Twenty Years Ago...
Current mood: The Joshua Tree changed all our lives
U2 - "The Joshua Tree"
OH. MY. GOD.
I was 11 years old, and the time when I could recognize such a fete was still years to come. But I can appreciate it now.
Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and songs actually written by the band members. (Can you imagine?) Born out of a very pure creative collaborative storm, every song on this record is amazing.
Shall we?
"Where The Streets Have No Name" - Being a child of the 80's I can't escape the image burned into my brain from the video to this song. Remember videos? Bono and the gang on the streets of Las Vegas. Edge looking particularly goofy for some reason - maybe he was wearing a weird hat or something? Anyway - this song is a fucking anthem. Makes me want to run in circles in the yard, or leap into the air in my kitchen. "When I go there / I go there with you / It's all I can do!!!" YEOW!!!!!!!! I need a minute.
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This song changes the temperature in a room. Complete magic.
"Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - In the speech delivered by Bruce Springsteen when U2 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he said, "...U2, with the dark, chiming sound of heaven at their command -- which, of course, is the sound of unrequited love and longing, their greatest theme -- their search for God intact." I don't think any single song proves this statement better.
"With Or Without You" - God, I love this song. Especially when I have a man to cry about. I love the peculiar synth sounds in this track. I heard Brian Eno say that this was groundbreaking when it came out. It's so odd, nobody had heard anything like it before Joshua Tree. I love live recordings of this song. You can feel the sound reach out of the speakers and wrap itself around you. Filling in the cracks. The audience sings along, and arenas sound like churches. The song, the music, the audience all become one organism. This is why I work in the music business. Nothing else feels like that. Nothing.
"Bullet The Blue Sky" - The drums. The ominous tone. The obvious political statements. The way Bono oversings the first verse. I used to work for a band who played an after-hours VIP room from 2am to 6am on Friday and Saturday nights. I would go watch them play in the small corner of the room. There was a table reserved for the VIPest of the VIP's just to the right of the stage. Sitting there were classic mobster characters. The overweight Italian guys in their expensive suits, smoking cigars, with scantily dressed women with huge hair sitting on their laps. They kept stacks of $1 bills on the table in front of them. The lead singer of this band would totally go for it and begin banging the neck of his guitar on the mic stand at the climax of this song, and the mobsters would throw fistfulls of the dollar bills in the air. Money would rain down, and the women would leave the laps of the guidos and pick up the money at the feet of my band guys as they were wrapping up the song and place it in their tip jars. "Across the field you see the sky ripped open / See the rain come through the gaping wound / Pounding on the women and children who run into the arms of America"
"Running To Stand Still" - This one went way over my head for years. It was a roommate about 5 years ago, Troy, who told me this was about a heroin addict. I'm not a drug addict, but I can say that I feel this way a lot. Always scrambling to keep up.
"Red Hill Mining Town" - One of my favorite tunes with a groove. "Our love runs cold/ in the caverns of the night/we're wounded by fear / angel in doubt / I could lose myself / but you I can't live without." I think I read that Bono envisioned Joe Cocker singing this tune. WEIRD.
"In God's Country" - Argued to be a statement against American political shortcomings. I always thought it was a celebration of nature. Ha! I just always envisioned rolling green hills and blue skies when the lyrics come: "Sleep comes like a drug / In God's country / Sad eyes crooked crosses / In God's Country." When this song was a single, and I was in 5th grade, I didn't know what that sad eyes shit meant. Still don't.
"Trip Through Your Wires" - Sexy. That sweaty harmonica at the startout? Nice. Makes me think of a romp with a man who makes my knees wiggle when we share the same airspace, and I can't resist. And then spending the week feeling guilty about giving in to the way he smells and touches me. "Angel or devil / I was thirsty / And you wet my lips." You know what I mean?
"One Tree Hill" - The triad of the final three tracks of this record are called "The Suite Of Death" sometimes. It's common knowledge that One Tree Hill is a tribute to a personal assistant to Bono who was killed while running an errand. My favorite part of this song is the vocal during the last refrain, and the distorted guitar comes in, and then it just drops off. "We run like a river / to the sea."
"Exit" - One of my favorite songs to listen to when I'm trail running. I love how it flows from the previous song with the theme of water running to the sea, then starts to build. The song becomes Dangerous. Urgent. Then Disappointment. Then Murder. Then Nothing.
"Mothers Of The Disappeared" - Sonically, this makes me think of a traditional Irish hymn. A prayer. A wonderful way to end the record, hearing heartbeats of those who have been lost to injustice. People stolen away from their families. Kids. Political prisoners. Maybe even those who couldn't escape their own demons.
Two decades later, every song is still relevant, and even sounds contemporary. While groundbreaking for the time, it still holds up to the more modern idea of what is great music. I don't listen to the radio anymore because there's nothing out there that's worth hearing. This industry that I work in wonders why profits are down, major record companies are crumbling every day... becoming media conglomerates... grappling on one another like clumsy high school lovers wanting any sense of corporate stability they can wring out of one another. While there is a lot wrong with the Music Industry (almost everything is wrong with it, but that's another blog) - I truly believe that the root issue is a loss of focus. Instead of great material that speaks to people and becomes their religion, we instead turn to Soundscan numbers, recoupable costs, chart positions, return on marketing investment.
But like a love affair that's run its course, I think that at least we had the good times. Like "Joshua Tree" and a handful of other truly inspired works of art. That changed people's lives.
Just genius. Fucking genius.
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