A call to revolution on the wrapper of a Big Mac

The wrestle with faith has an Irish soundtrack.

I realised this morning as I donned my concert t-shirt sent to me by my sister and brother-in-law, that I would need to explain my love for the band U2.

Not only that, I would have to create a new category on the blog, because for me the wrestle with faith has a soundtrack.

I first came across “the boys” in grade eleven as they released Rattle and Hum. My affection became a deep love when on one day my friends and I went to see the movie at the cinema and then that evening were within spitting distance from the stage at the Sydney entertainment centre when they joined BB King for the love comes to town tour. It was a remarkable experience.

They played a lot of older songs, a number I didn’t recognize at the time, but it was when Bono finished the concert with “40″ and my friend leaned over to me and said “You know where this comes from don’t you?” that the penny dropped and I started to understand that behind most songs the band has written lies a deeper meaning than is immediately obvious to the thousands of fans who sing along at the concerts.

It has fascinated me just how many journalists miss completely the heart of the songs. One review in Time magazine of “all that you can’t leave behind” said Grace was a love song to a girl, and another review in the same magazine a number of years later pronounced “magnificent” as a self-indulgent reference to Bono’s relationship with the audience.

It surprises me that Bono never corrects people about the songs. In fact he makes a point of saying that the songs mean different things to different people and that’s how he wants it to be. Still I am a bit stunned that the incredibly obvious references to the Bible (including a reference on the front of “all you can’t leave behind to a verse in Jeremiah that Bono calls God’s phone number) and theological truth seem to go without notice by the majority.

In the most recent album Bono chants “let me in the sound, let me in the sound”, and in many ways that is the secret to his remarkable lyric writing. He actually described the song writing process in one article where he said the main thing is to just write what is true for you in the moment. If you don’t have anything to say, then write a song about not having anything to say.

I was talking to a woman last night who told me she saw religion as oppressive and damaging. It’s hard to argue with that, but as I told her, I don’t believe in that kind of religion. Neither does Bono. Neither did Jesus.

The people Jesus was toughest on were the ones who had all the right religious ideas but whose lives didn’t match their rhetoric.

For a bunch of young men who grew up in one of the most intensely divided religious regions on earth, U2 have emerged as a living picture of anti-ideology. One grew up Catholic, one Protestant, one Agnostic and one had a parent from each side of the religious divide.

I love the fact that Adam the bass player has always remained distant from the religious journey of the other three, and yet even when they were at their most fervent, there was still room for Adam to be Adam.

U2 have had to develop a profound respect for individuality, which was sorely tested around the time the Edge was divorced, but unlike many other bands, they managed to stay together and all indications are that they will for many years to come.

I think when it comes down to it, God has spoken to me in many different ways through many of their songs. There are ones that are particularly important for me, for different reasons:

Acrobat: The wrestle with hypocrisy “I must be an acrobat to act like this and talk like that”

Grace: the theology of freedom “Grace finds beauty in ugly things”

A Man and a Woman: on marriage “I could never take a chance on losing love to find romance”

Sometimes you can’t make it on your own: on my relationship with my dad “let me take some of the punches for you tonight”.

Stand up Comedy: on perspective  ”Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady”.

I could keep on going but you get the idea.

U2 aren’t perfect.

Bono is not a saint, but by letting his heart speak and getting himself “into the sound” he has found a way to take the highly superficial world of pop music and make in meaningful.

In many ways its like a call for revolution written on the inside of a Big Mac wrapper.