Instinct and Intellect
by BONO

Every room I have ever been in with you was a much easier room for your presence. It's rare to meet a person like you, where intellect and intuition make such a perfect rhyme. Your intuition tells you that the well-being of the American people, spiritually as well as physically, is connected with America's role in the world. I know you know that the prosperity of your fellow Americans, though hard-fought, is less fulfilling knowing there is so much more that can be done to alleviate poverty and suffering in the developing world.

You know that less than 1 percent of government income as a contribution from the world's richest economy to the world's poorest is not a fair tithe—even in times like these—which is why you have promised to double foreign assistance. As with our own personal sojourn, so it is with country and community: We discover who we are in service to others.

I know your intellect—fashioned in the halls of Harvard and on the floor of the United States Senate—has weighed up the evidence on how effective American tax dollars are when converted into smart, targeted, focused aid. Putting children into school where they can think freely of freedom. Giving farmers on the parched land seed varieties that double the size of their crop yields. Giving mothers 20 cent immunizations to protect their newborns from the deadly virus that they pass on through childbirth.

I know your intellect has taken in the data and seen the analysis on the transformative power of effective aid in places where the U.S. flag is currently not smiled at. I know you know how much cheaper it is to make friends of potential enemies than to defend yourself at a later date. I know you know all this stuff.

My prayer for you is that your instinct and intellect stay in harmony in the difficult months and triumphant years ahead.

Bono is lead singer of U2 and co-founder of The ONE Campaign

On a day-to-day basis, I doubt that many U2 fans, hardcore or otherwise, stop to actually think about why they bestow so much of their time, energy, affection and finances upon Bono, Larry, Adam and the Edge. What is it that keeps us returning to U2 and their music, whether via concerts, fan sites or just the songs themselves? In particular, for more than just the casually observant, what is it that makes us go that extra mile in terms of devotion and commitment?

The list below is an attempt at articulating the things that many of us probably feel intuitively most days about U2, or may, at the very least, have used one time or another as ways of explaining our fandom to various baffled outsiders. Obviously, it is by no means definitive, and particularly for those who may be new to the band, I feel compelled to stress that it barely scratches the surface of what it means to be a U2 fan. As with any medium that has a tight connection to people's hearts, whether it's music, religion or sport, words can only say so much; the reality often transcends any effort at defining it.

The most I can say is that this list goes at least some way to explaining why I am who I am. Who knows; maybe it'll do the same for you.

5.) Bono's consciousness-raising

I won't lie; there are times when the things Bono says and does outside of music come across as excruciating. Nowadays I often skip past the songs on my iPod from the Vertigo tour where Bono launches into full-on preacher man mode, unable to repeatedly stomach his sermonising. It's also been pointed out to me on more than one occasion by experts in the fields of development, economics and anthropology that his weakness lies in his attempting to navigate areas where he lacks understanding.

The latter point I won't argue with, mainly because Bono will most likely never have the same level of knowledge as the majority of people working in the areas he is campaigning about. As a result, I would agree that when he is clearly out of his depth knowledge-wise on a particular issue, he should step back.

But more often than not, when I have examined my uneasiness at the things he says and does, it isn't because I feel that he's meddling in things he doesn't understand; it's my own selfish pride that makes me uncomfortable, my desire not to be shaken out of my comfort zone. Even after six years of U2 fandom, Bono is still my alarm clock, an antidote to my own apathy.

Although in the wider world Bono's extra-curricular activities are probably always going to earn him more than his fair share of detractors, within the U2 fan community he is, rightly in my view, still seen by many as a hero, a tireless campaigner against poverty, injustice and exploitation. One only has to look as far as organisations like the African Well Fund -- which, for all Bono's political associations, remains steadfastly apolitical and charitable to the core -- to see the extent to which he has inspired the faithful among U2's ranks to make the world a better place. From one fan who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for AIDS victims in Africa, to a 9-year-old fan who, inspired by Bono, felt compelled to write to his senator about the lack of funding for anti-retrovirals, to the millions who have become activists for Make Poverty History, Amnesty International and Greenpeace with him as their catalyst, Bono's deeds outside of U2 continue to touch, change and enlighten many lives wherever he goes. Whether the actions of the aforesaid individuals made a difference or not is irrelevant; it is the very fact that a mere rock star was able to make them think beyond themselves and consider the sufferings of those around them that makes him so remarkable.

