U2 received the 2025 Woody Guthrie Prize at Tulsa’s historic Cain’s Ballroom. The award spotlights the band’s music-driven push for change and fairness across four decades.
Bono and The Edge sat down with musician and producer T-Bone Burnett to share stories and songs. They haven’t been in Cain’s Ballroom since their first U.S. tour back in 1981.
“It’s an award that honors Woody’s legacy, and it’s given to an artist that is carrying that legacy forward,” Cady Shaw, senior director of the Woody Guthrie Center, said per The Oklahoman.
U2 has sold more than 170 million albums worldwide. Their trophy case holds 22 GRAMMYs, while anthems like “One” and “Pride” have struck deep chords with listeners. Their lyrics often shine a light on struggles for fairness and basic rights.
Through groups like (RED) and The ONE Campaign, the band works to make real change. Their efforts caught Amnesty International’s eye, leading to their Ambassador of Conscience recognition.
The Oklahoma Irish Caucus praised the pick, “Music can be a bridge for people to transcend political differences to celebrate our shared humanity and acknowledge our desire for a better world,” they said in a press release.
Past winners make up a who’s who of activist musicians: Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, and Tom Morello. Each used their platform to fight for those pushed to society’s edges, just as Guthrie did with his guitar and voice. You can read more about past winners on the Woody Guthrie Prize official website.
Hitchhiking can be dangerous for both the Good Samaritan driver and the person on the side of the road with their thumb out.
Just dig into the history of serial killers. Ted Bundy, Edmund Klemper, Donald Gaskins, Ivan Milat, and the still unknown Santa Rosa killer are just a few examples of murderers who preyed on people who just wanted a ride.
Those horrible stories overshadow the countless times when giving a stranger a ride turned out not only to be a kind gesture but a life-altering event in a good way. Here are three examples from the annals of rock history.
How Bono’s hitchhiker encounter saved U2
At 5:20 p.m. on July 13, 1985, U2 stepped on the stage at Wembley Stadium to perform at Live Aid. They were still a medium-sized band at the time — their Joshua Tree breakthrough was still two years in the future — so they knew a powerful performance in front of over a billion people would do wonders for their career.
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Every act had about 20 minutes, so U2 carefully chose three songs. They’d start with Sunday Bloody Sunday, move into Bad, and then finish with a rousing rendition of Pride (In the Name of Love), their biggest single to that point.
Things started well enough, but during Bad, Bono noticed a woman in the crowd named Melanie Hills. According to Bono, she seemed to be in some distress. (That’s disputed; it’s more likely that Bono was trying something for the cameras.)
As the band played, Bono jumped into the photographers’ pit, then into the audience, whereupon he pulled the woman onto the stage with him to engage in a very slow, intimate sort of dance.
He tried to get Hills’ sister, Elaine, then, but the security guards didn’t respond. A third woman, 15-year-old Kal Khalique, is pulled from the crowd for another slow dance.
It was a nice TV moment, but the slow dance act between Bono the women took so long (Bono also had a hard time getting back up on the stage) that U2 had to vamp on Bad for 12 long minutes. By the time the song wrapped up, their time was over. They never got to play Pride.
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The rest of the band was furious and there was a very big row backstage. It was bad. “We’ve blown it!,” they said. Bono, chastised and angry, flew back to Ireland alone to brood with his wife at his in-laws’ place in the countryside. He was sure his bandmates were so angry at him that U2 was finished. Maybe he’d just quit.
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But then fate intervened.
In the week following Live Aid, the general consensus became that U2’s set (along that of Queen) was the highlight of the Wembley portion of the concert. They hadn’t blown it. In fact, Bono’s effort to break down the barrier between band and fan was some kind of career-making moment.
Second, there’s a story that while Bono was driving to his in-laws, he picked up a hitchhiker who’d seen Live Aid and gushed about how much they loved U2’s performance. That was the validation Bono seemed to need. Within days, all was forgiven and patched up. U2 was saved.
