Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Exploring U2: A Deep Dive Into Their Discography [Episode 211]
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: We're totally booked in rock and roll.
- 0:04Speaker 2: I think I'll leave you. You're reading little hands this.
- 0:06Speaker 1: It's time to rock and roll band roll up, I
- 0:10Speaker 1: Totally booked. Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the podcast
- 0:17Speaker 1: for those about to read and rock. Find the podcast
- 0:20Speaker 1: at booked on rock dot com. Every episode there in
- 0:23Speaker 1: both audio and video. Exclusive video segments from each episode,
- 0:27Speaker 1: links to all of the social media sites and the
- 0:29Speaker 1: latest rockbook releases. Also check out the book down Rock
- 0:33Speaker 1: YouTube channel at bookdown Rock. If you like what you see,
- 0:36Speaker 1: click the like and subscribe buttons. That goes a long
- 0:38Speaker 1: way to support the podcast. Aaron SAMs is the author
- 0:41Speaker 1: of the brand new book YouTube Song by song. Over
- 0:45Speaker 1: forty years since their formation, YouTube is one of the
- 0:48Speaker 1: biggest bands in rock history, with an estimated one hundred
- 0:51Speaker 1: and seventy five million records sold worldwide. They've earned more
- 0:55Speaker 1: Grammy Awards than any other band, with twenty two. This
- 0:59Speaker 1: book guide's the reader through the band's fifteen studio albums,
- 1:02Speaker 1: eight of them number one, and over seventy singles, including
- 1:05Speaker 1: several hits along the way, and there are many of
- 1:08Speaker 1: the eighty four singles released. YouTube has two number ones,
- 1:12Speaker 1: four top tens and ten Top forty singles. A lot
- 1:16Speaker 1: of ground to cover with Aaron. Was a great discussion YouTube,
- 1:19Speaker 1: one of my favorite bands. I was looking forward to
- 1:21Speaker 1: this one. We cover YouTube's music from the beginning right
- 1:24Speaker 1: up through their most recent release, Atomic City. I put
- 1:28Speaker 1: together a playlist of you two, which you could find
- 1:31Speaker 1: on the show notes page. The book is You Two,
- 1:35Speaker 1: song by song. The author is Aaron Sam's Aaron. Nice
- 1:40Speaker 1: to meet you. What's up? Nice to me?
- 1:42Speaker 2: How are you? Oh?
- 1:43Speaker 1: I'm good. I'm looking forward to talking to YouTube, one
- 1:45Speaker 1: of my all time favorite bands. So this I was
- 1:48Speaker 1: looking forward to so much. By the way, is it
- 1:51Speaker 1: Aaron or do I know you go by aj on
- 1:53Speaker 1: social media?
- 1:56Speaker 2: Either one works cool?
- 1:58Speaker 1: Cool? All right, So you can't pick a better person
- 2:01Speaker 1: to write this book. I don't think you've been a
- 2:03Speaker 1: fan of the band for over forty years now? Is
- 2:05Speaker 1: that true?
- 2:06Speaker 2: Its forty years last year? Okay picked up under a
- 2:11Speaker 2: blood red sky back in nineteen eighty three and haven't
- 2:14Speaker 2: looked back ever since.
- 2:16Speaker 1: You've traveled the world to see them live in Tokyo, Istanbul.
- 2:20Speaker 1: This is according to the website that you created. I
- 2:23Speaker 1: believe YouTube Songs dot com.
- 2:25Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I've been all over from one end of
- 2:29Speaker 2: the world to the other, nothing to pick out a
- 2:32Speaker 2: spot on their tour and go do some tourism while
- 2:35Speaker 2: I'm there.
- 2:36Speaker 1: And you keep notes, and you have kept notes on
- 2:39Speaker 1: those shows or on YouTube's discography since what nineteen eighty nine?
- 2:45Speaker 2: I've been keeping notes on the discography specifically since about
- 2:51Speaker 2: eighty eight eighty nine. They're all stashed in the back
- 2:53Speaker 2: of a book about Rattling Home Wow.
- 2:56Speaker 1: And that that's what led to the website Youtubo Songs
- 2:58Speaker 1: dot com.
- 2:59Speaker 2: Yeah. Back in about ninety five final class project for
- 3:05Speaker 2: a little computer class. We had to pick a topic
- 3:08Speaker 2: and create a web page. And the props that'd pick
- 3:12Speaker 2: a topic you really enjoy. So YouTube floated to the
- 3:16Speaker 2: top of the list, and I took my discography notes
- 3:20Speaker 2: that I've been working on for years and turned it
- 3:24Speaker 2: into a little website.
- 3:25Speaker 1: When did that site launch? What year?
- 3:28Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety five?
- 3:30Speaker 1: Ninety five, okay, five.
- 3:32Speaker 2: Years before you two had their own website.
- 3:35Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's right around the time when Pop came out.
- 3:40Speaker 2: Yeah, when Pop came out, I did a little PopMart
- 3:44Speaker 2: site for most of that tour. Following this tour city
- 3:49Speaker 2: by city and tracking, the setlists and so on, so
- 3:53Speaker 2: a little different that year, but went back to the
- 3:55Speaker 2: discography and the collecting site shortly thereafter.
- 3:59Speaker 1: How did you Become a fan?
- 4:02Speaker 2: A friend of mine was down at his place and
- 4:06Speaker 2: his older sister had under a blood red sky playing
- 4:10Speaker 2: and I heard forty at the end of that, and
- 4:14Speaker 2: I actually heard the crowd singing along to it. And
- 4:16Speaker 2: it was the first live piece of music I can remember.
- 4:20Speaker 1: Here how long to sing this song exactly.
- 4:24Speaker 2: I was a bit of a music fan at that point.
- 4:27Speaker 2: I've been buying cassettes at that time other artists, but
- 4:31Speaker 2: it was the first live recording, and I was well
- 4:33Speaker 2: when I heard that.
- 4:35Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw them once and only once in two
- 4:37Speaker 1: thousand and one All that you Can't Leave behind tour,
- 4:40Speaker 1: and it's one of the best shows I've ever seen.
- 4:42Speaker 1: What is the best show that you've ever seen? How
- 4:44Speaker 1: many we'll start with that. How many you two shows
- 4:46Speaker 1: have you been to?
- 4:48Speaker 2: I've seen somewheres around one hundred shows.
- 4:50Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, so I guess it's kind of hard. Is
- 4:54Speaker 1: there one or two that you that you think about
- 4:57Speaker 1: when you'd think best, best of the best shows. I've seen.
- 5:01Speaker 2: Some of them. I can't not mention because of the atmosphere.
- 5:06Speaker 2: I saw them at the Apollo Theater in New York.
- 5:09Speaker 2: That is gonna have to be at the top of
- 5:12Speaker 2: the list. I saw them filming the video for the
- 5:15Speaker 2: Blackout in Amsterdam, so again small club. There was maybe
- 5:22Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty people there. So those sorts of
- 5:26Speaker 2: night are hard to match. Some of the bigger shows
- 5:31Speaker 2: are just as amazing, though. Seeing them at Croke Park
- 5:34Speaker 2: in Dublin at home, Oh wow, eighty five thousand people
- 5:38Speaker 2: standing behind you, it's just goosebumps. Aaron Sunday, Bloody Sunday
- 5:43Speaker 2: in that atmosphere, it's just incredible.
- 5:45Speaker 1: Have you gone to the recent shows at the Sphere?
- 5:49Speaker 2: I have. I saw six shows at the Sphere, three
- 5:52Speaker 2: in October and three in February.
- 5:56Speaker 1: So how are you feeling about that? Because Larry Mullen Junr.
- 5:59Speaker 1: Is still not und right.
- 6:02Speaker 2: I am a Larry Mullen fan. I go and I
- 6:06Speaker 2: watched Larry from the start of a show to the
- 6:08Speaker 2: end of a show. I drum along with him. That's
- 6:10Speaker 2: my jam when I'm at a show. I really thought
- 6:13Speaker 2: I was gonna mind the Las Vegas thing because he
- 6:16Speaker 2: wasn't there. They had somebody in there that was really good.
- 6:21Speaker 2: Wasn't the same on drums, but he did the job,
- 6:24Speaker 2: and he did it well, and he was fun to watch.
- 6:28Speaker 2: He was great with the crowd, he was great with
- 6:33Speaker 2: the fans. He went out of their way to say
- 6:36Speaker 2: thank you to us every time he spoke. So it
- 6:40Speaker 2: was really good that way. So I got over it
- 6:42Speaker 2: pretty quickly.
- 6:43Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the only time, the only other time
- 6:46Speaker 1: YouTube played without all the original members was maybe one
- 6:49Speaker 1: show where Adam Clayton had had some issues with alcohol
- 6:53Speaker 1: and then he was He didn't show that mid nineties.
- 6:57Speaker 2: There were a few shows early on the Edge missed
- 7:00Speaker 2: a couple. Larry missed a couple, but that was back
- 7:02Speaker 2: in the seventies, okay, before anybody even knew them, and
- 7:06Speaker 2: then Adam had the issue in Sydney. They were filming
- 7:10Speaker 2: those shows in ninety three, and they did a show
- 7:15Speaker 2: in Times Square without Bono, Bruce Springsteen and Chris Martin
- 7:20Speaker 2: from Coldplay and Carrie Underwood. I think it was filled
- 7:25Speaker 2: in on vocals.
- 7:27Speaker 1: Okay. I got to have you talk to my older
- 7:28Speaker 1: brother because he got a chance to see YouTube around
- 7:33Speaker 1: eighty eighty one. It's whenever they played They played a
- 7:36Speaker 1: university here in Connecticut, New Haven, Connecticut, small little.
- 7:41Speaker 2: Venue, Toad's Place.
- 7:43Speaker 1: It wasn't Toads. It was a college. It was I
- 7:47Speaker 1: could we could look it up. He I just remember
- 7:51Speaker 1: him telling me that he saw the band. They went
- 7:54Speaker 1: out back behind the venue and he saw them getting
- 7:57Speaker 1: in getting into their wasn't even like a limo. It
- 8:01Speaker 1: was like a van or whatever at the time, and
- 8:03Speaker 1: then they were they were just just starting.
- 8:07Speaker 2: So you said you've seen them once with Hartford.
- 8:10Speaker 1: That was Hartford. Yeah, Harford Civic Center two thousand and one.
- 8:14Speaker 2: That is probably one of my favorite shows that really. Yeah,
- 8:18Speaker 2: that's the one that was attached to them, all right, yep, Yeah,
- 8:23Speaker 2: I had a great time that night. They were on
- 8:26Speaker 2: fire back for that round of shows. They were getting
- 8:30Speaker 2: ready to tape the show in Boston a few nights later.
- 8:33Speaker 2: So I'd done Albany, Hartford and then the four in Boston.
- 8:39Speaker 2: Incredible shows.
- 8:40Speaker 1: So you were at that show too, Yeah, that was
- 8:42Speaker 1: the Boston show. I remember they turned that into a
- 8:45Speaker 1: radio special and then well TV and radio special and.
- 8:50Speaker 2: They released it on home video as well.
- 8:52Speaker 1: Right, right, that was a great tour, great tour. So
- 8:56Speaker 1: so I'm speaking to one two expert that is for
- 8:59Speaker 1: sure you know you're you two. So yeah, this had
- 9:03Speaker 1: to have been a fun book to work on. All
- 9:04Speaker 1: the songs, the whole discography.
- 9:08Speaker 2: It was a bit daunting to fit all that.
- 9:11Speaker 1: Into one book, I would think, so.
- 9:15Speaker 2: For the book is part of the series Fontell has
- 9:20Speaker 2: the song by song series, so they go out each
- 9:24Speaker 2: book is about a different artist. I went out and
- 9:27Speaker 2: did a little research and pulled down a couple of books.
- 9:31Speaker 2: I think I had looked at Madonna and Abba. There
- 9:35Speaker 2: was one other that I had looked at, and my
- 9:38Speaker 2: first thought was, how am I going to fit you
- 9:39Speaker 2: Two's catalog into something this size? So it was a
- 9:44Speaker 2: bit of a challenge.
- 9:45Speaker 1: Fifteen studio albums.
