July 20, 2015 – Chicago, IL
It was just shy of a year ago that U2 and Apple perpetrated their fascist* album “Songs of Innocence” on the general worldwide population of over 500 million iTunes subscribers. This was a first in music business history. “You will all have my album,” says the Artist-playing-God, oblivious to the fact that to millions quite frankly, this may be an unwanted gift.
I remember watching TV in bed with my wife, and seeing this (obviously) Apple ad come on. The new U2 album is now in your iTunes library. Really? I had to run downstairs to my office and fire up iTunes just to see. It wasn’t there at first, but after upgrading to the latest version of iTunes (more on that later), there it was.
Me? I was happy just to have any new free music. I know how to run a Mac and delete files if I want to. I listened through a couple of times, and I was not really all that impressed. The songs all seemed over-produced, compressed to death, and lacking soul and presence. I thought “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)” was a joke. It lacked bite, and seemed over-inflated and not at all evocative of The Ramones. I get what Bono said about just doing a pastiche wouldn’t be a proper homage. But I felt this lead-off single lacked the proper balls.
Nevertheless, a couple of songs reached me in powerful ways immediately. I’d had a very close personal friend who had attempted suicide a couple of months before this record’s release. So, “Sleep Like a Baby Tonight” and “The Troubles” really spoke to me. I listened to these tracks constantly on my dog walks. I thought it ironic that on one of my favorite songs on the album, Bono wasn’t the real lead voice. Swedish singer Lykke Li sings the “The Troubles” hook, “Somebody stepped inside your soul, Somebody stepped inside your soul, Little by little they robbed and stole, Till somebody else was in control…” Haunting.
I have to admit, that over time, and having seen them live at Chicago’s United Center on June 28, some of these songs about their early days as a band have grown on me. I guess I need visual aids. It’s true that the band’s sound was stripped down to just the power trio and The Voice (Bono having rightfully inherited the title for a new generation from his friend Sinatra, after the great man’s passing). Even though the “This Might Get Loud” documentary revealed that The Edge can call up armies of musicians/sound from any area of the arena with his guitar and he help of his wizard guitar tech Dallas (I did catch a glimpse of Dallas onstage that night, which was notable in an of itself – that dude is like the 5th Beatle of U2), it was still a more primal mix than the homogenized sound of the studio record. Even though Larry Mullen is the most average of drummers, I like it that he doesn’t stay behind the kit all night. He walks around with a marching snare on “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and stands at a cocktail kit on the mini-stage on the other end of the arena-length runway for one set. Variety makes him interesting rather than his playing, and he doesn’t really play to the song like Ringo.
Larry Mullen and stand-up drum kit
Cedarwood Road
It’s daring, and not appreciated by all fans, that the band focused the show on a 5-song set from “Songs of Innocence.” It didn’t bother me. The video of Bono in his bedroom at 18 tender years of age, struggling with angst like any teen to write a song to impress his love, Ali (still his wife) made “Song for Someone” resonate with me for the first time. I’d never really heard it before. Seeing Bono walking down “Cedarwood Road” reminded me of my own walk down Sparta Street to meet up with my songwriting partner, probably at roughly the same moment in 1977. The members of U2 are about the same age as me, so the notion that they were going through many of the same things I was and digging some of the same music, at the same time – really struck home. I felt like, these guys are me…only with lots cooler toys and a lot more cash. Playing new songs like “Every Breaking Wave” and “Raised by Wolves” up against early classics “Gloria” and “I Will Follow” gave both the newer and older songs more weight and raised the emotional stakes. Seeing Bono chasing his beautiful departed mother “Iris” around an endless circle of time brought tears to my eyes. As I say, the visual aids helped.
Song for Someone
Iris (Hold Me Close)
I left my spot and wandered for the last encore, “One.” The house lights were up and I was within spitting distance of Adam Clayton, sitting down on the lip of a stage riser, grooving along and looking around at the audience. Awesome rock and roll moment. It was a great night. One of the best concerts I’ve ever seen.
Naturally, in the following weeks I’ve been listening to these new tracks from “Songs of Innocence” more and more. Great songs. I love it how songs can come alive more for you when you know what they’re about and recall seeing them played live. And it still doesn’t matter, because as with all good songs, they can become allegorical to your own life/experience as well.
And that’s when this song “Sleep Like a Baby Tonight” started to bother me. My friend sure didn’t want to hear it. It only just dawned on me that this song that has the lines “you’re going to sleep like a baby tonight” and “tomorrow dawns like a suicide” was dumped, unsolicited, into the iTunes libraries of every depressed, lonely teen who might be thinking that taking one’s own life is the only way out. I’m appalled at the thought. I understand that the song is not about that, and is actually speaking against suicide, expressing grief at violence. It doesn’t matter. Like Bob Dylans says “what does the song mean to you?”
I know people in the mental health field very well. If you say certain words during assessment, you get admitted, no questions asked. What I’m saying is that distributing this particular song, which could be construed as romanticizing suicide, to all iTunes users, regardless of their mental health or state of mind, is a highly irresponsible act from those who have such power.
Bono subsequently apologized and lamely excused that they “didn’t understand” that the music would go to all iTunes users whether they wanted it or not. Maybe. But let me tell you, as a person who works customer support for a Mac game publisher, Apple wasn’t dumb. They make the latest version of their OS X operating system a free update, to motivate “everyone” to be using their latest software. Nothing evil about that; it’s just a forward-looking strategy. No company in history has ever done a better job of seamlessly integrating the hardware-software experience and making it a useful and easily adopted part of our lives.
*Free music would never normally be seen as a bad thing. But when my nephew referred to “Songs of Innocence” as U2’s “fascist” album, I had to think again. Not everyone likes U2. Even the band members themselves know that there are legions of would-be fans who can never like the band, just because of Bono’s dubious haircuts over the years. Dropping this song “Sleep Like a Baby Tonight” on an unsuspecting public, even though it’s a great and beautiful song, was a reckless move, for both Artist and Distributor.
The album isn’t free anymore, but I wonder how many copies they’ve sold subsequently. Regardless, the damage is done.
- David Joost, July 21, 2015, Chicago, IL
Sleep Like a Baby Tonight
(Words and Music © 2014 by Clayton, Adam / Evans, Dave / Hewson, Paul David / Mullen, Larry)
Morning, your toast, your tea and sugar,
Read about the politician’s lover
Go through the day like knife through butter
Why don’t you
You dress in the colours of forgiveness
Your eyes as red as Christmas
Purple robes are folded on the kitchen chair
You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
In your dreams, everything is alright
Tomorrow dawns like someone else’s suicide
You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
Dreams,
It’s a dirty business, dreaming
Where there is silence and not screaming
Where there’s no daylight, there’s no healing
You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
In your dreams, everything is alright
Tomorrow dawns like a suicide
But you’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
Hope is where the door is
When the church is where the war is
Where no one can feel no one else’s pain
You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
In your dreams, everything is alright
Tomorrow dawns like a suicide
But you’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
Sleep like a baby tonight
Like a bird, your dreams take flight
Like St Francis covered in light
You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
* thanks to Ryan O’Leary
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Greg Kot for friendship and advice.
Thanks to Terrin Krantz for finally convincing me to do this.
Thanks to Margaret for being the love of my life.
Thanks to Kathryn for being the music.
Thanks to Daniel for being my little Jesus.
Thanks
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