Reactionary

And I hear it ringing like a bell.

I know I’ve gone on about this before and it’s been discussed in other places as well, but I’m so into him right now. I may not even be a real U2 fan (since there are so many experts out there on the topic). It’s just his voice that keeps me here more than anything else. I don’t care about the gossip, the notes the Edge plays, obscure details on their lives, obscure concerts, the latest (usually badly written) book. I just want to hear him.

There, I’m out. I’m not really a U2 fan. Shoot me.

I do a good job of pretending to be one. I’ve stood in long lines, I’ve waved to others in the band, I have one of the Edge’s picks. I don’t wear their tour shirts. I don’t have U2 songs picked out for my funeral (what nonsense!). I don’t celebrate their birthdays. I don’t have setlists in my head I want to hear for the next tour. I don’t have a U2Fund for tour expenditures. But in my defense, I would cry if I couldn’t go to a show in my city.

Maybe this is why the latest U2.com/ Propaganda stuff doesn’t bother me. Maybe why everyone’s complaints have sounded like pigheaded bitching to me. Maybe that’s why the complainers seem so stupid and self-centered and fucking supercilious snobs. Because while I’d love to go a show, it isn’t the centre of my existence. Face it, barring another Herculean effort (or happy chance… forget happy, delerious chance) on my part, I’ll never see him that close at a concert again. It’s all been captured on film or will be. And anyway, why have a 45-year-old Bono who can’t stop talking about Africa and who makes nice with politicians while neglecting his band and his leather pants when you can have a 31-year-old smoldering, swaggering version who doesn’t care what anyone anywhere thinks (or at least seems like he doesn’t).

I’ll take his part in every quarrel, performing gymnastics with logic to arrive at a coherent point that will counter a stab at him or any of his motivations. I relentlessly believe the best of him, though no news however bad can make me any less committed. I’m disturbed by drooling, irritating posts on various forii across the internet. I flinch whenever it seems like someone isn’t respecting him enough. Hearing a song is like coming home.

“Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own” at Saturday Night Live in November of 2004 is perhaps the greatest thing I’ve ever heard. It doesn’t make me cry. It makes me happy someone like this exists. He’s gotten so good at channeling, hasn’t he? Read the words to the song. By themselves they’re good, not great. Sung, he makes them beyond any critique. While the other guys may be the musical achievement of U2, he’s the It. He makes the songs feel, even if you’re too dried up to care. And rarely does he stoop to cheap sentiment. it’s all genuine and he doesn’t have to force it. It just comes out like sun breaking through a weeklong siege of cloud. He makes me still believe, though I’m not sure in what. Beauty, maybe. Beauty, beyond Fendi’s handbags or Italian men. Beauty deep in and beyond, beyond hackneyed similies or cliches. He is who he is, and he knows who and what he is. That sureness, even in his own foibles is absolutely charming.

Thank you, baby (even if it’s nothing you did, you just… are).

January 16th, 2005 | Category: Life, Tunes |  Print |  Send it | Subscribe to comments | Both comments and pings are currently closed