And by consciousness-raising I mean more than just charity. It is perhaps telling that the deeds that have earned him the most respect among fans of U2 are those that have not reached the headlines. Bono still cuts a rare figure within the materialistic and self-obsessed world of celebrity as one who almost never travels with a posse of bodyguards, who regularly roams the streets of his home city without paranoia or mistrust, and who engages with all those who seek an audience with him with warmth, generosity and grace. And despite the accusations of pomposity and egotism that abound toward him within the public sphere, one doesn't have to look far on fan Web sites to find accounts of his actions that have revealed what many believe to be the real Bono: loving, decent and deeply spiritual and idealistic.

More than a few of us will continue to wince at times when in terms of his campaigning he oversteps the mark. But it is his everyday gestures, coupled with the way he conducts himself as a person, that have arguably inspired so many of us to not only try to better the world, but also ourselves. As one U2 fan aptly wrote on a birthday card sent to Bono by the African Well Fund, "So I try to be like you...." And try we still do.

4.) Musical innovation

It's been said more than once that in terms of skill and proficiency, musically U2 are far from the best. Most of us are familiar with their roots as a schoolboy band, where Bono wound up being the singer simply because his guitar playing was so appalling. In most early reviews of U2's gigs, it is worthy of note that the only member ever complimented by critics for his playing was the Edge. But even then, the guitarist could hardly have been said to be on a par with Jimmy Page.

In fact, from the beginning U2's musical ethos has arguably been more about what it isn't than what it is. The band stayed away from both the Led Zeppelin-style blues-based metal, characterised by half-hour-long guitar solos, and nihilistic three-chord punk that dominated much of the musical landscape at the end of the 1970s, and instead chose to draw on their own specific talents, their lack of musicianship forcing them to create music in far more original ways.

This has pushed them in wildly different directions with each album, from new wave and post-punk to minimalism, to blues, country, folk and gospel to dance and electro, back to mainstream rock. Not all of theses ventures have been successful, but U2's reputation as a band that has never been afraid to reinvent itself, changing, experimenting and innovating whenever the members feel the need, remains unrivaled. I still relish the fact that I never know what to expect from each new U2 album; and few would deny that for a band that has been making music as long as U2, that is a rare thing indeed. Sure, they aren't great musicians, but as Brian Eno once noted, the strength lies "in those four people, not those instruments."

3.) Intimacy

This may come across as a slightly cheesy point, but it's played such a major role in not only turning me into a U2 fan but also keeping me being a U2 fan, that I can't help but draw attention to it. The fact is, U2 are a band that loves its audience. One of my numerous road-to-Damascus moments during my time as a fan was when I first watched footage of the 2001 show in Boston, where I was stunned to see Bono lift a girl out of the crowd to lie with him on stage during "With or Without You." I was overwhelmed almost to tears by the tenderness with which the two regarded each other, with Bono's embrace managing to paradoxically be both platonic and sensuous at the same time. It's bizarre how, in a kitchen in southeast England 18 months after the show had actually happened, I felt something similar to what the girl in his arms must have felt. In a way it didn't matter that it was her who was there and not me (although obviously I wished it had been); it could have been anyone. She was merely symbolic of what Bono felt for everyone in the audience.

Equally, when at the end Bono turned and thanked the audience for "giving us a great life" before launching into "Walk On," the feeling was indescribable. Despite the time and distance barrier, I felt wanted and accepted like I never had before.

Such a degree of closeness to their audience is probably demonstrated the most by any U2 show, where I still marvel at how, physically and mentally, the barrier between the band and the audience appears to be so diminished, with Bono regularly reaching into the crowd either to pull people on stage or to simply grasp their hands. And outside the concert hall, where tales abound of fans who have hung 'round outside the band's recording studio being indulged by one or more members, to those who have simply been granted time with them after running into them on the street, U2 have rarely taken their audience for granted.

Perhaps more than anything, that moment in my kitchen nearly six years ago, along with the many more like it that have followed, are why I'm still here, writing theses words now.

2.) Intellect

In the intro to Steve Stockman's 2001 book, Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2, Steve Beard describes U2's music as having "an undercurrent of depth flowing through it" that was out of step with the majority of mainstream acts. Seven years later, his words still ring with the same relevance. One never has to look far within a U2 song to find some kind of deeper meaning, whether it's musical, philosophical, political or literary.

