Much has already been said about “The Troubles”, Songs of Innocence‘s closing track, (including this great article from our own Joe Pittella). So much so that I wanted to take my time writing my own take on the subject. That’s why it’s appearing near the end of my U2101 articles dedicated to the songs of Songs of Innocence. Certainly, I wanted to separate my article from those by Joe and others by the passage of time, but I also wanted to be certain that what I had to say about the song was worth an article of its own, and wasn’t simply rehashing what someone else had already written.

To that end, I’m going to get a little personal today – not that I’ve ever shied away from revealing things about myself in my writing, but there are some things that even a big mouth like myself is hesitant to talk about. Like Bono, though, I want to be a writer who speaks to the soul of my readers, so I make a conscious decision to reveal rather than to conceal. Today, I want to talk about abuse. I was a victim of abuse while I was growing up, and I watched my mother get abused at the same time. If you have a close relationship with abuse, you learn that there are elements of all abusive behavior, regardless of the abuser or the abused, that remain constant from case to case. Eerily so. I’m talking about similarities, even down to exact language used by the abuser, that are so consistent across the board, that every victim of abuse can relate.

One of the hardest things about abuse, though, is that no one who hasn’t lived through it can understand the hell that you’re going through. You constantly find yourself second guessing the validity of what’s being done to you. “It’s not really that bad” you tell yourself, because you can see the same words in everyone else’s gaze. You worry that other people think that you’re just being a baby, or worse that you’re just on a play for attention. Trying to explain yourself and the way that the abuse makes you feel is among the most frustrating feelings that you’ll ever contend with. When you find someone else who’s been through it, someone else who understands, who gets it, the relief is palpable.

My mom was in town for a visit back in last October when Songs of Innocence was released in stores, and of course I spent most of the day listening to the album. I remember that when “The Troubles” came on, my mom, who was following along with the lyrics sheet, looked at me, wonder in her face, and asked “How could he know?”, and she was right. Obviously, Bono knows and understands what it’s like to live with abuse. I don’t know whether or not Bono was ever a victim of abuse. I hope not, for his sake, but if he hasn’t, he’s the only person I’ve ever known of who had an understanding of the subject without experiencing it firsthand. That shouldn’t surprise me as much as it does, because I should have learned long ago that one of Bono’s greatest gifts is the ability to feel empathy. He’s demonstrated this gift before, both in his charitable work and in his songwriting, but it still amazes me.