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Stolen U2 lyrics recovered 23 years later

18:43 / 22.10.04

A briefcase containing early drafts of Bono's lyrics for U2's second album, October—stolen from a show in Oregon in 1981—has been returned.

"Bono had to rewrite the "October" lyrics in the studio, and band members called it their worst recording experience. ...

The briefcase was returned by Cindy Harris, 44, who said she found it in the attic of a rental home in Tacoma, Washington, in 1981. She said she did not know the notes had been stolen until many years later, and then she had no idea how to reach the band. ...

[T]briefcase was stolen by some women who joined the band backstage at a now-defunct Portland nightclub."

What an odd story. October has always been my favorite U2 album, in part because of its raw, on-the-fly quality. There are a few groaners, yeah, but it's the sound of a band expanding in many directions at once—Bono was fresh off a fairly dramatic/traumatic religious-conversion experience—and there were of course going to be moments when their reach exceeded their grasp.

But an important part of the record's story is Bono alone in the vocal booth, hammering the songs out line by line when Edge and Larry had gone home; of Adam Clayton, the one who's easiest to peg as a rocker-manqué buffoon, staying for every bloody, frustrating session in a show of solidarity. It was a nightmare, by all accounts, that could easily have have torn the band apart—but which somehow made them stronger.

It's one of those "what if" stories: how would the album have been different? How would U2's dynamic have been different, if they hadn't had to plow through this huge interband crisis so early in their career?

Let the snarking commence. In fact, I'll start you off:
Somebody should have stolen the lyrics to all their other albums. and the master tapes as well.
There. Beat that, hataz.

Regrettable Juvenilia

21:23 / 22.10.04

I have no hate at all for U2 that early on... 'October' (the track) remains one of my favourite U2 songs ever, largely because it's so simple and understated (yeah, I know). Just piano and vocals, a perfect little evocation of autumn, loss and endurance.

I think rather than people abusing U2 in this thread we should probably have two parallel U2 threads, for what people love and hate about them at various points in their career - I could contribute to both with some gusto...

01:08 / 23.10.04

Balls to U2, and the horse they rode in on, ironic or otherwise, those guys are a disgrace.

01:30 / 23.10.04

I mean they are really, such a total disaster, so unfashionable, so un-hip. Don Estelle in a cowboy hat, on about subjects he doesn't seem to have much of a clue about understand. I don't really care whether the bass player was on booze, or whatever it is thay've tried to say lately to make the brand name intersting, the plain facts are these:

Bonio is a clown.

He is a short fat fool.

He should in a very real sense cry himself to sleep with a shotgun in his mouth, and I'd say to him honestly, if I had his ear, and any real influence on what he did with trigger, I'd say this; Retire, right now.

" Pull it Bongo, no one will miss you. "

This is maybe going a bit far, but still, hand on heart, who would be bothered if U2 never made an album again ?

I'm familiar with all their albums, but they've got nothing to say

10:40 / 23.10.04

Well.

That was... um. Forceful.

I guess that would make this the "hate" thread in Fly Boy's binary scheme, then.

14:45 / 23.10.04

Any actual reasons why you dislike them, Alex, other than the fact that you think their singer's overweight?

You're nothing if not consistent, I'll give you that.

Jack The Bodiless

23:10 / 23.10.04

No, but he's done his research. I mean, he loathes everything about them, but has still found time to become familiar with every one of their albums. Shame that, after all the hours of having to slog through such obvious crapulence, Alex has nothing to say.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

21:02 / 24.10.04

AND MEN WILL RISE, AND MEN WILL FALL, LIKE A SHOOTING STAR, LIKE A FLY FROM A WALL, IT'S NO SECRET AT ALL

Dudley loves early 90s U2! Represent!

02:54 / 25.10.04

Sorry. I was horribly drunk when I posted the above comments, which I think pretty clearly aren't the work of a rational mind.

What I do find puzzling about U2, though, is the way they seem to have recently been granted iconic status, as if they were The Doors or whoever. Have they actually done anything to warrant that ? I mean ok, there's been a couple of quite good albums, there's the record sales and so on, there's the charity work, but for U2 to be considered in the much same kind of terms as say Bob Marley or The Rolling Stones, as seems to be the idea behind their latest press campaign, is... well it strikes me that possibly they, and the journalists who are prepared to accomodate that as a line of argument, are, y'know, going a bit far.