- 9:47Speaker 2: Right, fifteen albums, a lot of singles that I want
- 9:50Speaker 2: to fit in there, B sides, a lot love ground
- 9:56Speaker 2: to cover in their forty year career.
- 10:00Speaker 1: Great job, And what I did was I decided to
- 10:01Speaker 1: just kind of pluck out a few a song or
- 10:03Speaker 1: two from each of these albums as we go throughout
- 10:06Speaker 1: and get your thoughts on those. What's in the book
- 10:09Speaker 1: as well, because there's some great, some great information behind
- 10:13Speaker 1: the scenes of how the songs were made or what
- 10:15Speaker 1: they're about. So I always find that stuff fascinating. So
- 10:18Speaker 1: we'll start with that debut album, which is Boy Has
- 10:21Speaker 1: released October twentieth, nineteen eighty in Europe March third, nineteen
- 10:25Speaker 1: eighty one in the US, produced by Steve Lilly White
- 10:28Speaker 1: who produced the first three albums, and that cover image.
- 10:31Speaker 1: That boy on the cover is Peter Rowan, who is
- 10:33Speaker 1: a neighbor of Bono's and the little brother of Bono's
- 10:35Speaker 1: good friend is a Guji pronounce Gujie googie googie. Okay, yeah.
- 10:41Speaker 1: So the opening track I Will Follow and that's when
- 10:44Speaker 1: they still perform live to this day, didn't chut in
- 10:47Speaker 1: the US, but charted in Ireland at sixty nine, Australia
- 10:50Speaker 1: at seventy one, New Zealand at thirty four. Who is
- 10:53Speaker 1: this song about? I Will Follow?
- 10:57Speaker 2: Bono has revealed more recently that he believes the song
- 11:02Speaker 2: was written for his mother. His mother had passed when
- 11:09Speaker 2: he was in his teens, and in the last five
- 11:14Speaker 2: years or so, Bono's revealed that it's kind of fry
- 11:20Speaker 2: to his mother beyond the grave, saying I want to
- 11:23Speaker 2: follow you to wherever you are.
- 11:26Speaker 1: And didn't he say it was initially a song he
- 11:29Speaker 1: wrote as a suicide note.
- 11:31Speaker 2: Yeah, so, so the suicide note was original, his original
- 11:36Speaker 2: take on it all. Then he started talking about his
- 11:39Speaker 2: mother beyond the grave, so it's kind of him as
- 11:43Speaker 2: a young boy wanting to follow his mother to the grave.
- 11:46Speaker 1: I guess I hadn't listened to this album until I
- 11:49Speaker 1: really got into the entire YouTube catalog, which was early
- 11:52Speaker 1: two thousands, And there's not a bad song on this album.
- 11:57Speaker 1: And the one two combination of nkot Dub into You,
- 12:00Speaker 1: into the Heart is one that I love it. So
- 12:03Speaker 1: what is nkot dub about. It's Gaelic for the black Cat.
- 12:08Speaker 2: It's Gallic for the black Cat, and it's a song
- 12:12Speaker 2: that Bono wrote when he was separated from Ali and
- 12:16Speaker 2: he he's claimed it's about temptation and relationships, and perhaps
- 12:23Speaker 2: he went out to destroy his own relationship.
- 12:27Speaker 1: They are together still today.
- 12:29Speaker 2: And they got back together after that song came along,
- 12:32Speaker 2: So whatever he was up to or whatever he was doing,
- 12:36Speaker 2: he came back to it. But that's one of the
- 12:38Speaker 2: reasons it's been tied into the Heart over the years.
- 12:43Speaker 2: Into the Heart was kind of him and Ali coming
- 12:45Speaker 2: back together.
- 12:46Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, do you have a favorite from this album.
- 12:50Speaker 2: Favorite from Boy out of Control. It was written by
- 12:54Speaker 2: fifth birthday and can't go wrong with that. Bono wrote
- 12:58Speaker 2: it on his birthday. We sure a birthday.
- 13:01Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. His eighteenth birthday may have seventy eight. Yep, wow, yeah,
- 13:08Speaker 1: I'm looking at here is as one of the songs
- 13:10Speaker 1: that you two recorded with SHASD Whaley for their first
- 13:16Speaker 1: release three Yeah.
- 13:18Speaker 2: They had a brief contract with CBS Records in Ireland,
- 13:24Speaker 2: and CBS sent in one of their A and R
- 13:27Speaker 2: guys to record a three track single with them. So
- 13:32Speaker 2: over the long weekend in August seventy nine they recorded that.
- 13:37Speaker 2: So probably are about this point in time.
- 13:40Speaker 1: Out of controls about waking up on your eighteenth birthday
- 13:42Speaker 1: and realizing that you're eighteen years old and the two
- 13:45Speaker 1: most important decisions in your life have nothing to do
- 13:48Speaker 1: with you being born and dying. That's a quote from Bono. Hey,
- 13:52Speaker 1: what do you think of his book? By the way, I.
- 13:55Speaker 2: Enjoyed his book. I think I enjoyed the book tour
- 13:59Speaker 2: a little bit more than the book itself. He did
- 14:02Speaker 2: a little tour where he told some stories from the
- 14:06Speaker 2: book and sang a few songs. And turned it into
- 14:10Speaker 2: a little bit of a production that really helped. I
- 14:14Speaker 2: enjoyed the book up until probably the two thousands, when
- 14:21Speaker 2: he got into some of the aids in Africa and
- 14:25Speaker 2: a little bit more of the politics, and some of
- 14:29Speaker 2: that left me a little cold. I wasn't as enjoying
- 14:34Speaker 2: that side as much. I wanted a little bit more
- 14:35Speaker 2: of the rock and roll stories and that sort of thing.
- 14:39Speaker 1: So, Yeah, and that's something that he's faced. He admitted
- 14:42Speaker 1: that that he knows that some of the fans don't
- 14:45Speaker 1: prefer that he'd get too politically involved, but that's something
- 14:49Speaker 1: that he has a passion for. Yeah, it's kind of
- 14:54Speaker 1: a divisive topic, I guess. So to me, it doesn't
- 14:57Speaker 1: matter if the songs are great, I'll go I'll go
- 15:00Speaker 1: see the concerts. But you know, some people they just
- 15:02Speaker 1: don't want to hear any of that in concert.
- 15:04Speaker 2: I don't mind the politics. They've certainly brought it up
- 15:07Speaker 2: over the years, and a lot of the songs have
- 15:09Speaker 2: it woven into them over the years, but reading about
- 15:13Speaker 2: meetings with Secretary of the State and prime ministers and
- 15:18Speaker 2: presidents leaves you a little cold after a few a
- 15:21Speaker 2: little while.
- 15:22Speaker 1: Yeah, October released October twelfth, nineteen eighty one, and during
- 15:27Speaker 1: the tour in the US, Bono had lost his briefcase
- 15:30Speaker 1: holding all his notes and ideas for the new album.
- 15:33Speaker 1: Caused him to start again developing songs in rehearsal, and
- 15:36Speaker 1: this album includes the singles Fire and Gloria, both top
- 15:39Speaker 1: ten and Island. Glory is misleading, right, It's not a
- 15:41Speaker 1: love song? What is it actually about?
- 15:44Speaker 2: Gloria is glory to God. First real hint of them
- 15:51Speaker 2: bringing the religion into the picture was with the October album.
- 15:55Speaker 2: It's there a little bit on Boy, but October they
- 15:59Speaker 2: hit you over the head with a little bit more.
- 16:02Speaker 2: He brought some Latin lyrics to try and hide it
- 16:06Speaker 2: a little bit in Gloria, but it is It is
- 16:09Speaker 2: more a love song to God than anything else. At
- 16:12Speaker 2: the time, three of the members of You Two had
- 16:16Speaker 2: hooked up with a religious outfit in Ireland and were
- 16:23Speaker 2: It was an interesting time. I think the band almost
- 16:26Speaker 2: broke up over some of the religion aspects. The Larry
- 16:31Speaker 2: Bono and the Edge were getting more and more religious.
- 16:34Speaker 2: Adam was going more and more in a different direction
- 16:37Speaker 2: and it really became a bit of a sticking point
- 16:41Speaker 2: for them.
- 16:42Speaker 1: It's interesting because you two is one of those bands,
- 16:44Speaker 1: same lineup from day one for a very long time.
- 16:48Speaker 1: But there were a few times, maybe three times during
- 16:52Speaker 1: their career where they had thought about calling it quits.
- 16:54Speaker 1: I know during the octoone Baby recording they felt like
- 16:59Speaker 1: things went work can out. I believe there was another
- 17:03Speaker 1: time right where they thought maybe we should split up.
- 17:06Speaker 2: Yeah, there's been a couple of times over the years.
- 17:10Speaker 2: The October album. Bono covered it during his book tour.
- 17:14Speaker 2: He said that they got together and they went to
- 17:19Speaker 2: the manager and said, God is telling us that we
- 17:22Speaker 2: should pull the plug on the band. And their manager
- 17:26Speaker 2: looked at them and said, and what is God telling
- 17:28Speaker 2: you to do with the contracts you signed? So they
- 17:34Speaker 2: quickly learned that they had contracts that they had to
- 17:37Speaker 2: fulfill and they weren't getting out of it that.
- 17:39Speaker 1: Quickly, and eventually they'd start making the labels quite a
- 17:45Speaker 1: bit of money. Didn't start that way though, at least
- 17:47Speaker 1: here in the States. Boy in October solid placings on
- 17:50Speaker 1: the charts right in Ireland, but in the US still
- 17:52Speaker 1: hadn't caught fire, But that was coming. Boy reached number
- 17:55Speaker 1: sixty three on Billboard October one, oh four, but that
- 17:59Speaker 1: changes with war Or, released on February twenty eighth, nineteen
- 18:01Speaker 1: eighty three. Peter Rowan, once again featured on.
- 18:03Speaker 2: The cover, was the big breakthrough for break Through.
- 18:07Speaker 1: First number one in the UK, not Michael Jackson's Thriller
- 18:11Speaker 1: off the top spot. Not too shabby, and then in
- 18:13Speaker 1: the US reached number twelve.
- 18:18Speaker 2: Sat outside the top ten. Yeah.
- 18:20Speaker 1: Yeah, this is thanks to the singles New Year's Day, Sunday,
- 18:22Speaker 1: Bloody Sunday, heavy airplay on radio and MTV and TV was.
- 18:27Speaker 2: There around then. You had a bunch of good looking
- 18:30Speaker 2: young guys that were doing videos. They knew what to
- 18:32Speaker 2: do to get the songs played. New Year's Day. Why
- 18:36Speaker 2: to catch a song? It's it's still one of my favorites.
- 18:39Speaker 1: And I want to ask about the video because that's
- 18:41Speaker 1: a great there's some great stories on that which, by
- 18:43Speaker 1: the way, New Year's Day was the highest charting single
- 18:46Speaker 1: at that time, number fifty three. And we can't forget
- 18:48Speaker 1: about two Hearts Beat as One too. It's another great song.
- 18:51Speaker 1: But New Year's Day inspired by the solidarity movement in
- 18:54Speaker 1: Poland unfolding as you two was recording the album, and
- 18:57Speaker 1: I want to ask you about the video. Where was
- 18:59Speaker 1: this filmed? And can you tell the story behind the
- 19:01Speaker 1: band members riding on horseback? Or so we thought?
- 19:06Speaker 2: The band wanted something cold and snowy, and I guess
- 19:10Speaker 2: they were playing into the pool and wintertime theme. So
- 19:16Speaker 2: they went to Sweden. They took the band to Sweden.
- 19:20Speaker 2: They filmed I forget the name of the town right now,
- 19:24Speaker 2: but little lakeside resort type area, and they were in
- 19:28Speaker 2: the snow. They were cold, they were miserable. They had
- 19:32Speaker 2: a little campfire belt, but they couldn't stay warm. So
- 19:35Speaker 2: the next day they packed up and went home. And
- 19:37Speaker 2: apparently the band on horseback is actually a bunch of
- 19:42Speaker 2: locals that they hired to film. The rest of the.
- 19:46Speaker 1: Video were the teenage girls? Am I wrong?
- 19:50Speaker 2: Teenage girls? Yeah you are?
