing and dancing troupe from Africa. They are the ones singing at the end not the audience (and they sang the entire song, just come in louder at the end on that soundboard bootleg). I saw it performed twice and the audience didn't sing along, probably because we didn't know the song.
 
bono83 said:
read here
in about the video ;)
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You told us to check out the link to prove your point that the song was written for Obama, but it would seem you didn't read very far. There's this:

Stewart co-wrote "American Prayer" with U2's Bono is 2002. Bono has since used the song on a number of occasions as part of his advocacy work with ONE, the campaign fighting AIDS and extreme poverty. He has not been involved in this project as ONE's work is strictly non-partisan.
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I love amount of ignorance in this thread--on so many fronts! :love:
 
Bottom line people is that since Dave Stewart is one of the authors of the song he has every right to use it in whatever way he wants. He actually states in one of the articles I've read recently that it is not actually an endorsement of Obama per se because after all he's British not American but he wanted to celebrate the excitement and inspiration of the Obama campaign in getting people involved and excited about politics and America.

When the song was used on American Idol there were many news stories that reported that Bono had written the song specifically for the show. Presumably they came to this conclusion on the basis of the word America in the title. :D Since fact checking went out with the dinosaurs apparently this type of misrepresentation seems to be inevitable. Best you can do is correct what you can and ignore the rest.

Dana
 
for some reason whenever that woman belts out "this is an american prayer" something makes me think shes gonna sing "this is the rythym of the night...the night...oh yeah" dunno...same tone
 
if you get to the top of the mountain
would you tell me what you see?
if you get to the top of the mountain
remember me...

:love:
 
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