U2 is an icon now, in 2017, not just in the world of popular music or just in the worlds of celebrity entertainers, humanitarians, or political activists, but in the world. As in, U2 is a global icon. Some call U2 Ireland’s greatest cultural ambassadors; more would agree it is Ireland’s greatest commercial export, which is no small feat considering U2’s hometown, Dublin, is also the home of Guinness. As with all exports with a global impact, U2 has its passionate devotees as well as its vociferous deriders, both of which attest to the fact that when U2 comes to stay, it changes the landscape and the lives connected to it.
Changing lives was sort of the point for the four teenagers who formed the band in 1976 and have remained the band’s only lineup to this day. When Bono, Edge, Larry Mullen, Jr., and Adam Clayton met for their first practice, they were looking for a change in their own lives. They all knew the cultural tribulations of Ireland; Bono and Larry also had more personal trials to work through. Their sights were set on bands who inspired them: the already iconic Beatles, the Who, and the Rolling Stones, as well as the iconoclastic punk rockers from London to New York City, from the Clash to the Ramones, Television, Patti Smith, and the Velvet Underground. U2’s stereoscopic vision put icons and iconoclasts into focus, into one point of view shared equally by four men. The vision in their heads convinced them that with effort, imagination, and ingenuity, a rock band could be a force for change; the dream in their hearts was fueled by faith, hope, and love, such that by starting a rock band it might be more than just fun, it could be a family, and whatever notes they played could take a sad world and make it better.
In the following pages, Timothy D. Neufeld presents one of the most considered examinations I have ever read of the multiple cultural forces that have shaped U2 and that, by engaging those same cultural conversations, U2 has shaped in return. Writing with a personal interest and working as a scholar to assemble the facts to guide inquiry and conclusions, Neufeld has written neither a biography nor catalog of U2’s achievements but rather a spirited testament of the core trait in U2 that makes it grow more enigmatic, thematically, the closer one looks. U2 is a changing band. It is known for its sonic, performative, and business experimentations that turned into acclaimed innovations, but at a deeper level it is driven by the belief that there is something better in itself and in us; its discontents arise when it sees inequality and indignity, prompting it to want to change the conditions affecting the lives at stake. Being open to change has served U2 well, internally, and it has made its career based on entertaining everyone around it to accept disruption as a force for good.
While its detractors scoff at the notion, U2 is, in fact, more interested in what you can become than what it can achieve. U2 intended to be big, great, and influential—there was no shortage of ambition in those Dublin teens—but it didn’t know back then how it would all turn out. The picture for the cover of this book is from January 2009, when U2 played in a preinauguration concert for US president-elect Barack Obama, staged in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, in Washington, DC. As a central campaign motif of Obama’s was change, it was fitting to have like-minded U2 help usher in his presidency by performing “Pride (in the Name of Love),” written to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., himself an incredible agent of change whose voice could be in the cultural conversations of the 1960s in part because of the courageous change President Lincoln himself enacted a hundred years prior. U2’s involvement in the concert and its pose in front of the Lincoln Memorial reinforces a point about its own stature, but as charismatic performers still thrilling audiences with new music, the band hasn’t yet joined a rock ’n’ roll statuary hall. Contradictions in U2’s career such as this have kept it interesting for fans and critics along the way, and U2 has always realized that the power for change is inherently embedded in a contradiction. What U2 couldn’t see in 1976 was that it would get caught in the inevitable irony of success before it was done trying to change the world. All its effort, brains, artistry, and punk spirit worked, bringing the band a massive fan following that was, apparently, waiting for just this band’s mix of music and message. The great irony of its career is that it is now iconic, while it still tries to operate within the principles of iconoclasm. “Smack in the middle of a contradiction is a good place to be,” as Bono is fond of saying.
Scott Calhoun
Series Editor