Is the story about the hitchhiker true? I’ve heard it repeated a few times over the decades. There’s also the tale about a breakup in 1981 over the band’s inability to reconcile their religious beliefs with rock stardom. It is said that Bono went for a drive in the country, picked up a hitchhiker, and had a long conversation that made him realize there was a way to compromise.
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Which story is true? Both? Neither? Take your pick.
This hitchhiker story is definitely true. While walking through West Vancouver in 2011, Bono and his assistant were caught in the rain. Sticking out his thumb, a car driven by Edmonton Oilers center Gilbert Brule pulled over.
Bono and the assistant squeezed into the car with Brule’s girlfriend German shepherd and for the ride back to the hotel.
For his trouble, Brule and his girlfriend were given backstage passes to U2’s upcoming show at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton.
The Irish hitchhiker who inspired the Foo Fighters
Kurt Cobain’s death devastated Dave Grohl. He was so distraught that he couldn’t pick up an instrument, let alone think about making music and performing anymore. He’d reconciled himself to the fact that his music career was over.
Escaping to Ireland, Dave was thinking about his future as he went for a drive in the countryside in the area of Ring of Kerry. Then, on the side of the road, was a young man who needed a ride. He was wearing a Kurt Cobain T-shirt. His name was Lorcan Dunne. When he climbed into the car, Dave had an epiphany. “[I]t was Kurt’s face looking back at me in the middle of nowhere.”
This Nirvana thing had been so big, so influential, that there was no way Dave would ever be able to outrun it for the rest of his life. It was at that moment he decided to get back to work. The result was the Foo Fighters.
Dunne’s cousin tells the story in the tweet below.
So my legend of a cousin Lorcan just realised he was kind of important to the creation of @foofighters@FooFightersUK He saw a video by Dave Grohl talking about why he got back to work after a visit to Ireland. Lorcan was out hitchhiking wearing his nirvana top when Dave stopped pic.twitter.com/nD7cUE0w8w
This final story isn’t quite as earthshattering as the previous two, but it’s still very cool.
In May 2012, an indie band called Here We Go Magic was on their way to yet another gig in Ohio when they noticed a tall, slight man, with a thin moustache begging for a ride next to the on-ramp to I-70. He was wearing a hat that read “Scum of the Earth” and holding a sign that read “To the End of Rte. 70,” which would mean somewhere in Utah.
At first, the band just drove on past, thinking it was another itinerant. But half a kilometre down the road, the band’s sound man said, “John Waters.” One of the band members said, “Yep. Definitely John Waters.”
The van took the next exit, circled around and found the man still there. It was indeed film director John Waters. He’d been hitching for a couple of hours and no one wanted to pick him up.
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What was a famous film director from Baltimore doing begging for rides on the side of an interstate? Hey, he need to get to Fort Cove, Utah, for some reason.
On a windy evening in Las Vegas, U2 were finally reunited in the same arena for the first time in five years — sort of. Drummer Larry Mullen Jr. attended Friday night’s penultimate U2 show at the Sphere in Las Vegas, where he watched from a box seat in the audience.
Mullen, who has been recovering from neck surgery and other ailments, has been sitting out U2’s landmark Sphere performances. On Thursday, Bono, guitarist The Edge and bassist Adam Clayton were once again joined by Krezip drummer Bram van den Berg — who has been filling in for Mullen during the Sphere shows.
“Not since October 1978 have we played shows without Larry Mullen Jr., and it’s only right I start by introducing the man who saved the day when Larry Mullen could not make it,” Bono said in introducing his bandmates. “His name is already legend around here to people who can pronounce it. The flying while sitting-in Dutchman, Bram van den Berg on drums.”
Saturday is the final night for U2 at the Sphere, where it originally planned to play 25 shows but extended to 40. (Phish is next up, with four nights at the Sphere in April.)