They're a successful business, U2, but I wonder if anyone's still going to be listening in twenty years time.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

03:00 / 25.10.04

THE FLY is basically one of the best songs ever. Of course, their more recent stuff is complete arsecrack.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:06 / 25.10.04

"Is anyone going to be listening in twenty years time?" seems to me to be one of the most pointless questions we can ask about a band, seeing as a) you never can tell, and b) there is absolutely no good reason why this should affect your current listening enjoyment of any music that exists here and now.

Dudley's entirely right about U2's high point: to love them unreservedly seems to me to necessitate overlooking their last album, and various tracks of many others, not to mention 90% of their collective wardrobe, and much of what comes out of Bono's mouth when he isn't singing; to hate them unreservedly necessitates overlooking Achtung Baby, and I'm not sure which is the larger oversight...

Actually, the people who I really distrust are the ones who hate U2 on principle, but still have time for REM...

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:13 / 25.10.04

Also: calling a successful band you don't like a "business" and assuming that Nick Cave/The Fall/Throbbing Gristle/Smog/[Your Favourite Long-Running Band Here] are not in any sense a business = dud, dud, dud, dud, dud.

My favourite description of U2 goes something like this: "when he's not making crass proclamations about world events, Bono actually has a pretty good grip on love and longing" (Jamie T. Conway).

See: 'Ultraviolet'.

13:16 / 25.10.04

i know a boy a boy called trash:

trashcan

i know a girl a girl called party:

partygirl

i know a girl a girl called trampoline:

know what i mean?

fucking right downhill after that. this could go on forever, but did you know, despite the front, the marketing, the indulgence of the us market...

...half the cunts aren't even irish! i know! mental innit?

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:35 / 25.10.04

"But she won't tell me her name, oh no, not me..."

I thought Clayton was the only non-Irish one (as well as the only one who's never bothered God, the only nudist, supermodel-shagger, etc)...

13:40 / 25.10.04

Evans is Welsh.

13:42 / 25.10.04

Well, of Welsh descent anywez: born in Barking, apparently.

13:44 / 25.10.04

And he allegedly shagged Julia Roberts, who, while not quite a supermodel, has to count for something on the Celebri-Slut-O-Meter.

15:09 / 25.10.04

They're a successful business, U2, but I wonder if anyone's still going to be listening in twenty years time.

It's been seveteen years since The Joshua Tree and that's still being played quite a bit. I love U2, the Achtung Baby/Zooropa era is absolute genius, but all their stuff is pretty solid. Even the last album, which is apparently not too popular here, has some really great tracks. It's uneven, but Beautiful Day, Walk On and Kite make up for the weaker stuff.

Those last three tracks of Achtung Baby, Acrobat, Ultraviolet and Love is Blindness are one of the best album closing runs ever. None of the songs ever became big mainstream hits, but they're possibly the three best songs U2 ever did.

Regrettable Juvenilia

18:24 / 25.10.04

I completely agree with that last paragraph, Patrick.

Pity about their new album cover, though:

09:26 / 27.10.04

keep an eye on five tonight for a chat with bono, our towering paragon of pint-sizedness, and general all-round good-bloke alistair campbell. should be really, really deep. 'i've always loved you alistair. you're like the bowie of politics so y'are t'be sure'

[is this a good bono piss-take thread? or is the one on conversation a better place?]

and speaking of band aid, you know that kid in the h'oaks at the moment who's mad for a toke and heading for a fall? well wouldn't it be brilliant if the glamorous cast of hollyoaks did a charity-cover of grange hill's 'just say no'?! a few of the ol' grangies were on some show or other a few weeks ago, it sounds absolutely incredible, but zammo's fatter than roly now! i know!

22:23 / 08.11.04

http://www.fikas.no/~aklo/u2nuke.htm

The new album's up there, get it while you can. I'm listening to Miracle Drug right now and it's amazing on the first listen. More after I listen to the rest.

11:12 / 09.11.04

Story on the leaking of the album here.