- 19:52Speaker 1: Yeah, what an iconic video. Such a great video. My
- 19:57Speaker 1: underdog picked by the way, Surrender from this album, which
- 19:59Speaker 1: I didn't realize, was about a trip Bono took New
- 20:02Speaker 1: York to New York City.
- 20:03Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was written about New York. I forget
- 20:07Speaker 2: the exact story with Surrender, but something about tossing yourself
- 20:13Speaker 2: off the building and maybe a touch of suicide in
- 20:16Speaker 2: that one as well.
- 20:18Speaker 1: Yeah, he would.
- 20:20Speaker 2: Yeah, it seemed to be a topic that Bono came
- 20:23Speaker 2: in and out of quite a bitter in the early years.
- 20:26Speaker 2: Day Without Me also apparently touches on suicide on Boy
- 20:33Speaker 2: Bottle Leader said it was related to Ian Curtis, But
- 20:36Speaker 2: he wrote the song before Ian Curtis from Joy Division
- 20:39Speaker 2: had killed himself, So I'm not sure where the original
- 20:43Speaker 2: inspiration came from.
- 20:44Speaker 1: Yeah, and then from All that you Can't Leave behind
- 20:48Speaker 1: Stuck in a moment you can't get out of is
- 20:51Speaker 1: Michael Hutchins. But his suicide. Does Bono talk in his
- 20:55Speaker 1: book at all about depression? Did he battle depression at all?
- 20:58Speaker 2: And he doesn't seem to dis And I've never heard
- 21:01Speaker 2: it brought up, And I don't know that he actually
- 21:04Speaker 2: got himself to that point where he considered it. Other
- 21:08Speaker 2: than what he has spoken about in relation to I
- 21:12Speaker 2: Will Follow. He certainly had friends along the way that
- 21:17Speaker 2: had walked down that path.
- 21:20Speaker 1: Yeah, and he would revisit that New York theme with
- 21:24Speaker 1: All that you Can't Leave Behind the song New York.
- 21:27Speaker 2: Yeah, New York comes in and out quite a bit
- 21:30Speaker 2: in their lyrics. City of Blinding Lights is also has
- 21:35Speaker 2: some ties to New York and being the first band
- 21:38Speaker 2: to play in New York's Madison Square Garden after nine eleven.
- 21:43Speaker 1: Yeah, and that that goal of coming to the to
- 21:48Speaker 1: the US, that was big for them. Of course, the
- 21:50Speaker 1: Joshua Tree when you when you get to.
- 21:52Speaker 2: That, Yeah, Angel Carlemks spoke to New York for the
- 21:56Speaker 2: first time here in Billy Holiday on the radio. There's
- 22:02Speaker 2: a lot of New York stuff.
- 22:04Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 22:04Speaker 2: Some of the songs on Songs of Innocence tie into
- 22:07Speaker 2: New York too, some of those early shows.
- 22:09Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get to the Unforgettable Fire, released October one,
- 22:13Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, much of it recorded at slain Castle
- 22:16Speaker 1: in Ireland. Have you been? I have not. Okay.
- 22:21Speaker 2: I bought tickets to go see them at slain Castle
- 22:24Speaker 2: and that would have been that two thousand and one
- 22:27Speaker 2: Elevation tour, but my mother had gotten six so I
- 22:32Speaker 2: decided to stick close to home. And that's a bit
- 22:35Speaker 2: of a reoccurring theme, canceling concerts to stick close to
- 22:39Speaker 2: home for me.
- 22:40Speaker 1: Yeah. So slain Castle is still on your your bucket list, then.
- 22:45Speaker 2: I'll get there someday. There's still rumors you too will
- 22:48Speaker 2: go back there and play again. So next time they play,
- 22:52Speaker 2: I will be going.
- 22:54Speaker 1: There are actually two castles on that album cover, Moydrum
- 22:58Speaker 1: Castle near Floan, which is on the front, and then
- 23:03Speaker 1: is it boy, this is a pronunciation carrago gonell castle.
- 23:08Speaker 2: I'm not gonna.
- 23:11Speaker 1: Carrago gonell castle. Apologies to those who are listening in
- 23:14Speaker 1: Ireland right now, right near Clarina. And that's on the back. Yeah.
- 23:19Speaker 1: So the album debuted at number one on the UK
- 23:21Speaker 1: Album's Charts, number twelve here in the States on the
- 23:24Speaker 1: Billboard two hundred. Brian Eno brought in to pursue a
- 23:27Speaker 1: new direction now so this and you can hear it
- 23:30Speaker 1: in the production and they scored their first top forty
- 23:33Speaker 1: single in the US with Pride in the Name of Love,
- 23:36Speaker 1: which reached number thirty three. Most know that this song
- 23:39Speaker 1: is about Martin Luther King Junior, but I don't think
- 23:41Speaker 1: many know Bono intended it to be about somebody else.
- 23:43Speaker 1: This I found it interesting. Can you tell us who
- 23:46Speaker 1: that was? And what led Bono to changing his mind
- 23:49Speaker 1: and focusing on MLK Junior instead.
- 23:53Speaker 2: Bono claims that the song was originally written about Ronald Reagan.
- 23:58Speaker 2: Wow and thembivalent attitude in America meant as the sort
- 24:06Speaker 2: of pride that won't back down, and that wants to
- 24:09Speaker 2: build nuclear arsenals. So originally The Unforgettable Fire had that
- 24:15Speaker 2: tie into the nuclear bomb and the bombing of some
- 24:20Speaker 2: of the Japanese cities during World War Two. So I
- 24:25Speaker 2: certainly understand where Bono probably got into the nuclear talks
- 24:31Speaker 2: that were ongoing in the eighties, right, Reagan in the
- 24:34Speaker 2: forefront of all that. So happily he switched to a
- 24:39Speaker 2: different topic and wrote one of their probably biggest songs.
- 24:44Speaker 2: It's one of the songs that they still play live,
- 24:46Speaker 2: still gets a huge response. I don't know if they
- 24:50Speaker 2: would have gotten that had they stayed with the Ronald
- 24:53Speaker 2: Reagan subject matter over the years.
- 24:55Speaker 1: Yeah, right, Yeah, he felt like he was giving Reagan
- 24:57Speaker 1: too much importance, and that's why he made that change.
- 25:00Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a good change. It was a good switch.
- 25:04Speaker 1: Podcast. We'll be back after this, be right back with
- 25:07Speaker 1: a snack.
- 25:07Speaker 2: Jack Go Go Away.
- 25:11Speaker 1: Another song on The Unforgettable Fire called Bad and this
- 25:15Speaker 1: song about the heroin crisis in Dublin among my favorites.
- 25:19Speaker 1: I'm sure many YouTube fans feel the same. It's a
- 25:23Speaker 1: standout song for you too, because it's it's the performance
- 25:25Speaker 1: of that song at live AID in nineteen eighty five.
- 25:29Speaker 1: That pushes you two into the spotlight and they become
- 25:32Speaker 1: huge stars as a result of it.
- 25:35Speaker 2: If you on a moment where I tipped from casual
- 25:39Speaker 2: fan to hardcore fan, it was sitting on my grandmother's
- 25:43Speaker 2: couch watching Live Aid. Wombono hopped into the audience.
- 25:46Speaker 1: Wow, what a performance that.
- 25:49Speaker 2: Moment right there, I was hooked. I had to know more.
- 25:53Speaker 2: I want to know who these guys were. I had
- 25:56Speaker 2: picked up a couple of things from them, but that
- 25:59Speaker 2: was the moment where I went from I kind of
- 26:03Speaker 2: like them to who are these guys? I need everything
- 26:05Speaker 2: they've put.
- 26:06Speaker 1: Out right, I believe. There's an interview with Bono at
- 26:09Speaker 1: Live AID, which I thought was funny. He actually introduces himself.
- 26:13Speaker 1: You know, He's like, because people, it's a lot of
- 26:15Speaker 1: people that may be watching me and I know, so
- 26:17Speaker 1: he's like, my name is Bono and from the band
- 26:19Speaker 1: you too. It's just like insane to think about that,
- 26:22Speaker 1: because you know, they just became a household name and
- 26:25Speaker 1: it was really because of them.
- 26:27Speaker 2: They were still working on it. Yeah, Actually they were
- 26:30Speaker 2: supposed to play Pride in the Name of Love that night.
- 26:32Speaker 1: That's that was to follow bad, I think, right, they
- 26:36Speaker 1: cut it out.
- 26:37Speaker 2: So they had to cut it out because of Bono's
- 26:40Speaker 2: run down into the audience.
- 26:42Speaker 1: Which he felt bad about afterwards.
- 26:44Speaker 2: Yeah, he thought he had screwed the whole thing up.
- 26:46Speaker 2: And so many people were sitting at home thinking this
- 26:50Speaker 2: is great. Who is this guy and why is they
- 26:52Speaker 2: pulling some girl out of the audience, and that that
- 26:56Speaker 2: whole thing mad made my day watching that.
- 27:00Speaker 1: That is what I think. One of the things I
- 27:03Speaker 1: love about you too is is Bonos. It's like a
- 27:05Speaker 1: fearlessness on stage, like he'll do things like that. It
- 27:08Speaker 1: just he just goes somewhere and I don't even think
- 27:11Speaker 1: he even plans on it most of the time.
- 27:14Speaker 2: But I don't think sometimes he realizes he's done it
- 27:17Speaker 2: until he's about.
- 27:18Speaker 1: It after Yeah, it's like he's in his zone. It's
- 27:21Speaker 1: just it's just magical, magical.
- 27:24Speaker 2: I was at the opening of the Elevation tour in
- 27:27Speaker 2: Fort Lauderdale and he just decided he was going into
- 27:31Speaker 2: the audience off the tip of the heart and just
- 27:35Speaker 2: jumped off and went for a walk about and and
- 27:38Speaker 2: it was crazy to actually see that. You didn't know
- 27:41Speaker 2: where he was. Security was trying to figure out where
- 27:44Speaker 2: he was going, what he was doing, and he did
- 27:48Speaker 2: that for the next night as well, and I managed
- 27:50Speaker 2: to put myself right in his path that night and
- 27:53Speaker 2: got a high five as he was wanting running by.
- 27:56Speaker 1: That's so cool man, very Springsteen. It reminds me a
- 27:59Speaker 1: lot of Springsteen's like that too, just passionate on stage.
- 28:04Speaker 2: Bono gets that energy built up and he just has
- 28:07Speaker 2: to let it go sometimes.
- 28:09Speaker 1: Yeah, And that performance sets up the next album, which
- 28:14Speaker 1: is an album called The Joshua Tree, a little old
- 28:17Speaker 1: album called the Joshua Tree. This is This is still
- 28:21Speaker 1: my personal favor and I love octun Baby, but this
- 28:23Speaker 1: is right at the top for me. Released March ninth,
- 28:25Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, first album to reach number one in
- 28:27Speaker 1: the USA, reached number one in the UK. Record stores
- 28:31Speaker 1: opened at midnight to meet demand. With or Without You
- 28:34Speaker 1: and I still haven't found what I'm looking for. Number
- 28:36Speaker 1: one singles where the streets have no name, Number thirteen
- 28:40Speaker 1: in God's Country just missed the top forty number forty four.
- 28:44Speaker 1: You know and Lenoir are back to produce on this.
- 28:47Speaker 1: We haven't talked about the edges of amazing guitar works,
- 28:49Speaker 1: so let's talk about With or without You, because he
- 28:53Speaker 1: saves this song from being abandoned.
- 28:56Speaker 2: Yeah was it? And sure was it Bono's friend Gavin Friday.
- 29:01Speaker 1: Let's see, because I think it was that. I think
- 29:05Speaker 1: it was that risk.
- 29:06Speaker 2: At one point they talked about walking away.
- 29:10Speaker 1: From that song right with or without You? Let's see.
- 29:16Speaker 2: A breakthrough came when the Edge was given a prototype
- 29:19Speaker 2: infinite guitar, right Gavin Friday and Bono took it away
- 29:23Speaker 2: to work on it when the band was ready to
- 29:25Speaker 2: abandon the song. Yeah, it was Gavin that it convinced
- 29:30Speaker 2: Bono to take it away and work on it a
- 29:32Speaker 2: little bit further. But in the meantime Edge was noodling
- 29:35Speaker 2: around with this infinite guitar. There was only two or
- 29:38Speaker 2: three of those guitars created. Canadian came up with that
- 29:44Speaker 2: invention and and somewhere along the way, Bono brought back
- 29:49Speaker 2: what he had been working on. Edge brought back what
- 29:51Speaker 2: he had been working on. They smashed it all together.