Press reports had previously hinted that Mullen was making his way to Las Vegas, which sparked rumors that he might hit the stage at the Sphere for the final two shows. This would have marked the first time Mullen performed in concert with his band mates since 2019. (The drummer has continued to record with U2, however, and played on last year’s single “Atomic City”).
They were right that Mullen would be there, but didn’t perform. At Friday’s U2 show, Bono introduced Mullen in the stands: “The rumors that Larry will be playing with us tonight are not true sadly. But he is here with us!”
As the crowd started chanting “Larry,” Bono continued: “That is the man who pinned the note on the notice board at Mount Temple Comprehensive School all those years ago. And we are very grateful that he did and that he’s here with us tonight. We wish him a speedy, speedy, speedy recovery. We love you, Larry Mullen Jr. “
Bono then launched into the final song — which technically is part of the “encore,” but the band passed on the theatrics of leaving the stage and coming back.
“We play this game every fucking night, and pretend that we’re doing an encore,” Bono said. “It’s not an encore. It’s on the setlist. There is a thing called the Internet. It’s a beautiful night Larry, and this is ‘Beautiful Day.’” (Later, Bono would tweak the lyrics to add, “Larry Mullen, you’re beautiful!”)
Later, on social media, Mullen returned the thanks. “What an incredible night at the Sphere,” he said on U2’s account. “So grateful to Bono, Edge and Adam and of course Bram for an amazing job. Very emotional night for me personally.”
It was a fitting, special way to wrap up what has been a fitting, special experience for U2 and its fans. Coming off 2023’s “Songs of Surrender,” Bono and the Edge’s stripped-down reworking of U2 classics, the band has been in a bit of an introspective, celebratory mood for some time now. That also included last year’s Emmy-nominated Disney+ special “Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman.” Now, “U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere” has been similarly unique in finding a new way to celebrate the band, its catalog and its longevity.
On Thursday night, Bono, the Edge, Clayton and van den Berg were spotted at the U2 Experience’s “Zoo Station” activation at the Venetian hotel, where they met with fans and explored the pop-up. (They also took photos inside the exhibit, including the one above.)
Much has been written about the jaw-dropping visuals inside the Sphere, and much of the imagery — including a deconstruction of the Las Vegas skyline — lives up to the hype. And even though the U2 shows are over, that impressive staging will live on via a concert film that was being shot on Friday (as well as other recent nights) and is expected to eventually play inside the Sphere.
“We are filming tonight,” Bono told the crowd. “This is the show that people will see after we all go home. In the future people will watch us, watching you… Give the future a wave.”
The enthusiastic crowd — which included several U2 family members (like Bono’s wife Alison Hewson), rocker Lenny Kravitz and other notables — obliged.
U2 found what they were looking for in a duet partner Wednesday night at Sphere in Las Vegas, as Lady Gaga joined the group for duets on one of her songs, “Shallow,” and two of theirs, “All I Want Is You” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”
Bono introduced his fellow leather-jacketed guest as “the most audacious, vivacious woman in any room she’s ever in. Would you welcome to our turntable, the divine — the divinyl! — Lady Gaga.”
He wasn’t done praising her divinity. “Take it to the Elvis chapel!” exulted Bono in a breakdown in the middle of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” — further telling his duet partner, “You are the vestal virgin of Las Vegas!”
U2 & Lady Gaga – I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (Live at Sphere Las Vegas) pic.twitter.com/D7K6qJclkX
Their joint take on “All I Want Is You” segued without any pause into Bono riffing on “Shallow,” with the singer slowly moving into the tune pointing at Gaga as if he wanted to make sure she remained on stage for it, suggesting the possibility that the band might have pulled it out on her as a surprise. Either way, she was more than ready for it.
Gaga was returning to what until recently were her own stomping grounds in Nevada. Earlier this month, on Oct. 5, she wrapped up an extension of her long-running “Jazz & Piano” show at Dolby Live in Park MGM.
