sulawesigirl4
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
The other day there was a thread about POP and someone (scatteroflight, I think) mentioned that we never have threads about other albums like October. As October is one of my favorites and one that I think is maligned, abused, misunderstood, and underappreciated...I thought I'd start a thread about it. So to kick us off, here are some quotes from the band on October.
Your thoughts on this album? Favorite songs, moods, vocals, lyrics, etc.?
-sula
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~I want to play the guitar very badly, and I do play the guitar very badly - Bono~
Take a virtual tour of U2's Dublin... Crzy4Bono's U2 page with some of Sula's Dublin pic's
Sula's Europe Pics
Bono:
Sometimes lyrics seem pretentious out of context, that's why they weren't printed on the sleeve of October. But although you may not get into the individual words, they're what gives it the drive. The sounds are of no use unless they are driven with the passion of the lyrics; the mood of the song is what draws it out of the band.
I'm more interested in creating an atmosphere, an environment, than I am in telling a story, like 'Johnny meets Mary', etc. Because things take a while to come out of me, they also take a while to sink in. Part of the reason U2 sounds much better a year later than the first time you hear it is that it takes ages before you get a feel for what's happening.
October is a more progressive record in that it demands more time. It demands your attention before you can sink in to what's going on there - there's a lot of emotions around there that aren't usual in rock'n'roll. So a lot of people will listen to it and say 'Hey, I want I Will Follow Part II' and we're not about to give them I Will Follow Part II, just as we're not about to give anything part II. October is transitional - it's just a phrase, an interlude. I liked the sound of the word - it's very Germanic and has the feeling of industry about it. Plus, it's a colder word and a strong symbol. I was trying to express my spiritual feelings in Gloria - which is a love song - but I found I couldn't express it, so I resorted to another language, or how someone else had expressed it in the past. . . .
On October I became more aware of the third part of myself - the spiritual nature - and I could have chosen to lock it away, and some would have preferred it that way, but I allowed it out. On the album there's a song I Fall Down and that's what I've done. I've spent my entire life falling down and picking myself up. And the band is the same way.
Adam:
October was such a frantic album to make at the time that the true value of it doesn't really come out until you look back on it. We had to write that record in three weeks and record it in a further three weeks - the 'second album syndrome' that you see a lot of bands go through. Looking back on it and seeing what it could have been like, seeing that it has been overlooked, you realize how worthwhile a lot of things in there are. There are some good songs. There's I Fall Down, I Threw A Brick Through a Window which was an interesting departure for us, Tomorrow - again another departure for us.
My favourite track always changes, but I think the melancholy of Tomorrow has it. It could have been a more finished song, but it's a very honest song. The pipes were a good direction to try. I'd like to use them more, but it becomes caricature if you use them too much. The fact that we actually made that record meant that nothing could touch us. If we could make that record and tour it, we'd be able to survive anything. It was defiant. That tour was quite miserable because the critics went bananas and we were very unpopular at the time. Having got through that I'm not resentful of what happened at all. I think, well fair play - they reacted the way they were supposed to react. The critics were nervous of it because of the spirituality that was coming through.
Your thoughts on this album? Favorite songs, moods, vocals, lyrics, etc.?
-sula
------------------
~I want to play the guitar very badly, and I do play the guitar very badly - Bono~
Take a virtual tour of U2's Dublin... Crzy4Bono's U2 page with some of Sula's Dublin pic's
Sula's Europe Pics