- 29:55Speaker 2: Help came with or Without You, which I don't think
- 29:59Speaker 2: he could go anywhere. Is in nineteen eighty seven and
- 30:02Speaker 2: not hear that song on the radio.
- 30:05Speaker 1: Yeah, another song almost lost where the streets have No Name?
- 30:08Speaker 1: And this time it was engineer Pat McCarthy stepped in
- 30:11Speaker 1: to save this one.
- 30:13Speaker 2: Yeah, brian Ino was getting ready to throw that one
- 30:15Speaker 2: into the garbage and when the engineers rescued it that
- 30:19Speaker 2: day and said no, no, well we're going to pull
- 30:22Speaker 2: that aside. And the band worked on that and worked
- 30:25Speaker 2: on it, and they thought they had something special there,
- 30:29Speaker 2: but they couldn't get to the finish line. But eventually
- 30:32Speaker 2: they got there. I'm so glad they did because if
- 30:36Speaker 2: there's a moment in their live show that I never
- 30:39Speaker 2: want to do without, it's being able to turn around
- 30:42Speaker 2: when the lights come up during where the streets have
- 30:44Speaker 2: no name, but looking at the faces behind you, it's
- 30:48Speaker 2: pure joy in the audience when that song is being performed.
- 30:51Speaker 1: It's goosebumps, you know, goosebumps. What was the did they perform?
- 30:56Speaker 2: That?
- 30:56Speaker 1: Wasn't at the super Bowl? Just following nine to eleven?
- 30:59Speaker 2: They did that at the super Bowl. Guy behind me
- 31:03Speaker 2: at my first show in Edmonton in ninety seven tapped
- 31:07Speaker 2: me on the shoulder and he said, when the lights
- 31:10Speaker 2: come on during the streets, look behind you. I have
- 31:13Speaker 2: to say that was the best advice I ever got.
- 31:17Speaker 2: I still to this day, just look around the arena
- 31:20Speaker 2: or the stadium or wherever I happen to be, and
- 31:24Speaker 2: just look at the audience enjoying that song. It's rare
- 31:26Speaker 2: to see that many people that happy all at one time.
- 31:30Speaker 1: Yeah, Joshua Tree. I remember getting it this Christmas vacation week.
- 31:36Speaker 1: I was in college and I got a gift certificate
- 31:38Speaker 1: to Strawberries Records, and I went and got tattoo you
- 31:42Speaker 1: from the Stones and Joshua Tree. There's a third one,
- 31:47Speaker 1: I think two, But because I kept thinking this would
- 31:52Speaker 1: been in the early nineties, I'm like, I keep hearing
- 31:54Speaker 1: everything about Joshua True and I know the hits, I
- 31:56Speaker 1: know the singles, but I got to hear this whole thing.
- 31:58Speaker 1: You know. It was just one of those moments where
- 32:00Speaker 1: you just like Mesmeriz, you know, just turned the lights
- 32:03Speaker 1: down it playing, just yeah, just amazed at what I
- 32:08Speaker 1: was hearing. It's the songs that were the songs that
- 32:11Speaker 1: weren't the hits are I love every bit as much
- 32:13Speaker 1: as the ones that were.
- 32:14Speaker 2: Yeah, the Joshua Tree came out while I was in
- 32:17Speaker 2: high school and small town maybe five hundred people. My
- 32:23Speaker 2: graduating class had less than thirty people in it, so
- 32:28Speaker 2: no one knew who you two were. There was me
- 32:31Speaker 2: and one other girl at the high school that were
- 32:34Speaker 2: YouTube fans, so we would just talk for hours. And
- 32:39Speaker 2: Joshua Tree was one of those albums I got into
- 32:43Speaker 2: while it was fresh. I was there while it was
- 32:46Speaker 2: coming out, and I think that might have been the
- 32:49Speaker 2: first album that I got into while the band were
- 32:52Speaker 2: promoting it, rather than looking back on something they had
- 32:56Speaker 2: released years earlier.
- 32:58Speaker 1: Rattling Homi is interesting. Over ten nineteen eighty eight, it's
- 33:01Speaker 1: released and it's a combination of new material and live performances.
- 33:05Speaker 1: It's released as the soundtrack to the film of the
- 33:07Speaker 1: same name. This is kind of divisive. Where do you
- 33:10Speaker 1: stand on Rattling Hume? This differing opinions among YouTube fans.
- 33:16Speaker 1: I think I.
- 33:18Speaker 2: Really like the music. I probably could have done without
- 33:23Speaker 2: the film. The live performances in the film are amazing,
- 33:27Speaker 2: but I don't know. Being in a small town, there
- 33:33Speaker 2: wasn't a theater nearby, so I did Rattle and Hum
- 33:36Speaker 2: without all the movie. Fuss. I didn't see Rattling Hum
- 33:40Speaker 2: until probably two or three years later.
- 33:45Speaker 1: Okay, So to.
- 33:46Speaker 2: Me, Rattle and Hum was just more live music and
- 33:49Speaker 2: some great songs, and I really bypassed the rattle and
- 33:55Speaker 2: hum film aspect, probably until it showed on TV a
- 33:59Speaker 2: couple of years later.
- 34:01Speaker 1: Well, it's a great gospel version of I still haven't
- 34:03Speaker 1: found what I'm looking for.
- 34:05Speaker 2: What the new voice is the freedom? Yeah, You're out
- 34:08Speaker 2: in New York. They were actually approached to do a
- 34:13Speaker 2: single of that song back when they released the initial
- 34:18Speaker 2: single in nineteen eighty seven. You two was going to
- 34:21Speaker 2: do a double release and release a gospel version of
- 34:26Speaker 2: the song at the same time.
- 34:29Speaker 1: Well, they had hits off this one too, The Desires
- 34:31Speaker 1: number three, Angel of Harlan number fourteen, and a couple
- 34:34Speaker 1: more singles When Love Comes to Town with BB King.
- 34:37Speaker 2: That's such a great song.
- 34:38Speaker 1: Great song, and All I Want Is You is among
- 34:40Speaker 1: my favorite.
- 34:42Speaker 2: All I Want to Use is You is one of
- 34:43Speaker 2: my faves as well. I love how they ended that.
- 34:46Speaker 1: Yeah Jimmy Ivy, credited as producer, reached number one in
- 34:50Speaker 1: the US and UK, but again mixed reactions from critics
- 34:54Speaker 1: and fans. So I think that's why that was part
- 34:57Speaker 1: of the decision that went into Octune Baby. Correct. It
- 34:59Speaker 1: was like, let's go, let's try something different. Now, I
- 35:02Speaker 1: think we went a little too far in that direction.
- 35:03Speaker 1: Let's try something new.
- 35:05Speaker 2: We went a little too far with rock and roll
- 35:08Speaker 2: in the US sound. Let's head to Europe.
- 35:11Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, which we get to tune Baby.
- 35:14Speaker 2: Yeah, not one of my favorites.
- 35:17Speaker 1: Really. Wow.
- 35:19Speaker 2: It was my first year at university and I was
- 35:22Speaker 2: off listening to strange, weird dance music and Actung Baby
- 35:29Speaker 2: just left me a little bit cold.
- 35:31Speaker 1: That is shocking. That is shocking. Wow.
- 35:34Speaker 2: Okay had some great songs, some of them are favorites
- 35:38Speaker 2: of mine. I was really into some of what they
- 35:41Speaker 2: did with the singles. There was a remix of even
- 35:44Speaker 2: Better Than the Real Thing that I played constantly. It
- 35:48Speaker 2: never came out of the stereo, that Perfecto remix.
- 35:51Speaker 1: So it had its moments.
- 35:53Speaker 2: But yeah, there was a remix of Mysterious Ways that
- 35:57Speaker 2: really got my attention as well, and the one single
- 36:01Speaker 2: with Satellite of Love and Lady with the spinning ad
- 36:05Speaker 2: that caught my attention. So there I was all over
- 36:09Speaker 2: Actung Baby. I just never listened to the album.
- 36:13Speaker 1: What about the boot There was a famous bootleg that
- 36:15Speaker 1: got circulated for many years. The songs that were some
- 36:19Speaker 1: of the songs that were ditched. Some of the songs
- 36:22Speaker 1: had pieces of what we would end up hearing.
- 36:24Speaker 2: Yeah, it was stolen from their hotel room. As the
- 36:28Speaker 2: story somebody made one of the cleaning crew made off
- 36:32Speaker 2: with the tapes or something. Now rough rough versions of
- 36:38Speaker 2: some of what we heard on that final album, But
- 36:41Speaker 2: I do admit I do like some of that early
- 36:44Speaker 2: early stuff even better than the real thing was in
- 36:46Speaker 2: there in an early form, and Salame, which they released
- 36:52Speaker 2: as a B side, eventually was in.
- 36:53Speaker 1: There were these songs that were these the songs though
- 36:57Speaker 1: where they finally they got because there was a point
- 37:00Speaker 1: there were they were getting frustrated and they kind of
- 37:04Speaker 1: gave up and said, this isn't going to happen.
- 37:07Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the song. It was the Frustration that
- 37:10Speaker 2: got released, the Frustration that made its way onto bootleg
- 37:14Speaker 2: and you can hear it in some of those some
- 37:17Speaker 2: of those songs there. If you go back, there's I
- 37:20Speaker 2: think seven CDs worth of material, and some of it
- 37:24Speaker 2: it's just the same song over and over and over again.
- 37:28Speaker 2: They were beating themselves over the heads with it and
- 37:32Speaker 2: not getting anywhere.
- 37:34Speaker 1: They started recording I think is as early as eighty
- 37:38Speaker 1: nine or so, wasn't it.
- 37:40Speaker 2: Yeah, they had done some even some of the footage
- 37:43Speaker 2: of Rattle and Home. They're playing songs for Iovine, some
- 37:48Speaker 2: of the stuff they had worked on back during the
- 37:50Speaker 2: Rattle and Home sessions.
- 37:53Speaker 1: Yeah, then they scrapped it and then it was I
- 37:55Speaker 1: believe the song won. It was that the first. That
- 37:59Speaker 1: was the first they said okay, we're onto something here.
- 38:02Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the breakthrough. That was the one where
- 38:04Speaker 2: they finally they figured it out and they pulled it
- 38:09Speaker 2: together and the band, I don't know if I want
- 38:15Speaker 2: to say it was easy for them, but they got there.
- 38:18Speaker 2: They they were able to pull that song together easier
- 38:22Speaker 2: than any of the other material they were working on,
- 38:26Speaker 2: and they packed up. They left Germany.
- 38:28Speaker 1: At that point, right.
- 38:30Speaker 2: I always hear about the German roots, But a lot
- 38:33Speaker 2: of that album was recorded when they got back home
- 38:36Speaker 2: to Dublin.
- 38:38Speaker 1: Yes, yes, because it was in Germany that they were
- 38:42Speaker 1: getting frustrated.
- 38:43Speaker 2: Yeah, they had the breakthrough moment before they left, but
- 38:48Speaker 2: they brought it home to Dublin and finished it off
- 38:50Speaker 2: on Home Home Turf.
- 38:52Speaker 1: You know what's interesting. The lead single was the Fly,
- 38:54Speaker 1: which I love that song, but it was an interesting
- 38:56Speaker 1: choice as a lead single because I would think maybe
- 38:58Speaker 1: like Mysterious Ways or even better than the Real Thing
- 39:01Speaker 1: would have been a logical choice that took them down
- 39:04Speaker 1: that path of some really strange first singles. Right.
- 39:08Speaker 2: If you think about what they've released over the years,
- 39:11Speaker 2: the odd ball song is typically the first one out
- 39:14Speaker 2: of the gate. Next album was Numb Yeah, Verdigo wasn't
- 39:22Speaker 2: the obvious single for that album either.
- 39:25Speaker 1: I don't think it's kind of a gutsy call.
- 39:27Speaker 2: Yeah, Beautiful Day. Beautiful Day was the obvious song that Yeah.