Since leaving Las Vegas, Gaga seems to be doing her own tour right now — of the world’s most popular rock bands. It was only Oct. 19 that she was on the other side of the country, joining the Rolling Stones for a performance of “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” the song she sings alongside Mick Jagger on the band’s new “Hackney Diamonds” album. That duet took place during a surprise 25-minute show at the 500-capacity Racket club in Chelsea.
Not long before Gaga hit the stage in Las Vegas, the Stones’ YouTube account posted her performance of “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” with the band in New York, in full.
Gaga’s guest appearance at Sphere wasn’t her first time at the altar with U2, as it were. She performed “Ordinary Love” with Bono and company at a show at Madison Square Garden in 2015.
U2 has not had prominent guests on stage in the band’s own Vegas residency until now. There’s plenty of time to bring more out. The band recently announced an extension that will add 11 shows in January and February of 2024, bringing the total number of concerts at the new venue to 36, for now. The newly added shows are set for Jan. 26, 27 and 31 and Feb. 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 15, 17 and 18.
By JONATHAN LANDRUM JR., The Associated Press. Published: Last updated:
It looked like a typical U2 outdoor concert: Two helicopters zoomed through the starlit sky before producing spotlights over a Las Vegas desert and frontman Bono, who kneeled to the ground while singing the band’s 2004 hit “Vertigo”.
This scene may seem customary, but the visuals were created by floor-to-ceiling graphics inside the immersive Sphere. It was one of the several impressive moments during U2’s “UV Achtung Baby” residency launch show at the high-tech, globe-shaped venue, which opened for the first time Friday night.
The legendary rock band, which has won 22 Grammys, performed for two hours inside the massive, state-of-the-art spherical venue with crystal-clear audio. Throughout the night, there were a plethora of attractive visuals — including kaleidoscope images, a burning flag and Las Vegas’ skyline, taking the more than 18,000 attendees on U2’s epic musical journey.
“What a fancy pad,” said Bono, who was accompanied onstage with guitarists The Edge and Adam Clayton along with drummer Bram van den Berg. He then stared at the high-resolution LED screen that projected a larger version of himself along with a few praying hands and bells.
Bono then paid homage to the late Elvis Presley, who was a Las Vegas entertainment staple. The band has rocked in the city as far back as 1987 when they filmed the music video for “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” on the Strip during a tour in 1987.
“Look at all this stuff. … Elvis has definitely not left this building,” he continued. “It’s an Elvis chapel. It’s an Elvis cathedral. Tonight, the entry into this cathedral is a password: flirtation.”
U2 made their presence felt at the $2.3 billion Sphere, which stands 366-feet (111 meters) high and 516-feet (157 meters) wide. With superb visual effects, the band’s 25-show residency opened with a splash performing a slew of hits including “Mysterious Ways”, “Zoo Station”, “All I Want is You”, “Desire” and new single “Atomic City”.
On many occasions, the U2 band members were so large on screen that it felt like Bono intimately sang to the audience on one side while The Edge strummed his guitar to others on a different side.
The crowd included many entertainers and athletes: Oprah, LeBron James, Matt Damon, Andre Agassi, Ava DuVernay, Josh Duhamel, Jason Bateman, Jon Hamm, Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Oscar de la Hoya, Henrik Lundqvist, Flava Flav, Diplo, Dakota Fanning, Orlando Bloom and Mario Lopez.
After wrapping up The Beatles’ jam “Love Me Do”, Bono recognized Paul McCartney, who was in attendance, saying “Macca is in the house tonight.” He acknowledged Sphere owner James Dolan’s efforts for spearheading a venue that’s pushing forward the live concert audio landscape with 160,000 high-quality speakers and 260 million video pixels.
The Sphere is the brainchild of Dolan, the executive chair of Madison Square Garden and owner of the New York Knicks and Rangers. He sketched the first drawing of the venue on notebook paper.
“I’m thinking that the Sphere may have come into existence because of Jim Dolan trying to solve the problem that The Beatles started when they played Shea Stadium,” Bono said. “Nobody could hear you. You couldn’t hear yourselves. Well, the Sphere’s here. … Can you hear us?”