Downloaded four or five tracks and thought them pretty promising. The most refreshing thing, I think, is that--power-chord riff-o-rama of "Vertigo" aside--The Edge is back. See, I'm a guitar-whore: I could give a fuck about Bono these days, mostly. But when The Edge sounds like The Edge again, for a change, I sit up and notice.

D'you know what I mean? The whole reason we dug The Edge in the first place is because he didn't play like everybody else--because he couldn't: he started playing without having learned much conventional technique, and built his style around his limitations--which gave him a unique, open, spacious sound: he would go whole songs without once playing a full chord.

Which is why the songs sounded as distinct and mysterious as they did. U2 were pretty linear songwriters from the beginning--"I Will Follow", "The Electric Co." et al are all verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus/out--but the sparse, indeterminate guitar work (often with the added 9, which is probably my favorite interval in all music, and avoiding the third--which meant the songs were inherently neither in major nor minor keys, but in some no-go zone between) gave them an air of mystery for all their conventional constructions.

But it's the old story--once the guy learned to play his guitar "properly," he insisted on doing so at all times, and for a while there was no more lightning left in the bottle. Many a band has been brought low by the scourge of proficiency, as ability to conform to workmanlike standards leads to workmanlike performances.

But our man seems to have gotten a little of his magic back. The arpeggios and piano at the intro of "City of Blinding Lights" take us back to Unforgettable Fire days: the distorto stomp of "Crumbs From Your Table" give us the blues U2-style in a way that all of Rattle and Hum's BB King-fellation couldn't, by way of a T-Rex glam boogie. Some pretty tasty stuff.

And Bono? Well, the line "Freedom has a scent / like the top of a newborn baby's head" is either genius or dopey, and possibly both.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:18 / 09.11.04

It's just dopey. But I have to admit, I like 'Vertigo' a lot more than I expected to.

11:52 / 09.11.04

Me too. But then, I'm a sucker for the use of "Hello" in pop songs: it's a tremendously effective hook (see: "Comfortably Numb"; that Something Happens song that sounds a bit like That Petrol Emotion; the Beloved... actually, this might be one for the "Tiny Subgenres" thread.)

12:55 / 09.11.04

yeh on top of the pops the other week at the end of the song bono started singing the refrain to this paedo-pop classic: hello, hello, it's good to be back, good to be back. the presenters looked mortified as they quickly faded his mike out. a rather pick'n'choose approach to the current affairs he thinks are worth having a conscience over.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:49 / 10.11.04

Heh - but wait - what? I'm all for a little light Bono-mocking ("hello, hello, I a man called Bonio"), but you're not serious, are you (about it being a lapse of conscience)?

14:33 / 10.11.04

looks serious does it?

14:34 / 10.11.04

He was quoting, I take it, this Gary Glitter song, the lyrics of which, in retrospect, are kinda icky.

20:29 / 10.11.04

Well that, and the start of What's The Story... by Oasis, their biggest-selling album.

It seemed a bit of a lame gesture when the Gallaghers made it, and that was presumably before anyone, except for industry insiders, knew the horrible truth about the leader of the pack.

I can't help but wonder if Hewitt hasn't been at the ironing again.

08:46 / 11.11.04

people always knew. my (honest) sister's ex-boyfriend was at school with the leader's main squeeze and it was all over the classroom 'so and so's going out with gary glitter'. he'd come and pick her up in his jag. 'he's just helping the family' said the teachers.

14:22 / 12.11.04

Bono Suicide Watch Begins
"Only Big Fun can help him now," says distraught family

14:31 / 12.11.04

cliff, madonna, robbie, queen, bono.

hall of fame?

hall of (wait for it) shame more like.

(gives self hi-5 and awards self fifty pun-points)

so with jacko in there it seems that maybe there is no good reason for keeping the leader of the gang out of the nomos next year.

this whole thing was a wast of time in the first place: you know the 'best of the fifties' episode? shaky didn't even make the shortlist! i know!

01:00 / 13.11.04

Bono suicide watch begins

Shouldn't there be something on telly about this ?

ITV primetime, Saturday evening, with the results of the phone vote delivered at the end, Bono having watched his career retrospective while hanging upside down above a pit full of vipers, waiting for the public to judge.

I think he'd probably be up for it - just imagine the attention he'd get.