I have a confession to make. I really enjoy a good, catchy, uplifting pop song. Pop music doesn’t have to be disposable, although a lot of it is…artists like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift leave me cold, mainly because their music is pure cotton candy, devoid of any meaning whatsoever, but even that stuff has […]
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Surrender has been a theme of U2’s music throughout the band’s career. This could be, in part, because surrender is an important idea in Christianity–the idea of surrendering one’s whole life to God. It could also be important to the band members because of the thought that when, in a battle, one side surrenders, the […]
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I recently met a young man at the college I attend who knew next to nothing about U2. When one of my T-shirts sparked a conversation one night, he asked me for a good place to start with the band–a “jumping-on point.” Well, after giving it much thought, I decided that my new friend is […]
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As I’m sure you all know, Saturday’s U2 concert in Berlin, the second of two consecutive shows in that city, was cancelled after just five songs due to the fact that Bono lost his voice. Unfortunately, I was at work at the time and was unable to tune in to the show on Mixlr, but […]
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I often place Rattle and Hum‘s unique B-sides (i.e. new songs, not remixes or live versions) into two categories in my head. There’s one category for covers, which we’ve been visiting these last couple of weeks, and another for wholly original creations. U2 doesn’t do a whole lot of covers, so they tend to be something […]
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Last week, I wrote about how the “All I Want is You” single was the first time I ever bought a U2 single, and how much I loved the first B-side, U2’s cover of “Unchained Melody.” Well, of course, as a kid, I played the single for my mom…she agreed with me that the cover […]
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It’s fortunate that there are fifty-two weeks in a year–there are three U2 albums celebrating significant anniversaries this year, and my plan is to cover all three of them until they are exhausted, including all B-sides, outtakes, and any other related cuts that U2 might have recorded. Today, that means that we are talking about […]
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There are several “legendary” pieces of music from U2 that we fans might never get to hear, no matter how long we wait, whether patiently or impatiently, or what we might do. I’m thinking of things like the very early song “Concentration Cramp,” the complete soundtrack that Bono and Edge wrote for that stage production […]
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U2 has recorded a handful of instrumentals over the years–mostly, but not exclusively, in the early years. Today’s topic is very nearly one of those instrumental tracks, but for a very few lines of singing. That’s enough by itself to make this song noteworthy in U2’s catalog. What makes it special, though, and almost entirely […]
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I’ve written in the past about U2’s relationship with Patti Smith, but I barely scratched the surface of this particular song in that article. It seemed like the appropriate time to give U2’s cover of “Dancing Barefoot” a platform all to itself, since it was a B-side from the Rattle and Hum album that’s celebrating […]
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