The U2 frontman pointed into the crowd and shouted out Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Jimmy Iovine. At one point he became emotional when he dedicated a song to the late Jimmy Buffett’s family, who were also in attendance.
Afterward Bono spoke about performing onstage for the first time without drummer Larry Mullen Jr., who is recovering from back surgery. He acknowledged Dutch drummer Bram van den Berg’s birthday and him filling in for Mullen.
“I would like to introduce you to the only man who could stand, well, sit in his shoes,” said Bono, who walked toward Berg as some in the crowd began to sing “Happy Birthday.” He handed the microphone to Berg, who offered a few words.
“Let there be no mistake, there is only one Larry Mullen Jr,” Berg said.
As U2 wrapped up the show, a bright light shined from the ceiling and the massive screen began to fill with images of birds, insects and reptiles above a lake. The band closed its first Sphere concert with “Beautiful Day”, which won three Grammys in 2001.
NEW YORK — Bono opened his book tour Wednesday night in what he called a “transgressive” mood, a little bit guilty for appearing on stage with three musicians who were not his fellow members of U2 and otherwise singing, joking and shouting out his life story to thousands of adoring fans at Manhattan’s Beacon Theatre.
He even performed one song in Italian, a flawlessly operatic take of “Torna a Surriento.”
“This is all a little surreal,” he noted at one point. “But it seems to be going well.”
The 62-year-old singer, songwriter and humanitarian described himself as an eternal boy (born Paul David Hewson) with his fists “in the air,” a “grandstanding” rock star and a baritone trying to be a tenor. He is now a published and best-selling author, his “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story” out this week and already in the top 10 on Amazon.com.
Through “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” “Where the Streets Have No Name” and other U2 classics, he traces his biography from his stifling childhood home in Dublin and the grief over the early death of his mother Iris Hewson to the formation of the band that made him a global celebrity and his enduring marriage to Alison Stewart.
Former President Bill Clinton, Tom Hanks and U2 guitarist The Edge were among his famous admirers in the audience, which often stood and cheered and sang along. For the 90-minute plus “Stories of Surrender” show, billed as “an evening of words, music, and some mischief,” Bono wore a plain black blazer, matching pants and added color with his orange-tinted glasses. He opened with an account from his book of his heart surgery in 2016, but otherwise pranced and leapt like a man who had never seen the inside of a hospital and belted out songs written decades ago without any sense he had forgotten what inspired them.
Ticket prices were rock star levels: thousands of dollars for the best seats and well into the hundreds even for obstructed views. Compared to a U2 show, the setting was relatively intimate — handwritten illustrations on screens hanging toward the back of the stage and a few tables and chairs that Bono used as props to climb on or to simulate conversations. With warm and comic mimicry, he recalled phone calls with Luciano Pavarotti and his pleas of “Bono, Bono, Bono” as the opera star recruited him to perform at a benefit show in Modena, Italy, and once turned up at U2’s studio on short notice — with a film crew.
Bono also re-enacted his many tense bar room meetings with his father, who seemed to regard his son’s career as some kind of failed business venture. Brendan Robert Hewson’s rough facade did once collapse unexpectedly — when he met Princess Diana, an encounter Bono described as like watching centuries of Irish loathing of the royals “gone in eight seconds.”
“One princess, and we’re even,” Bono added.
He spoke often of loss, of his mother when he was a teenager and of his father in 2001. But he also described his life as a story of presence, whether of his religious faith, his wife and children, or of his bandmates. After what he called the characteristic Irish response to a child’s outsized ambitions — to pretend they don’t exist — he called himself “blessed,” and added that “what was silence has been filled, mostly, with music.”
In this episode of “Person to Person with Norah O’Donnell,” O’Donnell travels to Dublin to talk to U2 frontman Bono about his new book “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.” Bono opens up about how the Irish rock band stayed together for decades, his relationship with his father, and going to therapy. Ali Hewson, Bono’s wife of 40 years, also sits down with O’Donnell for a rare interview about their relationship.
