Now What?

If financial security means they don't have to do anything in particular, Rattle and Hum also says that they can go in just about any direction they choose. By being something of an undefined, sprawling mess, it gives them freedom: instead of suggesting any one future direction, it simply shows a band that's learning more about the roots of its music and trying to use that new knowledge somehow.

"I do think we're slow learners," says Bono with a chuckle. "We really move at a snail's pace. We just learned the fourth chord. We've done a lot with three — just wait till we start using the fourth.

"There are few bands that have come so far with so little," he says. "I think U2 has, as a white rock & roll group, broken a lot of barriers. In terms of subject matter, even in terms of vocabulary. There are certain words that as a writer I own. Lots of them. There are certain tones in the guitar, certain approaches, which we own. I'm very excited about U2, looking back at what we've done. But I'm much more excited about what we're about to do.

"It's the end of the cold war," he says, "and I think it's also the end of the cold wave. You know, that sort of Halloween, bogyman music, death-march music. And we just did not fit into that, and we have been flying in the face of that for ten years. And now I think that's ending. You see artists in Germany, the new avant-garde, their idols are people like [nineteenth-century romantic painter J.M.W.] Turner. It's extraordinary. To see soul music at the center of things, Cajun music, Irish music..."

Not, he hastens to add, that U2 is going to become a band of roots-rock purists. "The future is not to look back," he says. "The future is to reinterpret the past. We didn't really reinterpret the past on Rattle and Hum. We gave in to it, and it was fun. But the future is to reinterpret, and preserve the spirit. That spirit is the real key, the spirit of abandonment."

With that, Bono heads to the men's room, and the conversation lightens. The other band members, it seems, are just as happy to order a few more drinks and talk about the history of sexual segregation in Irish pubs. Then their singer returns, announcing as he steps through the door, "All my favorite words are stolen."

"They are?" asks Larry with a start.

"They are," Bono says. "They're all gone, meaningless. Like born again. What a great idea — everyone should want to be born again, every day. But now it means nothing, because some very dangerous people got a hold of the word. Wherever I look, words have been used up. Gone. They don't mean anything. God. Light. Sex. And the most powerful word has got to be love, but the fight is on for that one."

He sighs. "That's the key for U2 as well," he says. "With all these big ideals, we've got to bring things down to two people, really. One is good, two is better. And that's where I see us going."

And so, in the end, we have to ask Bono the question he himself asked a couple of hours and a couple of pints ago: In 1989, after Rattle and Hum and everything that came with it, what should U2 do?

"I think we're really clear about one thing, maybe," Bono begins hesitantly. "What we have to do is simplify. Simplify everything and just get to the center of what it is to be in a band, which is to write great rock & roll songs and perform them. We picked up so much along the way that's just extra baggage — people and houses and big motorcades and airplanes and helicopters and boats...

"They're all there, but we don't need them," he says, "All we need is three and a half minutes. You know, the spirit that we found that was always in our music is stronger now. It's exciting for a rock & roll band to strip itself right down, to take off all recognizable signs and just bash away and say, "This is still us.'"

The final question, though, is still troublesome. At this stage in their career, is it possible for the members of U2 to truly simplify themselves? They spent the last decade carefully, consciously and deliberately building themselves up to the point where they are a Big Band in nearly every sense of the term; are they really willing or able to demythologize U2 without at the same time remythologizing themselves in some other way?

"I don't know," Bono says simply. "That's our dilemma. All we can do is simplify, strip away and just make shiny, bright music. Music that will..."

He stammers for a minute, struggling to find the right words. Finally, he gives up and shrugs. "You know, just dream it up," he says quietly. "Just dream it up."

[From Issue 547 — March 9, 1989]