- 39:35Speaker 1: Disco tech, Disco Tech. Yeah.
- 39:38Speaker 2: There were stronger songs on pop than.
- 39:42Speaker 1: Yeah, which we're getting close to talking about. Octune Baby
- 39:46Speaker 1: ninety one should go into the numbers a little bit
- 39:48Speaker 1: here debuted number one in the US number two in
- 39:51Speaker 1: the UK. Recorded with Daniel lin Watt and Brian you Know.
- 39:56Speaker 1: Linn Wah acted as the primary producer, working full time
- 39:59Speaker 1: with you while Eno would join them for a week
- 40:01Speaker 1: at a time each month. Mysterious Ways and one or
- 40:06Speaker 1: top ten, even better than the Real Thing and Who's
- 40:08Speaker 1: Going to Roger wild Horse's top forty and the title
- 40:12Speaker 1: of the album This is fairly well Known, was taken
- 40:14Speaker 1: from the movie The Producers. The phrase heard in the
- 40:17Speaker 1: film was used by sound engineer Joe o' hurley. Yeah,
- 40:24Speaker 1: so that's whe they came up with that name. And
- 40:28Speaker 1: let's see, you two were hoping to catch some excitement
- 40:30Speaker 1: in Germany. We talked about that. Just got some notes here.
- 40:32Speaker 1: The studio had been where many of their idols had recorded.
- 40:36Speaker 1: That's right, David Bowie recorded that studio a deep pop
- 40:40Speaker 1: and the city was going through reunification. But they found
- 40:43Speaker 1: the city cold and couldn't find their their path in
- 40:47Speaker 1: the studio. And that's where, like you said, they head
- 40:49Speaker 1: back to Ireland and on the verge of breaking up.
- 40:52Speaker 1: I mean that's yeah, that was.
- 40:56Speaker 2: The second big breakup. I think it came really really
- 41:01Speaker 2: close at that point.
- 41:04Speaker 1: Imagine if that happened. I mean, because they became huge
- 41:09Speaker 1: in the nineties.
- 41:10Speaker 2: Well that's just actung baby. You look back and you
- 41:13Speaker 2: can't imagine the nineties without it, right. Oh, we were
- 41:17Speaker 2: really close not even having a U two anymore at
- 41:20Speaker 2: that point.
- 41:22Speaker 1: Yeah. Aaron SAMs is the author of the new book
- 41:25Speaker 1: Youtwoe Song by song out now through font Hill Media,
- 41:28Speaker 1: so you can find it wherever books are sold online
- 41:31Speaker 1: and Amazon and all the usual places. So You two
- 41:33Speaker 1: is arguably the biggest band in the world. By this
- 41:36Speaker 1: time early nineties, and that is evident by the numbers
- 41:39Speaker 1: for the next album, which was ninety three Zoo Ropa.
- 41:42Speaker 1: The album reached number one in seventeen countries, including both
- 41:46Speaker 1: the UK and the US, and it's got the single's
- 41:49Speaker 1: numb Lemon Stay So Far Away, So Close and the
- 41:54Speaker 1: track Numb that took people by surprise. Who am I listen?
- 41:58Speaker 1: That's not Bono?
- 41:59Speaker 2: Is that?
- 41:59Speaker 1: No? It's not Bono? That is that is the Edge, Yeah,
- 42:03Speaker 1: the Edge, but Bono was supposed to do the lead vocals.
- 42:06Speaker 1: He took a crack ad it a few times.
- 42:09Speaker 2: They had a couple of different songs during Acting Baby.
- 42:14Speaker 1: It was.
- 42:16Speaker 2: Developed as down all the Days. It's actually on one
- 42:20Speaker 2: of the box sets you can hear Bono singing the
- 42:23Speaker 2: original planned version of numb Wow. So it's out there,
- 42:28Speaker 2: but it wasn't working. It was one of those songs
- 42:31Speaker 2: they were struggling with and the Edge took it away
- 42:37Speaker 2: and came back with this spoken word piece that just
- 42:41Speaker 2: worked over top of it and they ran with it.
- 42:44Speaker 2: And interestingly enough, the backing vocals, it's Larry Mullen has
- 42:50Speaker 2: has a big piece of the backing vocals there. You
- 42:52Speaker 2: don't hear his voice in many songs, so it's interesting
- 42:55Speaker 2: that it's the Edge and Larry that kind of took
- 42:57Speaker 2: that song away and made their own.
- 43:01Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember hearing that that summer of ninety three.
- 43:04Speaker 1: What a choice for a lead single. I mean that,
- 43:07Speaker 1: I love the title track, the opening track, slow fading
- 43:11Speaker 1: boom boom boom boom boom, boo boo boo boo, boom
- 43:14Speaker 1: boom boom. It just hypnotic.
- 43:18Speaker 2: I I had had a little vacation from you two
- 43:21Speaker 2: at that point, really Actung Baby. I hadn't listened to
- 43:25Speaker 2: a lot of it, and there were a couple of
- 43:28Speaker 2: singles that I listened to now and then, but Zopa
- 43:32Speaker 2: head And although I was off investigating other music when
- 43:37Speaker 2: Actung Baby came around, you two kind of met up
- 43:40Speaker 2: with my investigations and hit me full force with Zoopa.
- 43:44Speaker 2: It's exactly what I was listening to. I was listening
- 43:47Speaker 2: to a lot of industrial rack. I was kind of
- 43:51Speaker 2: in a German place. Nine Inch Nails was on my
- 43:57Speaker 2: listening playlist at that point in time, I think, and
- 44:01Speaker 2: some German industrial bands ministry a lot of stuff like that.
- 44:05Speaker 2: I found you two just pulled it all around and
- 44:09Speaker 2: just went for it. I really loved that album. It's
- 44:11Speaker 2: still one of my favorite U Two albums.
- 44:14Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think the band as a whole, but
- 44:15Speaker 1: definitely Bono and The Edge. They were always on the
- 44:19Speaker 1: edge of pop culture musically, like they even on pop
- 44:23Speaker 1: I remember Bono was talking about just looking at the
- 44:26Speaker 1: top forty charts and seeing who was there, and he was.
- 44:30Speaker 1: They wanted to kind of stay ahead of the curve,
- 44:33Speaker 1: really not keep up with the others, but kind of
- 44:37Speaker 1: look forward to what's coming next in the two thousands,
- 44:40Speaker 1: and that was a pretty gutsy move on their part.
- 44:43Speaker 1: But they also Oasis was a huge influence on Bono.
- 44:48Speaker 1: I think at the Edge too.
- 44:50Speaker 2: Brett Roth was having it stay in the Sun. Right
- 44:53Speaker 2: around then they were Oasis was big, and you had
- 44:57Speaker 2: a lot of acts coming out of Manchester that were
- 44:59Speaker 2: starting and to hit some success again, and it was
- 45:04Speaker 2: just an interesting era. I'm really glad You Too went
- 45:07Speaker 2: down that road and I played around with it. That
- 45:10Speaker 2: nineties You Two stuff some of my favorite You Two stuff.
- 45:14Speaker 1: They've done podcasts. We'll be back after this. I had
- 45:22Speaker 1: author Jeff harkness On who wrote a great book. Maybe
- 45:25Speaker 1: you've read it. You should if you Haven't yet. Forty
- 45:27Speaker 1: Foot Lemon, The Complete Story of You two'es Pop and
- 45:29Speaker 1: Pop Marked. It's an excellent book.
- 45:33Speaker 2: I have that on my Amazon list this morning.
- 45:37Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, I'm sure Jeff's listening to this episode. He
- 45:40Speaker 1: is a huge You two fan, and he is a
- 45:42Speaker 1: fan of pop as am. I probably like half the
- 45:46Speaker 1: half the tracks I am a fan of and I
- 45:48Speaker 1: think I'm with you. I'm glad that they went with
- 45:51Speaker 1: this that whether it worked or didn't, it's something that
- 45:54Speaker 1: they really wanted to do. It's just something artistically they
- 45:56Speaker 1: felt they wanted to do. And it was an initially
- 45:59Speaker 1: announced to be released in October of ninety six, but
- 46:03Speaker 1: it was delayed. They had trouble finishing the song. It's
- 46:05Speaker 1: kind of similar not to him Baby, right.
- 46:08Speaker 2: Yeah, they struggled with pop. They weren't quite sure what
- 46:12Speaker 2: they were doing with it in places, and end of
- 46:16Speaker 2: the day, they weren't really happy with the final mixes
- 46:18Speaker 2: and they were still tweaking and playing with things. I
- 46:23Speaker 2: think You Too were a little bit ahead of their
- 46:26Speaker 2: time with pop. I think that album stands up better
- 46:29Speaker 2: than any of us remember it. If you go back
- 46:33Speaker 2: and listen to it. That is an incredible piece of work.
- 46:37Speaker 1: I remember Bono talking this is maybe twenty years ago,
- 46:39Speaker 1: fifteen years ago. He wanted to re release it.
- 46:43Speaker 2: I think they had something there that they didn't know
- 46:46Speaker 2: at the time how good it was. I'm a big
- 46:51Speaker 2: fan of pop and the whole tour, the culture that
- 46:55Speaker 2: surrounded it, the merchandise they put out, the fun they
- 46:59Speaker 2: were having with the videos. I just love that whole
- 47:02Speaker 2: period of You two.
- 47:03Speaker 1: Yeah, talk about pressure too, right. They had the tour
- 47:05Speaker 1: booked ready to start April of ninety seven, so.
- 47:09Speaker 2: They were still mixing the album.
- 47:11Speaker 1: They're still mixing it.
- 47:12Speaker 2: Yeah, they were supposed to be in rehearsals that ORR
- 47:15Speaker 2: really suffered because of it.
- 47:17Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 47:18Speaker 2: They got them off on a rough foot in Las
- 47:20Speaker 2: Vegas and the critics just savaged them for not being ready.
- 47:25Speaker 1: Yeah, but the album debuted strong number one in twenty
- 47:29Speaker 1: nine countries including the UK and US. Yeah, and Disco Tech,
- 47:34Speaker 1: who number ten single Steering at the Sun number twenty six.
- 47:39Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're singles. They should have mixed that
- 47:44Speaker 2: one up. I think Disco Tech maybe they should have
- 47:47Speaker 2: released it as a second single and put one of
- 47:49Speaker 2: the more U two sounding songs up front. I think
- 47:52Speaker 2: it would have turned around that campaign.
- 47:54Speaker 1: For them in the States, and Larry wasn't too fond
- 47:58Speaker 1: of the album as a whole, right he was and
- 48:00Speaker 1: digging they were.
- 48:03Speaker 2: Larry had back problems, so Larry was on the sidelines
- 48:07Speaker 2: for most in the recording of that album. He came
- 48:11Speaker 2: in at the end and re recorded a bunch of
- 48:13Speaker 2: stuff they had put together, but that one was probably
- 48:17Speaker 2: a hard one for him because he wasn't around for
- 48:19Speaker 2: the bulk of the original recording sessions.
- 48:22Speaker 1: I love MOFO. That's a great one.
- 48:27Speaker 2: I have a MOFO T shirt that I almost wore
- 48:30Speaker 2: tonight for this.
- 48:32Speaker 1: You could have won.
- 48:32Speaker 2: It the Las Vegas one instead.
- 48:36Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, oh that's cool. That's from the YouTube Vegas show. Okay, yeah,
- 48:40Speaker 1: that's from the Spare show. I'm wondering what that was. Okay, cool, Well,
- 48:45Speaker 1: so they did. There was a reaction that the band
- 48:49Speaker 1: had to the the lack of I mean, I hates
- 48:53Speaker 1: said it's not a failure of pop because it did
- 48:56Speaker 1: really well, but you know where I'm going. I mean,
- 48:58Speaker 1: there was there was some push back there. So I
- 49:01Speaker 1: think that leads to all that you can't leave behind, like, Okay,
- 49:03Speaker 1: let's pull it back a little bit. Let's let's make
- 49:05Speaker 1: sure we don't entirely lose our fan base.
- 49:09Speaker 2: And I think that's what they did. Pop was so
- 49:12Speaker 2: out there, they took some risks, they pushed the envelope,
- 49:16Speaker 2: but I think they decided he didn't really work for us,
- 49:22Speaker 2: and let's pull back and let's get it back to
- 49:25Speaker 2: four guys in a room again.