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Bono’s new memoir, “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story,” isn’t just about his time and travels with U2. It’s about love.
“I also wrote the book to explain to my family what I was doing with their life because it was they who permissioned me to be away with U2 or lobbying Congress,” the singer told the Sunday Times Magazine. “Ali gave me the chance and covered for me at home. So I’m not writing a rock’n’roll memoir, [or] an activist’s memoir, I’m not just writing a sojourner’s memoir, I’m trying to write a love letter to my wife.”
Bono and wife Ali Hewson wed in 1982. He counts her as one of his closest friends.
That’s actually how the pair met, as childhood school chums. Bono calls the woman he shares four children with “incredible.”
“She’s not just a mystery to me, by the way. She’s a mystery to her daughters, to her sons,” he said. “I mean, we’re all trying to get to know her. She’s endlessly fascinating. She’s … full of mischief.”
Not that it’s all been a bed of roses.
According to Bono, the couple has weathered some tough times.
“It’s not like our love was absent any dark undercurrents or briny water, [but] we got each other through those bits where it was hard to see where we were,” he said. “Ali calls it ‘the work of love’. I wish she wouldn’t use the word ‘work’ because I have a feeling there’s an adjective, ‘hard’, that’s inferred.”
In more than four decades as U2’s frontman, Bono has been leading one of the world’s biggest rock bands across the world’s biggest stages. But this stage (if you can call it that), in the schoolyard at Mount Temple Comprehensive in North Dublin, would be their first.
Mounting the stage with “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell, Bono recalled, “Yeah, I mean, most people were looking the other way, if they had ears. But wow, did it feel good to be here!”
U2 frontman Bono, with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell, on the North Dublin school stage where he and his bandmates first performed.
CBS News
It was 1978. The boys who weren’t quite yet on their way to superstardom – Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr., and Adam Clayton – were called The Hype. The name didn’t stick, but Bono already had the vague sense they might live up to it.
O’Donnell asked, “Do you remember that feeling of being on stage here?”
“I remember this feeling of, ‘I can do this,’” he said. “It’s the thing. It’s when you find the thing.”
Born Paul David Hewson, he was dubbed Bono by his childhood best friend, and he found “the thing” early on.
Early days for The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr., Bono and Adam Clayton.
Patrick Brocklebank/U2
It wasn’t obvious, even to his high school music teacher. “I remember one moment where he says, ‘I’m going to get you people who can play an instrument to write a piece of music,’” Bono said.
“But you didn’t know how to play an instrument?”
“No, so I was in a different part of the class. But I remember that feeling, you know, because I knew I could do this. I know I don’t know how to play an instrument, sir! But I have these melodies in my head, and I have words and I have things I want to say.”
U2 formed after 14-year-old Larry Mullen Jr. posted an ad on a school bulletin board: “Drummer seeks musicians to form band.”
Knopf
“How casually our destiny arrives,” Bono writes in his new memoir, “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story,” published this Tuesday by Knopf.
The idea of how the band started was “preposterous,” he said, “but there was magic, you know, that’s all we had. And of course, there was a desperation to make something of our lives.”
“In those early days of the band, did any of you have an idea of superstardom?”
“That would be me!” he laughed. “It’s so embarrassing! Trying to break it down sometimes when I look at the absurdity of my life …. We own some kind of feeling. We own our own tone. So, there’s something there.”
With that tone – that singular sound – U2 rose to the height of success – the only band in history with #1 albums on the Billboard 200 in four consecutive decades, starting in the 1980s with “The Joshua Tree.”
U2 performs “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” from “The Joshua Tree”:
They’ve sold an estimated 170 million albums and won 22 Grammys – more than any other band.
