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Surrendermakes for an instructional title toBonos memoir.
Theres a lot to surrender to in this book, the first by the lead singer ofarena-rock giants U2.
One example: the bands first audition, for a childrens-TV program calledYoung Line, in 1978.
The band made it onto the show, where they played Street Mission, an early song of theirs.
No one noticed, Bono writes.
Anothermiracle attributable to Joey Ramone.
Bono wanted John Lennon to produceBoybefore he died.Speaking of confidence, hows this?
Now, as our dream was beginning, the Beatles dream was over, Bono explains.
Instead, 1980sBoybegan U2s early partnership with Steve Lillywhite, who also produced the two following albums,OctoberandWar.
Heres how Bono tells it:
We went to see Paul, who heard us out.
There was a pause, the room quieted, and then Paul spoke.
Am I to gather from this that you have been talking with God?
We think its Gods will, we earnestly replied.
So you might just call God up?
Yes, we intoned.
Do you think God would have you break a legal contract?
What sort of a God is this?
God is unlikely to have us break the law.
Edge agrees and argues he was always looking for some kind of signifier to go on.
Eno was eventually convinced when Bono agreed to attempt an album without any minor chords.
In the studio, Bono writes, Eno had a specific way of talking about music.
Brian abhorred muso talk, he writes.
Hed call riffs figures and preferred the term sonics over sound.
As for what he had no issues discussing?
Jimmy Iovine talked U2 out of using Where the Streets Have No Name in that car commercial.
Bono remembers Iovine saying, you might take the deal.
Flood once convinced U2 to perform a studio session naked.A producer with unconventional methods is nothing new.
The band (and production team!)
Bono considers Mysterious Ways the bands sexiest song.
And he credits the sound to the Edges fascination with funk and dance music.
As for his favorite single?
Vertigo, even though its a long way from a pop song.
I loved his daring and kind of biting humor, Bono writes.
We wait for him to laugh.
The signal that we could, Bono writes.
The band didnt go with the idea but looking back now, Bono calls it brilliant.
Iovine didnt likePop, either.U2 have made their disappointment with their ninth album known.
And they werent the only ones.
He thoughtPopmight be the most expensive set of demos in the history of music.
The demo didnt deliver.
U2s acoustic Ordinary Love performance at the Oscars was last minute and controversial.
(That performance isnt available on YouTube, but there is a similar one fromThe Tonight Show.)
Bono calls the performance his favorite version of the song, but not everyone agreed.
One producer thought not and pulled a Youll never work in this town again!
on us, he writes.
After all this time it was quite sweet to hear one of those lines.
I was taken by his intellectual curiosity as to how music was put together, Bono writes.
Would Guy Oseary understand that you cant manage U2 on a BlackBerry?
he said, per Bono.
That managing the four of you is not managing Madonna.
That its managing four Madonnas.
Whats the worst that could happen?
Bono remembers thinking, comparing the album to a bottle of milk the band left on Apple users doorsteps.
In some cases we poured it onto the good peoples cornflakes.
And some people like to pour their own milk.
And others are lactose intolerant.
The part of me that will always be punk rock thought this was exactly what The Clash would do.
Subversive, he writes.