- 49:27Speaker 1: But it worked two times before, right, Joshua Tree, when
- 49:30Speaker 1: they made that shift, and sound did just fine, and
- 49:34Speaker 1: and our tune Baby was a drastic change, but.
- 49:38Speaker 2: And it worked for them again. All that you Can't
- 49:41Speaker 2: Leave Behind is probably going to be in the long
- 49:45Speaker 2: term looked as one of their big three albums. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
- 49:51Speaker 2: October thirtieth.
- 49:54Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. You're saying, if you have to pick a third,
- 49:59Speaker 1: is this top top five U two in your opinion?
- 50:02Speaker 1: All that you Can't Leave behind?
- 50:04Speaker 2: My opinion, none of those albums.
- 50:06Speaker 1: No, I know because I read about you. Yes, I had.
- 50:10Speaker 1: There's an interesting I think I have it in my
- 50:13Speaker 1: notes here. I was gonna ask about your favorite U
- 50:15Speaker 1: two albums.
- 50:16Speaker 2: You can ask that one later. Yeah, Critically and popularity,
- 50:22Speaker 2: I think all that you leave behind or all that
- 50:24Speaker 2: you can't leave behind has to be the third album.
- 50:29Speaker 2: Some would make the case that it would be How
- 50:30Speaker 2: to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb because of the Grammy Awards,
- 50:34Speaker 2: but I think All that You Can't Leave Behind is
- 50:40Speaker 2: the more successful of the two albums.
- 50:44Speaker 1: Yeah Yeah reached number one in thirty two different countries,
- 50:48Speaker 1: including the US and UK. Album won Best Rock Album
- 50:52Speaker 1: at the two thousand and two Grammy Awards. Talk about
- 50:55Speaker 1: the lead single, Beautiful Day, number twenty one in the US,
- 50:58Speaker 1: number one in the UK. Interesting things here, It almost
- 51:02Speaker 1: didn't make the album one and two. There was a
- 51:05Speaker 1: different title which you can hear the edge singing under
- 51:09Speaker 1: Bono's vocals.
- 51:11Speaker 2: Yeah. The song was originally developed under the title Always,
- 51:17Speaker 2: which you two and their Infinite Wisdom released the same
- 51:21Speaker 2: day they released Beautiful Day. That's the b side the
- 51:24Speaker 2: Beautiful Day. They released another version of the song that
- 51:28Speaker 2: went on to become a Finnish song, and you hear
- 51:33Speaker 2: hints of Beautiful Day again in Get Out of Your
- 51:38Speaker 2: Own Way. Always went on to become the backbone of
- 51:45Speaker 2: Get Out of Your Own Way in twenty eighteen.
- 51:49Speaker 1: Interesting.
- 51:50Speaker 2: They really liked the ideas in there, and they've spun
- 51:54Speaker 2: it off in a couple of different directions over the years.
- 51:58Speaker 1: And we did talk about stuck in a moment you
- 52:00Speaker 1: Can't get out of, and that was about Bono's friend
- 52:02Speaker 1: Michael Hutchinson in excess how he took his life and
- 52:05Speaker 1: he was so affected by that, so he wrote the
- 52:07Speaker 1: song about him, but also talk about there's an unreleased
- 52:11Speaker 1: version recorded with Mick Jagger.
- 52:14Speaker 2: Yeah, Mick Jagger and his daughter, I think it was.
- 52:18Speaker 1: Is this out there at all? In any bootleg?
- 52:21Speaker 2: It is not. The studio recording that they did is
- 52:24Speaker 2: not out there. Mick Jager has joined them in concert
- 52:27Speaker 2: to do it, and that was done at one of
- 52:30Speaker 2: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame anniversary celebrations. Wow,
- 52:35Speaker 2: that's that's been released. But the actual studio version with
- 52:39Speaker 2: Mick Jagger on backing vocals doesn't ever come out.
- 52:44Speaker 1: Wow, that's in.
- 52:45Speaker 2: The archives that I hope we get to hear someday.
- 52:48Speaker 1: Yeah, because they've they've released quite a quite a bit
- 52:51Speaker 1: of stuff that I would think is from their archives.
- 52:54Speaker 1: You know, a lot of those deluxe editions and things
- 52:56Speaker 1: like that, you think it'd be in there. Yeah.
- 52:58Speaker 2: The deluxe edition of All That You Can't Leave Behind
- 53:02Speaker 2: was a bit disappointing because there were only three unreleased
- 53:06Speaker 2: pieces of music in there, and they were all remixes
- 53:09Speaker 2: that just didn't make the cut in two thousand.
- 53:12Speaker 1: Well tell me, is there anywhere I can find I
- 53:15Speaker 1: love on Elevation. I love the version that's on the album,
- 53:18Speaker 1: but the one that was for the video had at
- 53:21Speaker 1: the end a little heavier. The edge is riff. It's
- 53:29Speaker 1: the two Mader version and I cannot find that. You
- 53:32Speaker 1: think it's on Spotify. I was trying to find it.
- 53:36Speaker 2: It should be released as a single on Friday.
- 53:40Speaker 1: What okay? What am I missing?
- 53:43Speaker 2: YouTube's currently going through a little bit of a program
- 53:46Speaker 2: where they're re releasing old singles.
- 53:48Speaker 1: Oh cool, and.
- 53:50Speaker 2: They've were Elevation should be the one that comes out
- 53:52Speaker 2: on Friday. I'm hoping the tomb Raider version is in there.
- 53:57Speaker 2: It wasn't on that big box that they did.
- 54:00Speaker 1: Isn't it awesome? Kicks ass man? I love that.
- 54:02Speaker 2: I know it should be out on Friday, though I
- 54:06Speaker 2: would expect, so keep an eye on streaming services.
- 54:09Speaker 1: Then, very nice, good timing. I'm glad, I asked. Yeah,
- 54:12Speaker 1: so no one knows, Yeah, no one knows. Okay, So
- 54:17Speaker 1: this album puts them back in the driver's seat. And
- 54:19Speaker 1: then they returned with O four's How to Dismantle an
- 54:22Speaker 1: Atomic Bomb. There was something about long album titles. They
- 54:25Speaker 1: were into. The record labels must have hated it, right,
- 54:30Speaker 1: It's like you got to get something a little more catchy, something.
- 54:34Speaker 2: I call it atomic Bomb and I write it.
- 54:38Speaker 1: Yeah, number one and thirty four different countries.
- 54:42Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to follow up on the success
- 54:45Speaker 2: of an album, atomic Bomb was the way to do it.
- 54:48Speaker 2: Grammy awards and charts and sales, and that Vertigo tour
- 54:54Speaker 2: just sold like crazy.
- 54:57Speaker 1: Yeah. No, here's another thing I didn't know until I
- 54:59Speaker 1: read your book. They started recording with a twenty piece
- 55:02Speaker 1: orchestra with a producer by the name of Chris Thomas,
- 55:05Speaker 1: but then those were scrapped.
- 55:07Speaker 2: Yeah, Chris Thomas, famous first work with the Beatles.
- 55:11Speaker 1: Wow, okay again, question are these songs out there?
- 55:15Speaker 2: They are not out there. Very few of the songs
- 55:20Speaker 2: that they worked on with Chris Thomas ever saw the
- 55:23Speaker 2: light a day. They did a big box set with
- 55:29Speaker 2: Apple on iTunes, the Complete U two and it was
- 55:33Speaker 2: like a crazy amount of songs and you could only
- 55:37Speaker 2: get it through iTunes, and you could only get the
- 55:39Speaker 2: bonus stuff if you bought the whole thing. A couple
- 55:42Speaker 2: of the early demos were on there, but not the
- 55:45Speaker 2: orchestra stuff. So the orchestra stuff still remains unreleased, and
- 55:50Speaker 2: I'm really interested if they're going to pull that out
- 55:53Speaker 2: this fall for the twentieth anniversary of that album.
- 55:56Speaker 1: Yeah. The question also is are they fully mixed? Where
- 55:59Speaker 1: they done to completion? Do we even know.
- 56:02Speaker 2: No idea where they got to in some of that?
- 56:06Speaker 2: There were other songs that were cut off that album
- 56:09Speaker 2: right at the last minute. There's a song that fans
- 56:14Speaker 2: go on and talk about all.
- 56:15Speaker 1: The time, Mercy, Mercy, Okay, Mercy.
- 56:20Speaker 2: It's only ever been released as a live track and
- 56:24Speaker 2: it was recorded many years later, but there was an
- 56:28Speaker 2: original version recorded for Atomic Bomb. It was cut like
- 56:32Speaker 2: right before the final mix of the album was done.
- 56:35Speaker 2: They decided the album was too long and they hacked
- 56:38Speaker 2: the song off the end. Best song they've done in years.
- 56:42Speaker 2: I love that song.
- 56:43Speaker 1: Really, Okay, I gotta look for that Mercy there.
- 56:47Speaker 2: There is a studio version of it that leaked, and
- 56:50Speaker 2: it's the original studio version because they were passing out
- 56:53Speaker 2: copies of the album to let friends listen to, and
- 56:57Speaker 2: the albums that they were passing out had mercy on
- 57:00Speaker 2: the end of it, and then they chopped it at
- 57:03Speaker 2: the last minute. Stupid move. Wow.
- 57:06Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, some great, great pieces of trivia. On Vertigo.
- 57:11Speaker 1: It had several working titles Hard Metal Jacket, Full Metal Jacket, Shark,
- 57:15Speaker 1: Soup with the Hell, and and then I don't even
- 57:19Speaker 1: know how to pronounce this correctly, Sopa do t baron.
- 57:23Speaker 2: I believe that shark's soap in Spanish.
- 57:27Speaker 1: Oh, I gotcha.
- 57:30Speaker 2: Yeah, they were playing with the Spanish thing there quite
- 57:33Speaker 2: a bit. Ramone went on to become the Miracle of
- 57:37Speaker 2: Joey Ramon.
- 57:38Speaker 1: Jorm Okay and a Native Son was another title, and
- 57:41Speaker 1: there they're said to According to your book, they're said
- 57:44Speaker 1: to be over seventy five recorded versions of this song,
- 57:48Speaker 1: seventy five.
- 57:49Speaker 2: Steve Lilywhite did a podcast a few years ago and
- 57:53Speaker 2: he said he came in and Bono brought out the
- 57:56Speaker 2: song that he just loved, and he looked at Bonn
- 57:59Speaker 2: and he said, are you going to be able to
- 58:01Speaker 2: sing that live? And Bono was like, no, Well back
- 58:05Speaker 2: to the drawing board.
- 58:07Speaker 1: Yeah, that's in your book too. Wow.
- 58:09Speaker 2: It's it's interesting some of those songs they've teased and
- 58:13Speaker 2: played with and I'd argue that what they've what they
- 58:18Speaker 2: play live now is the best version that.
- 58:20Speaker 1: They've got of that song of Vertigo.
- 58:23Speaker 2: Yeah, but it would be interesting to hear some of
- 58:26Speaker 2: those earlier versions.
- 58:27Speaker 1: I think what's interesting from reading the book too, is
- 58:29Speaker 1: just you just get a feel of this is something
- 58:32Speaker 1: I was already pretty much aware of, but it just
- 58:34Speaker 1: it's solidified the the the fact that the work ethic
- 58:38Speaker 1: of you two and and the perfectionism and the you know,
- 58:42Speaker 1: if it's just not right, we're going to start again.
- 58:44Speaker 1: You know. They just they're not just gonna just Okay,
- 58:47Speaker 1: we got enough songs, Let's just throw a few more
- 58:49Speaker 1: tracks on there. Here's your album, and let's tour.
- 58:52Speaker 2: I think we'd have a lot more albums if they
- 58:54Speaker 2: weren't perfectionists.
- 58:56Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they.
- 58:57Speaker 2: Just And sometime I wonder if what they had two
- 59:03Speaker 2: or three months before the end of the album sessions
- 59:06Speaker 2: isn't the better album.
