Bono Discusses Obama's Nobel Peace Prize in Times Op-Ed

Bono has come out in support of President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize win, penning an op-ed column in this weekend's New York Times celebrating Obama's goal of eradicating world hunger and crediting the President for helping "rebrand America." As Rolling Stone previously reported, the recent RS cover star was recruited by the NYT to contribute six to 10 op-ed pieces in 2009, ranging from pieces on Frank Sinatra to poverty.

"There's a sense in some quarters of these not-so-United States that Norway, Europe and the World haven’t a clue about the real President Obama; instead, they fixate on a fantasy version of the president, a projection of what they hope and wish he is, and what they wish America to be," Bono writes. "Well, I happen to be European, and I can project with the best of them. So here's why I think the virtual Obama is the real Obama, and why I think the man might deserve the hype."

Check out photos tracing U2's rise to superstardom.

Bono goes on to quote a United Nations speech delivered by Obama last month in which he said, "We will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time." "I don't speak for the rest of the world. Sometimes I think I do — but as my bandmates will quickly (and loudly) point out, I don't even speak for one small group of four musicians," Bono wrote. "But I will venture to say that in the farthest corners of the globe, the president's words are more than a pop song people want to hear on the radio. They are lifelines."

Related Stories:
• Bono Talks Frank Sinatra in First "New York Times" Op-Ed
• U2's Bono to Write For "New York Times" in 2009
• U2 Beyond the Horizon: What's Next for Rock's Biggest Band

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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