All That You Can't Leave Behind

There was that moment during the Pop Mart Tour when Bono raised his hands in gesture to the huge glitzy over the top staging that he was standing on and sand that he was “looking for the baby Jesus underneath all this trash”. That in essence was the point of the entire 90’s decade for U2. After the stadium anthems and serious sloganeering of the 80’s they took another angle. Dreamed it up all over again as Bono had said from the stage of The Point Depot in Dublin on New Year’s Eve 1989. The nineties were about irony, taking on personas, investigating the technological age both it’s communicative possibilities but also the spirit within it. Was it a joke to be rock stars? What were the TV screens filling our heads with? Where was the devil in it all? And what of that Baby Jesus? It was an interesting ride.

So here is another new decade and indeed new millennium and with the first U2 release of the “zeros” it looks like they’ve dreamt it up yet again. Maybe, they’ve found Jesus under the trash. Certainly the cover tells us that all the technicolor has gone and indeed the first thing that the albums hits you with is what is not there. No techno sounds. No Berlin industrial. No Howie B.

It’s stripped back and about as naked as Adam was photographed on Achtung Baby. Indeed and this is no reference to that picture but there word that most comes to mind about this new album is beautiful. Grace would be another good adjective and that would not simply describe the albums elegance and charm but also the spiritual subject matter. As well as the music being stripped back, Bono has lost his Fly shades and McPhisto horns. There is no character acting here. Bono is Bono and he’s musing about his faith in as upfront ways as he ever did.

It’s possible that every track is a single and it just might be that Beautiful Day, which remarkably for a bunch of 40 year olds beat Kylie and Robbie to Number 1, is the least accessible one of all. Well New York might not be a good choice of a follow up, but that apart, built nicely on Brian Eno synths and Edge’s deftly dashes of gorgeous playing, Bono gives his best ever vocal performance, we have an album that you cannot get out of your stereo or your head. Astonishing.

BEAUTIFUL DAY

As with The Fly, Numb and Discotheque the lead off single always seems to elbow its way on to the radio without anyone being sure that they want it to be there. Beautiful Day is a grower and after the constant rotation on radio and television it is well deserving of being number 1. Imagine that 40 year old rock stars more interested in art than charts beating Kylie and Robbie to the Top of the Pops. And yes there is a rather strong whiff of Aha’s Sun Always Shines On TV which might be no coincidence when you are leaving the television walls behind for the dawning of brighter times. It rocks harder than most on this album. Of all the singles destined to be released from it it may be the least likely…but it did!

STUCK IN A MOMENT YOU CAN’T GET OUT OF

You can hear this one being covered by Motown to be cred or much more fearfully Westlife to be sad. It is the most pop thing that the band has ever done and that would explain Eno’s bet that it’ll be the hugest thing too. Yet it is another serious song about someone imprisoned with the walls of the moment closing in. Bono’s sense of belief that was there throughout the nineties but now with a new found confidence is trying to bring the comfort of the bigger picture – “It’s just a moment/This time will pass.”

ELEVATION

Closest thing here to Pop and the most likely to get some kind of a remix. Big guitars and a few Bono trade mark Woohs has them digging like moles for their souls to get some elevation.

WALK ON

Starting with the monologue spoken word thing that Walk To The Water was on the b-side of… it then brings the clearest of Edges trademark guitars and there is no doubt that Joshua Tree is revisited. You can also here the Gospel Choir on this one. A hymn for sure and a look at eternity where as you walk on towards it you can leave behind fashion, your creations, your words, schemes and your failings. Interestingly it is dedicated to Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi which maybe echoes Pride from Joshua Tree where again the hero has left everything behind except that which their murderer cannot take and he cannot leave behind.

KITE

Soaring on the synths of Eno, Bono is again dealing with the tragedies of life and realising that like the wind they are going to come in unpredictable ways. The lyric moves from mortality and the getting as much as you can get out of this life to the idea that someone has moved on to another place. There is hope though and “this is not goodbye”.

IN A LITTLE WHILE

Maybe Johnny Cash’s next U2 connection this is just a love song from the road. Seems to be the story of Bono and Ali’s love.

WILD HONEY

With the frivolity of The Beatles Honey Pie and the same spirit as Staring At The Sun this one again goes with the previous track and is a celebration in the longetivity of his relationship with Ali.

PEACE ON EARTH

The tender follow up to Wake Up Dead Man from Pop this is another one of a tender beauty on the saddest of topics. Bono even names some of the victims of the Omagh bomb. “Their lives are bigger than any big idea”. It could have been so sentimental had it not been the rant at Jesus that Bono seeks him to throw him down a lifeline and twists the Christmas slush into tough hard real questions. Oh that many a vicar would learn the lesson for this Christmas morning.

WHEN I LOOK AT THE WORLD

Follow on to Peace On Earth it is Bono asking Jesus what he sees as he looks at earth and in the yearning voice of a pilgrim longs to see what the divine does see but confesses his own human frailty to do so.

NEW YORK

I wondered for a time why this was here. I thought it might be a mistake but this album seems so meticulous in sound and theme that I had to look closely. Seems that it is here to make more sense and impact of Grace that follows. New York spoken in Lou Reed local drawl is a tough place and the place that could steal all that is good. It finds Bono linking his own recent purchase in that city with the sinking of the Titanic and though he doesn’t sink the thought is there at the end of the record. What Can’t You Leave Behind in such a sinking. We’re looking at riches again. It first raised it’s ugly head in God Part 2 when Bono sang that he didn’t “believe in riches but you should see where I live”. Seems that that is sometimes in New York these days

GRACE

Here is the conclusion. Like the last few verses of Ecclesiastes Bono comes to the point. Grace. Unmerited love. The perfect pearl that Jesus said man would give all his riches (New York included) for. A moody haunting meandering poem of a song. It is pretty darn near perfect. A little dig at those who would see eastern religion as cool and the Christian faith that U2 have heralded for twenty years as uncool. Grace lives outside of Karma. It’s the only hope. It’s there underneath all the trash. It is the reason for the hopefulness of this album. It is that which you can’t leave behind.

THE GROUND BENEATH HER FEET

An extra track and for me a mistake in that it takes us from the conclusion, like an encore after the dramatic concert climax. Great tune but we have it on Million Dollar Hotel.

So underneath that trash, there is the baby Jesus and that frail little baby seems to have given Bono the pearl in perfect condition. Glad that from it Bono gives us a wee gem too.

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