- 59:07Speaker 1: Sometimes Yeah, all right, now, here's here's where we get
- 59:13Speaker 1: to your favorite U two albums. And this is shocking,
- 59:17Speaker 1: not as shocking as your statement on Octune Baby, but
- 59:22Speaker 1: this is this is I'm actually I'm with you on
- 59:25Speaker 1: this one. Actually, by the way, but According to Youtuo
- 59:26Speaker 1: songs dot Com, You're a big fan of the Unforgettable
- 59:29Speaker 1: Fire Zuopa and the next album we'll talk about, which
- 59:34Speaker 1: is two thousand and nine's No Line on the Horizon.
- 59:37Speaker 1: I love this album.
- 59:39Speaker 2: I love this album. Yeah, there is a joy in
- 59:44Speaker 2: the music on this album that I just find gets
- 59:49Speaker 2: under my skin. I could listen to this if I
- 59:52Speaker 2: was on a desert island and had to pick one
- 59:54Speaker 2: album to take with me. It's gonna be my remixed
- 59:58Speaker 2: version of No Line on the Horizon, because I do
- 1:00:01Speaker 2: have a version where I've rearranged it and taken a
- 1:00:04Speaker 2: couple of things out and moved them around. So okay,
- 1:00:09Speaker 2: there are a few choices I make that, but overall
- 1:00:13Speaker 2: it's my favorite. All the songs end up in there.
- 1:00:15Speaker 2: But I've got a different version of I'll Go Crazy
- 1:00:19Speaker 2: that I put on my copy.
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: What a great song, What a great song. But here
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: we go again. Initial recording with Rick Rubin in two
- 1:00:26Speaker 1: thousand and six, it was shelved.
- 1:00:30Speaker 2: The only thing that came out of those sessions were
- 1:00:34Speaker 2: The Saints Are Coming with Green Day and Window in
- 1:00:38Speaker 2: the Skies. Both of them are on a best of
- 1:00:40Speaker 2: package that they put out, but there's a whole album
- 1:00:44Speaker 2: of Ruben tracks that they've never gone back to that
- 1:00:47Speaker 2: they keep threatening to go back to.
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: And what they just just weren't feeling the chemistry with
- 1:00:53Speaker 1: Rick just you weren't feeling it. Because this is an
- 1:00:57Speaker 1: interesting ACDC had the same issue with Rick Rubin. They
- 1:01:01Speaker 1: when they worked with them, they just didn't.
- 1:01:03Speaker 2: My understanding is Rubin expects you to show up and
- 1:01:06Speaker 2: have songs, and he's going to record them and make
- 1:01:08Speaker 2: them the best damn songs ever. You two walk in
- 1:01:12Speaker 2: with nothing and expect to fiddle around in the studio
- 1:01:16Speaker 2: and get help in creating songs and putting ideas together.
- 1:01:20Speaker 2: Rubin wasn't ready to go that far back in the
- 1:01:23Speaker 2: process with them, from what I understand, So he wanted
- 1:01:28Speaker 2: them to come a little bit more ready to record.
- 1:01:31Speaker 2: And they showed up with a bunch of sketches and
- 1:01:35Speaker 2: they were looking for more of a Brian Eno treatment
- 1:01:39Speaker 2: and they didn't get it.
- 1:01:41Speaker 1: Well, they brought him back in, him and Brian and
- 1:01:43Speaker 1: Daniel Lenoi. Yeah producers. Yeah, they came back in.
- 1:01:47Speaker 2: They not only came in as producers with no line
- 1:01:49Speaker 2: on the horizon, they're credited as co writers all.
- 1:01:52Speaker 1: Right now, is that a first? They hadn't done that before.
- 1:01:57Speaker 2: They hadn't done that except for Passengers our Eno and
- 1:02:01Speaker 2: Howie Be and Pavarotti get some credit.
- 1:02:04Speaker 1: Okay.
- 1:02:05Speaker 2: That was released under her separate name. It wasn't released
- 1:02:07Speaker 2: under You Two. This is the first time they brought
- 1:02:09Speaker 2: somebody in as like songwriters with them.
- 1:02:14Speaker 1: Get on Your Boots magnificent one of my all time
- 1:02:17Speaker 1: favorite You two songs, and I'll Go Crazy if I
- 1:02:20Speaker 1: don't go crazy Tonight the three singles. Yeah, and this
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: was supposed to be double album too.
- 1:02:26Speaker 2: It was Songs of a Cent was what the second
- 1:02:30Speaker 2: half was turned into. And we still haven't had a
- 1:02:34Speaker 2: release of that. Yeah.
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: You talked her a book about the album title. How
- 1:02:39Speaker 1: Bono came up with that title No Line on.
- 1:02:41Speaker 2: The Horizon looking out across the water from his house
- 1:02:46Speaker 2: in Dublin, couldn't see the difference between sky and water.
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: No Line on the Horizon, and that album cover very
- 1:02:55Speaker 1: simple but so beautiful. I love that. And that's my
- 1:03:00Speaker 1: an artist, I guess, a fairly well known artist, I
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: think according to your book.
- 1:03:05Speaker 2: Yeah, he's well known for those seascapes. He actually did
- 1:03:09Speaker 2: one of them in the town that I grew up
- 1:03:12Speaker 2: in So there's a touch of Sugimoto in ganesh at Home.
- 1:03:18Speaker 1: Cool Cool. That's what's the name of the artist, Sugimoto. Okay, yeah, yeah,
- 1:03:26Speaker 1: I'm with you man. It's a great album. It came
- 1:03:29Speaker 1: at a time where things were starting to change as
- 1:03:32Speaker 1: far as the radio, the way songs were distributed, the
- 1:03:37Speaker 1: way things were promoted. Just the album did well, but
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: not like previous You two albums, and I remember just
- 1:03:44Speaker 1: being surprised by that. They they tried tried like hell
- 1:03:49Speaker 1: to get it out there as much as they could,
- 1:03:51Speaker 1: but it just didn't seem to to have.
- 1:03:55Speaker 2: I think the record industry went right and YouTube went left. Yeah,
- 1:04:01Speaker 2: they just didn't quite hit what was getting the attention
- 1:04:04Speaker 2: at that point in time. And they tried hard. They
- 1:04:07Speaker 2: had appearances on the Grammys, they pushed out remixes, they
- 1:04:12Speaker 2: they tried to bring that campaign around, but that album
- 1:04:15Speaker 2: got away from them. I think.
- 1:04:17Speaker 1: Yeah. I do remember being at the movie theater and
- 1:04:20Speaker 1: they had I'll go Crazy if I don't go Crazy
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: Tonight on one of the trailers, and I remember thinking, yeah, man,
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: they're they're working it, you know, getting that music out,
- 1:04:30Speaker 1: because you had to be creative in ways to get
- 1:04:32Speaker 1: it because it used to be just mtvvh one, get
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: your Videos on, get the Radio Play Tour.
- 1:04:39Speaker 2: They loaned that one out to BlackBerry for an ad
- 1:04:41Speaker 2: as well.
- 1:04:42Speaker 1: That's what it was. Maybe that's where we were playing
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: that Blackberriod.
- 1:04:45Speaker 2: Yeah, and they used that song for a couple of
- 1:04:48Speaker 2: things along the line. But they really tried to get
- 1:04:51Speaker 2: it out there. But I think they stumbled a bit
- 1:04:54Speaker 2: with Get on Your Boots. That wasn't a song that
- 1:04:58Speaker 2: really caught the attention of even YouTube fans tend to
- 1:05:03Speaker 2: write it down as a least favorite song. And I
- 1:05:06Speaker 2: actually kind of like it. And one of the things
- 1:05:10Speaker 2: that I actually love about the book and going through
- 1:05:15Speaker 2: and looking up all these songs, I had never really
- 1:05:20Speaker 2: figured out what Get on Your Boots was about. Yeah,
- 1:05:25Speaker 2: and then I found it was an interview in French,
- 1:05:30Speaker 2: was in a French magazine and Bono was talking about
- 1:05:33Speaker 2: being in the south of France and he went to
- 1:05:35Speaker 2: the funfair with his wife and his daughter. He took
- 1:05:38Speaker 2: the kids to the fair and they were there when
- 1:05:41Speaker 2: the jets went I started flying overhead, going into Iraq
- 1:05:44Speaker 2: from the UK. And that's the whole backbone of Get
- 1:05:48Speaker 2: on Your Boots. It was get on your boots, were
- 1:05:50Speaker 2: going to war, rockets said the Funfair and the planes
- 1:05:55Speaker 2: going overhead. So it kind of added a layer to
- 1:05:59Speaker 2: that song. But I never really got and I wouldn't
- 1:06:02Speaker 2: have picked up if I hadn't gone rooting around for
- 1:06:05Speaker 2: some odd interview in some French magazine from ninety seven.
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: Podcasts we'll be back after this.
- 1:06:13Speaker 2: We'll be back with the Magic Tones for the Armada
- 1:06:15Speaker 2: rooms to our disco swing party after this shortbreak till then,
- 1:06:18Speaker 2: don't you go change it.
- 1:06:22Speaker 1: Another interesting aspect of this album is a moment of
- 1:06:24Speaker 1: surrender in terms of promotion or in terms of just
- 1:06:28Speaker 1: how that album was heard by a mainstream audience. I
- 1:06:33Speaker 1: remember Rolling Stone had that as like the song of
- 1:06:36Speaker 1: the year or something like that, and that song wasn't
- 1:06:40Speaker 1: played on the radio once, which was so you know,
- 1:06:43Speaker 1: that just said so much. It was like if Rolling
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: Stone in the past had a YouTube song that was
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: like the song of the year, it would have been
- 1:06:52Speaker 1: one of those songs that was all over the place.
- 1:06:54Speaker 1: You know, it was on the radio, it was on
- 1:06:57Speaker 1: television everywhere, and I thought that was strange too.
- 1:07:01Speaker 2: Moment of surrender. I struggled to get into Moment of Surrender.
- 1:07:07Speaker 2: But it was one of those tour stops that was
- 1:07:11Speaker 2: promoting that album. I was in Dublin and my friend
- 1:07:16Speaker 2: Emma was beside me and she just closed her eyes
- 1:07:18Speaker 2: when Moment of Surrender started and I watched the tears
- 1:07:24Speaker 2: start coming down her cheeks. And it was the first
- 1:07:27Speaker 2: time I think I stopped and listened to the song
- 1:07:31Speaker 2: and it's it's become an absolute favorite, but it takes
- 1:07:34Speaker 2: me back to that night in Dublin under the stars
- 1:07:38Speaker 2: listening to that song. Wow, just one of those personal moments.
- 1:07:42Speaker 1: Well, here's just a quick statement. This is from Wikipedia.
- 1:07:45Speaker 1: Although it was not released as a single, Rolling Stone
- 1:07:47Speaker 1: named Moment of Surrender the best song of two thousand
- 1:07:50Speaker 1: and nine.
- 1:07:52Speaker 2: They also listed it in their top five hundred Songs
- 1:07:56Speaker 2: of all Time.
- 1:07:56Speaker 1: List YEP at one sixty.
- 1:07:58Speaker 2: Yeah, which is as the first song that most people
- 1:08:01Speaker 2: have never heard.
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: Isn't it? Yeah? So let's move on now. Next three
- 1:08:05Speaker 1: albums twenty fourteen Songs of Innocence, twenty seventeen Songs of Experienced,
- 1:08:10Speaker 1: twenty twenty three Songs of Surrender. So the first two
- 1:08:15Speaker 1: comprised of originals or the last they reworking of previous songs. Now,
- 1:08:19Speaker 1: by the way, I think song with Songs of Innocence,
- 1:08:21Speaker 1: the one that was forced onto the iPods. That was
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: where that was a big right I'm.
- 1:08:27Speaker 2: Gonna tell my iPods story.
- 1:08:29Speaker 1: Oh go ahead, but that's the one right songs one. Yeah.
- 1:08:34Speaker 2: I'm a bit of a techie guy, so I saw
- 1:08:36Speaker 2: that Apple could force stuff onto your phone. I turned
- 1:08:39Speaker 2: all that off. I made sure Apple wasn't putting anything
- 1:08:42Speaker 2: on my phone. So when you two forced that onto
- 1:08:46Speaker 2: everybody's phone, I couldn't get it. I was in a panic.
- 1:08:51Speaker 2: I spent three hours on the phone with Apple's technical
- 1:08:55Speaker 2: support try and get that.