It was a long way from Cedarwood Road, where Bono grew up. While we visited with the family that lives in his childhood home (“It’s never our place, it’s always, ‘Was that Bono’s house?’” laughed Mrs. Ryan), a crowd gathered outside to see the local boy who made good.
Bono pays a visit to his old neighborhood, at Cedarwood Road in Dublin.
CBS News
As part of our tour of Bono’s Dublin, we stopped for a pint at Finnegan’s of Dalkey for a rare interview with Bono’s wife of 40 years, Ali Hewson.
O’Donnell asked, “So, you call him Bono? Not Paul?”
“Pretty much – I call him a lot things!” Ali laughed.
“And Paul is not one of them!” Bono added.
Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson.
CBS News
They started dating the same week U2 became a band, and she’s inspired some of their biggest hits.
Blue-eyed boy meets a brown-eyed girl Oh oh oh, the sweetest thing You can sew it up, but you still see the tear Oh oh oh, the sweetest thing Baby’s got blue skies up ahead And in this I’m a rain cloud Oh this is a stormy kind of love Oh oh oh, the sweetest thing
When asked what she thought reading “Surrender,” Ali replied, “I was very nervous about what was going to go in that book. But I think he’s an incredible writer. It just seems to be anything he turns his hand to, he can do, which is very annoying most of the time!”
O’Donnell asked, “Which one of you first saw what U2 might become?”
“I don’t think either of us really saw it,” Ali said. “I mean, there was a huge amount of confidence when you’re a teenager, I suppose.”
“Front is another word for that,” Bono said. “Frontman. Yeah. Probably more front than substance … and faith.”
Faith not only in himself, and not only his band.
“You talk about faith a lot; are you religious?” O’Donnell asked.
“I don’t know. I’m like a stray dog. I go to a Catholic church. I’d be in a synagogue. If somebody said right now here, ‘Would you give your life to Jesus?’ I’d be, ‘Me!’ And I’m not one of those that turns over the picture of the pope before they do anything funky. I take God with me wherever I’m going. And so, God has seen me in a bit of a state, I’m sure.”
Singer and activist Bono.
CBS News
Early on, U2’s involvement in a Christian group led to questioning whether they could be a band and be believers. Bono said, “What purpose can music – what’s the purpose? The world is, you know, in flames. What are we doing here? At that moment Edge started work on a song called ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday.’ And that’s what unlocked it for him. And that kind of unlocked it for us, because we realized that our songs can speak into a situation and perhaps be useful.”
And the battle’s just begun There’s many lost, but tell me who has won? The trenches dug within our hearts And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart Sunday, Bloody Sunday Sunday, Bloody Sunday How long, how long must we sing this song? How long? How long?
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” was a condemnation of the bloodshed in Ireland at the time. And, Bono said, although it was tested, they didn’t lose their faith. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, we’ve grown up out of that, that was a bit mad.’ It was a bit mad. But actually, the scriptures, the sacred texts are still very important to me and very important to the band.”
Which might explain his decades’ long fight against poverty, his meetings with popes and presidents, lobbying heads of state around the world, much of it through the work of his organization, One. “Our motivation is very much justice,” he said. “We cancelled $130 billion worth of debt. An extra 54 million children went to school. That’s a big thing in my life. Particularly with fighting AIDS, that, for me, outside of my family, our music, is the thing that I’m most proud of in my life, even as a tiny part, a catalyst.”
Whether it’s music, or politics or activism, for Bono the frontman it comes down to the same thing: “In anything, I was always looking for the top line melody.”
“Describe what you mean when you say top line melodies?” asked O’Donnell.
“It’s the thing in the room that rises above the noise and the chatter,” he said. “That’s my job. I’m a songwriter. I’m looking for the clear thought in most things that I do. But the best stories win. The best melodies are the ones that you hear around the corner and you go, ‘What’s that?’ Top line melody.”
O’Donnell said, “I mean, we got to end there, I mean that – “
“For f***’s sake.”
“For f***’s sake. That’s so good. Don’t use me saying that!”
