The Rolling Stone Interview: Bono

Darling, I would love to take you by the hand, take you to some twilight land," sings the country songwriter, his voice wistful and cracked. He struggles through the verses, faltering a bit, forgetting, humming here and there, just pickin' his guitar and tappin' his foot gently in the corner of the darkened room. Finally, in a mood of wizened woe, he finishes the last chorus, "Am I left to burn and burn eternally? She's a mystery to me."

Now, what makes this particular moment in the history of tearful country ballads (a man, a guitar and Pain!) a bit more fetching is that the lonesome critter over there in the corner, the sad-eyed young man who done wrote the song, who is sitting quietly at home in his modest castle — which is, in fact, an ancient seaside watchtower built with seven-foot-thick walls of granite and oxblood mortar to withstand shelling from hostile navies — happens to be the same fellow who usually spends his time fronting the world's most popular rock & roll band.

And when done crooning "She's a Mystery to Me," the strange and lovely song he's writing for Roy Orbison, he launches into "When Love Comes to Town," an uptempo chugger he figures might fit B.B. King. Barely pausing, he plunges into "Prisoner of Love," which features a handy doo-wop break in the chorus, and then assays his beloved ballad "Lucille," his first-ever country song, written way, way back in the spring of 1987. And so here we have Bono, at home outside Dublin, during a short break on a long tour. Well, shucks!

We met a few days earlier in Cardiff, Wales, where U2 gave a spirited outdoor sing-along for 55,000. (Angst ridden and angst driven, the band's shows have become — for its fans — forceful, friendly rituals: sort of like Up with People, with an edge.) Immediately thereafter, a police escort whisked the band members away from the exiting mob toward the little white jet — the one with OUT OF OUR TREE TOUR painted on its fuselage — waiting at the airport to bring them home. And there, over the course of two days in late July, first in my hotel room, with the gulls wheeling and crying outside the window, and then in his watchtower, with John Coltrane's recording "A Love Supreme" snaking up the spiral staircase, Bono and I talked.