This is a great article I read today from Rolling Stone. It may be posted somwhere in the forums here, but I haven't seen it yet.
From The Edge:
Is Bono proprietary about his lyrics?
Not really. I wouldn't turn to Bono and say, "I've just written a far better, second verse." I would say, "I think that line can be better. How about this?" And he might say, "You're right" or "No, you're wrong." And that's the end of it.
That's how a great band works. He would do the same for me, for a guitar part or an arrangement that isn't working: "Try that" -- and it's the missing piece. An example would be "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own." We had this tune that we had started working on for the last record [2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind]. I had a good feeling, but it never came together for us. I had another go at the music and got very close, but it still wasn't quite there. I was sitting on the steps with Bono, outside the house in France where we were working, trying to figure out something. He took an acoustic guitar and said, "Maybe this is what it should be." He played the first two chords, except the second chord was different, this weird thing. I was like, "You can't do that -- that's illegal, musically" [laughs].
But we went into the studio, tried it -- and it was what the song needed. That simple change of the second chord changed the whole song. It took on a whole, new life. In fact, we're going to release the earlier version in this U2 Complete Works set [on iTunes]. So people can get a chance to tell us if we made the right choice or not.
Full article:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/6769075
But I still think that - live, Bono is so intense on the lyrics and performing and the fact that it's hard for him to stay stationary for any given moment
that he probably would have a timing problem - at times. That's not a bad thing in my opinion
But that doesn't mean he can't play, he's just doing what he does best - singing and being the frontman.