The Unforgettable Fire

For some reason this is the only U2 album since October that I didn’t buy as quickly as the shops opened on the day of release. Indeed I have bought 5 of the last 6 albums at midnight on Sunday night only missing Pop by being in London where they are not as progressive or impatient as us Irish! Now why did I not buy it for a few weeks? Was it due to lack of student grant which, rarely got in my way, or was I not sure what was going on with U2 musically or spiritually at the time. And hasn’t that always been the way with U2. As my good friend and writer Dave Dark said on a recent email, “Every U2 album has you frightened that they have lost their faith and then after a few listens you are wishing that you were as spiritual as they are”. Maybe even I who has little patience with those who struggle with their shifts in musical and spiritual moods was going through some kind of wrestling.

Whatever it is hard to think back subjectively and its also hard to look back objectively. What was going on in music in 1984? How did this sit with it? How do I consider this album when I now listen to it back through All That You Can’t Leave Behind, Pop, Achtung Baby and Joshua Tree? In hindsight how does she sit?

What a huge step it was for U2 back then. A stepping stone towards Joshua Tree for sure but if anything it’s more ground breaking than it’s humongous selling successor. If anything Joshua Tree took the song style of War and mingled it with the moody shades of Unforgettable Fire. The Fire was an ethereal mysterious meandering of an album. It was big big music and Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois had their imprint all over it. The choice of those guys was a huge gamble for band still climbing the ladder.

Impressionistic would be a way of putting it. Though there is still the Edge’s trademark guitar shuffling and scuttling along it is so much more mature a performance by the entire band. Bono’s lyrics were just lines and poetic shades that rarely ran into couplets. The themes of hope and home and belief and giving away were all there but there was little in the way of clear statements of faith as on October or on the world as on War. Of course there was Pride (In The Name Of Love) which became their biggest hit to date and indeed, apart from Bad which made it’s name as a live thing through the Live Aid spectacular, is the only song from the album that still rates in the U2 classic canon. Even more interestingly and I don’t think it is only for trivia it is the only song on the whole album where the title appears in the lyric.

This was U2’s first reinvention. It was also their first album after their dilemma over whether their faith could live alongside their art. If this album showed anything it was that they had rid themselves of those chains. Here was a band breaking free and realising that they needed no big preaching statement clichés to communicate their faith. Impressionistic would do. They were artists not missionaries in a proclamation sense. Without this album musically, lyrically and in ethos there would not have been a best rock band in the world based in Dublin.

I do believe that without Unforgettable Fire was crucial to everything that followed. Whether it is a truly great album – I doubt it. After 15 years my jury is still out. For sure though being touted at the time as the best band in the world, these guys live act had yet to channel itself into a great great album. What followed Unforgettable Fire would decide whether they’d really make their mark. Here’s the diving board.

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