- 1:08:57Speaker 1: You were the reverse because all you ever here was
- 1:09:00Speaker 1: people pissed off. I don't want this on my phone.
- 1:09:04Speaker 2: I was. I was in a panic trying to get
- 1:09:06Speaker 2: that album. I could not get it for the life
- 1:09:08Speaker 2: of me. And it was because I didn't trust out Apple.
- 1:09:12Speaker 2: I figured, what are they going to put on my phone?
- 1:09:15Speaker 2: Are they going to download some crap something? So I
- 1:09:18Speaker 2: turned it all off. The biggest YouTube in the world
- 1:09:22Speaker 2: learned my last.
- 1:09:24Speaker 1: Yes, did you think that was an obnoxious move? Or
- 1:09:28Speaker 1: you know that was all the kids like? You know,
- 1:09:30Speaker 1: come on, don't force me to listen to it. What
- 1:09:32Speaker 1: was your position on that?
- 1:09:34Speaker 2: I think that, yeah, it was it was obnoxious what
- 1:09:37Speaker 2: Apple did. Apple shouldn't have done that. I don't think
- 1:09:41Speaker 2: you too realize that's what they were going to do.
- 1:09:44Speaker 2: And there's been some interviews since then that have suggested
- 1:09:47Speaker 2: that they thought you were going to have to opt in,
- 1:09:50Speaker 2: which I think would have been the better solution, but
- 1:09:54Speaker 2: certainly got attention. And now it's the one thing you
- 1:09:56Speaker 2: hear about you two, no matter who's talking about, it's
- 1:10:00Speaker 2: always that damn album.
- 1:10:04Speaker 1: Yeah. So now my question for you, though, is there
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: a connection between the three albums? Is the songs of
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: part of the three titles for a reason? To me,
- 1:10:13Speaker 1: it's here's here's my here's my limited YouTube knowledge assessment
- 1:10:21Speaker 1: of these Okay. To me, it's a journey through the
- 1:10:23Speaker 1: band's childhood on the first one, adulthood on the second,
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: and then on the last. To me, it's a band
- 1:10:30Speaker 1: no longer constantly determined to push forward as much but
- 1:10:35Speaker 1: embracing their past. Is that? How did I do?
- 1:10:42Speaker 2: I think you're looking at a path. I think there's
- 1:10:44Speaker 2: connecting tissue between what will probably be five songs of albums.
- 1:10:51Speaker 2: There's two more to come from what I understand.
- 1:10:54Speaker 1: Oh, that was gonna be one of my questions. Yeah,
- 1:10:56Speaker 1: what's next?
- 1:10:56Speaker 2: I don't I don't think we have the full picture yet,
- 1:10:59Speaker 2: But I think innocence was their early days up until
- 1:11:04Speaker 2: Josh Wittree. I think experience is looking back when they
- 1:11:09Speaker 2: hit that crazy peak in adulthood, fame going around, Actung Baby,
- 1:11:16Speaker 2: all of that chaos and craziness that followed them, the supermodels,
- 1:11:21Speaker 2: the parties, all of that. I think surrender, like you said,
- 1:11:26Speaker 2: is looking back and coming to terms with their whole career.
- 1:11:30Speaker 2: Alder men, kind of looking back at their body of
- 1:11:33Speaker 2: work and maybe a bit of maturity.
- 1:11:36Speaker 1: Yep, because I should mention I don't think I mentioned
- 1:11:38Speaker 1: it too. They're reworkings of previous songs. Those first two
- 1:11:42Speaker 1: original Yeah, yeah, these are reworkings of previous songs.
- 1:11:48Speaker 2: And then we don't know the titles of the next
- 1:11:52Speaker 2: two for sure. But Songs of a Cent keeps getting
- 1:11:56Speaker 2: brought in, so and that's said to be a song
- 1:11:59Speaker 2: of him and spiritual songs. So I think that's going
- 1:12:04Speaker 2: to be more a older man looking towards his end.
- 1:12:11Speaker 1: Hmmm, Okay, okay, I think.
- 1:12:14Speaker 2: It's going to be a very different album for you too.
- 1:12:19Speaker 2: I would almost argue that that might actually be them
- 1:12:23Speaker 2: looking to close or cap off their career at some point.
- 1:12:27Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it sucks to think of that, but hey,
- 1:12:30Speaker 1: we just got the new Steven Tyler could he can't
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: sing anymore, so he said, that's it Aerosmiths. They're done,
- 1:12:37Speaker 1: and that's where we're at right now.
- 1:12:40Speaker 2: But you got a few things before they get to
- 1:12:42Speaker 2: that point.
- 1:12:43Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna tell you how much how much
- 1:12:44Speaker 1: longer do you think they have? Do you think they can?
- 1:12:47Speaker 1: I mean, we've got we've got people like Springsteen and
- 1:12:50Speaker 1: Bob Dylan or we're doing it now into their seventies
- 1:12:52Speaker 1: up right up through hitting the eighty Mark Stones guys
- 1:13:00Speaker 1: right away, late sixties and what are the early sixties, mid.
- 1:13:04Speaker 2: Six Midsith Adams sixty five now, so you're heading retirement
- 1:13:10Speaker 2: age for most of us. They're getting older. I think
- 1:13:16Speaker 2: Bono will continue on in some shape or form even
- 1:13:19Speaker 2: after you two may retire, But I don't know. I
- 1:13:25Speaker 2: think you two have a couple of good albums left
- 1:13:27Speaker 2: in them and maybe a couple of more tours, and
- 1:13:30Speaker 2: then they'll probably start looking at doing less and less.
- 1:13:34Speaker 2: It's been seven years now since the last album of
- 1:13:38Speaker 2: new music.
- 1:13:40Speaker 1: It's been that long, Yeah, twenty seventeen. Time flies. Yeah,
- 1:13:44Speaker 1: well you did want to mention too, the Atomic City single,
- 1:13:48Speaker 1: because that's the very latest that we've gotten from them. Yeah,
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: and I forget is that in the newest? Is that
- 1:13:55Speaker 1: in the book?
- 1:13:56Speaker 2: It's in the final printed copy of the book. It
- 1:14:00Speaker 2: was the last minute request I caught when that they
- 1:14:04Speaker 2: were doing a new single to celebrate the Las Vegas
- 1:14:09Speaker 2: Sphere shows, so ask the publisher if they could make
- 1:14:15Speaker 2: room for one last song. So it's just a brief mention,
- 1:14:19Speaker 2: but the book is complete. It has everything up to date,
- 1:14:22Speaker 2: including Atomic Cities.
- 1:14:24Speaker 1: How nice is that? So? Atomic City? What's it about?
- 1:14:27Speaker 1: And what is your opinion of the song?
- 1:14:30Speaker 2: A touch of a love affair with Vegas, a little
- 1:14:34Speaker 2: love letter to them. There's references to Lady Luck and Sinatra.
- 1:14:42Speaker 2: Some of that. The atomic side goes back to the
- 1:14:45Speaker 2: atomic bomb testing in the desert outside of Las Vegas,
- 1:14:49Speaker 2: so there's a lot of that. I think it was
- 1:14:52Speaker 2: really done specifically for those shows that they were doing
- 1:14:57Speaker 2: in Las Vegas as a way to promote them and
- 1:15:00Speaker 2: to get it out there, and it was a way
- 1:15:03Speaker 2: to remind people that hey, even though we're showing up
- 1:15:05Speaker 2: on stage with a temporary drummer, here's Larry Mullen and
- 1:15:10Speaker 2: the first person we're going to show you on stage
- 1:15:12Speaker 2: with us, that's Fear, is Larry Mullen in the Atomic
- 1:15:16Speaker 2: City video.
- 1:15:18Speaker 1: And there is there's a call back to a Blondie
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: song called Me Right. There's like a post punk yeah.
- 1:15:27Speaker 2: Blondie and Giorgio Moroder co writing credits on this song.
- 1:15:32Speaker 2: It's one of the few times You two has put
- 1:15:34Speaker 2: a co writing credits.
- 1:15:35Speaker 1: So so You Two is alive and well and we're
- 1:15:39Speaker 1: looking forward to what's coming next. And in the book
- 1:15:42Speaker 1: is out now You two, song by song. It's out
- 1:15:44Speaker 1: through front Hill Media. You can find it wherever books
- 1:15:47Speaker 1: are sold and Aaron where can people find you online
- 1:15:50Speaker 1: if you want to plug the YouTube song site as well.
- 1:15:55Speaker 2: We've been working on a little fan site called YouTube
- 1:15:59Speaker 2: song dot com since nineteen ninety five. It's probably the
- 1:16:05Speaker 2: oldest continual operated YouTube website under on the Internet these days.
- 1:16:12Speaker 2: So there's a team of about half dozen of us
- 1:16:16Speaker 2: that put in a few hours a week keeping it up.
- 1:16:19Speaker 2: News shows big focus on collections and collectibles.
- 1:16:25Speaker 1: So I love it so there was a time when
- 1:16:27Speaker 1: people were going to that website and you can hear
- 1:16:29Speaker 1: the modem like the old dial up, the old dial
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: up trying to get to the website. It goes back
- 1:16:35Speaker 1: that far.
- 1:16:37Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's been around longer than you two have
- 1:16:41Speaker 2: had their own website and operations.
- 1:16:43Speaker 1: So that's awesome. Yeah, and if any anywhere people can
- 1:16:47Speaker 1: find you, I know you're on x or Twitter or
- 1:16:50Speaker 1: whatever we call it.
- 1:16:51Speaker 2: I'm on Twitter. We've got a site account, YouTube songs,
- 1:16:56Speaker 2: and I'm also on there as YouTube wanderer.
- 1:17:00Speaker 1: Yes, you two wonder at you two wonder?
- 1:17:03Speaker 2: Yeah, call back to one of my favorite songs, the
- 1:17:07Speaker 2: one they did with Johnny Cash.
- 1:17:10Speaker 1: Yeah, we did an excellent job on the book, and
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: I'm so glad we were able to make contact and
- 1:17:17Speaker 1: I was able to get you on the show because
- 1:17:19Speaker 1: this is you two man, The're right up there in
- 1:17:22Speaker 1: my top five. So I was, yeah, looking very much
- 1:17:25Speaker 1: forward to this interview. And again, congratulations on a great book.
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: Thank you for that.
- 1:17:31Speaker 2: I'm glad you enjoyed it. And I really tried to
- 1:17:37Speaker 2: put together something that didn't just stick to facts and figures.
- 1:17:41Speaker 2: I wanted a little glimpse into where these songs ended
- 1:17:46Speaker 2: up in the world. Who has called them favorites, what
- 1:17:51Speaker 2: fans have taken and done with them. So it's a
- 1:17:53Speaker 2: little bit of love affair with the songs, and I.
- 1:17:57Speaker 1: Think it's a great series front Hill Media has. I
- 1:18:00Speaker 1: think it's great as now we go into the next
- 1:18:02Speaker 1: into the future with generations of fans that will discover
- 1:18:05Speaker 1: these bands. It's a great way to to just to
- 1:18:08Speaker 1: get an idea of the body of work from these
- 1:18:11Speaker 1: from these bands, these great artists. You know, especially as
- 1:18:14Speaker 1: the years go on, you know they're not gonna be
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: wrong forever.
- 1:18:18Speaker 2: I went picked up the Abba book when I was
- 1:18:21Speaker 2: writing mine just to have a look through at what
- 1:18:24Speaker 2: they had done. I learned a lot about Abba I
- 1:18:28Speaker 2: wouldn't have known otherwise. So I hope the YouTube book
- 1:18:31Speaker 2: brings a few people into the band, but may have
- 1:18:35Speaker 2: missed out on a few things along the line.
- 1:18:37Speaker 1: Yeah, you could read it from start to finish, or
- 1:18:39Speaker 1: you can just if you're listening to a YouTube song
- 1:18:41Speaker 1: and you're curious about it, you just flip through and
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: find the entry and read about it. That's what I
- 1:18:45Speaker 1: love about these books. It's great, so great. Yeah, thanks
- 1:18:48Speaker 1: again erin Thank you.
- 1:18:57Speaker 2: That's it.
- 1:18:58Speaker 1: It's in the books.