From Irish poet Brendan Kennelly's epic poem, The Book of Judas, providing the inspiration for Achtung Baby's "Until the End of the World," to the beat writings of Kerouac, Bukowski and Ginsberg playing a major role in the musical and thematic development of The Joshua Tree, to Huxley's Brave New World and Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death influencing the band's experiments with irony and post-modernism on the Zoo TV and Zooropa tours, U2's music provides a rich seam of fascination and insight for the intellectually curious.

For those who choose to, treading the same path as U2 in terms of their influences can provide numerous opportunities for cultural, spiritual and intellectual development. In a memorable incident, one Australian fan even showed me an entire bookcase full of literature that he'd collected, directly and indirectly, because of U2 -- and I don't think there are many other bands whose fans have been inspired in similar ways.

1.) A band that's not afraid to be big

A simplistic point perhaps, but a relevant one I feel in light of the "big is bad" culture that still continues to pervade parts of the music industry. U2 have never been afraid of letting anyone know of their ambition to be not only the best, but the biggest band in the world. More than once, Bono has even had the audacity to state that U2 had long ago grown out of the idea that business and commerce were inherently evil -- no small declaration when one takes into account the near-destructive charge of "selling out" that the music industry has at times levied at non-conformists.

As with Bono's charitable efforts, not all of U2's attempts to stay big have been successful. Their conquering of the American market in the mid-'80s when many European bands were choosing to stay on their home turf was one thing, but the band have attracted much criticism for ventures such as their teaming up with Apple to create the U2 iPod, and their changing and transferring the running of the U2 fan club from Propaganda to a higher fee-paying company. However, no one can ever accuse U2 of not being true to themselves. Through their well-publicised failures as well as their achievements, the band has conformed to no one's image of success except their own. Take it or leave it, they uncompromisingly remain their own men.

You give it all but I want more –"With or Without You," 1987

The impact of powerful lyrics in the overall value of a song cannot be understated. Successfully assigning meaning to musical landscapes is sometimes what separates good musicians from great ones, and this is one of the reasons I think U2 are great.

From the very beginning, Bono and The Edge have produced poetry to accompany the band's sounds, pairing heartfelt sentiments with timeless melodies.

Back in 2002, Keir Dubois produced his "U2's Top Ten Lyrics" list for @U2, calling attention to the fact that while he thought some of their early words were clichés, he recognized that their writing had matured as their music had. Although I somewhat disagree with his statement, he did choose exceptional examples to illustrate their merit in later years.

Now, I'm revisiting the topic in a different way. When scanning through the mountain of words that compose the U2 catalog, I realized that some of my favorite lyrics are those that are condensed into one line.

To create something profound in a single sentence is no easy feat, and for that reason, I've decided to name my Top Ten One-Line U2 Lyrics:

10. The street sounds like a symphony

The great thing about "Angel of Harlem" is that you instantly feel camaraderie for the music to which U2 are paying tribute. Of course the bluesy groove helps, but it's really the words here that take you along on their musical journey (sorry, couldn't resist). This specific line magically captures the essence of New York jazz in six simple words.

9. Your head can't rule your heart

Most probably think of the catchy guitar hook when recalling "Vertigo," but the lyrics should claim partial credit for its genius. This line specifically conveys an exciting loss of control, while making an equally philosophical statement. The intent is so versatile, it can be determined by the listener.

8. You miss too much these days if you stop to think

"Until the End of the World" illustrates a Biblical conversation between Judas and Jesus, but many of the messages can apply to our modern world — even everyday life among mere mortals. In this line, the voice tells the subject to beware of trickery. We could all take heed of such warnings...

7. You're the reason why the opera is in me

Bono has made no secret of the fact that the relationship with his father was a difficult one. In "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own" he assigns credit for his musical talent to his dad in this most poetic and sentimental sentence. It says so much by saying so little.

6. The heart is a bloom

Has there ever been a more beautiful way to start a song? To take a physically repulsive organ and metaphorically assign it the delicate properties of a flower? "Beautiful Day" couldn't help but become a hit with such a gorgeous intro line — it's simply flawless.

5. And you can dream, so dream out loud

The invention of the automatic signature in electronic communication practically begs for lines like this to be written. Truthfully, this often-quoted phrase from "Acrobat" could just have easily been a sentence from a moving speech or a chapter heading in a self-help book. But it really works best as a lyric.

4. Home, that's where the hurt is

Anyone who has ever suffered abuse, fractured relationships, distance from their partners -- really any painful level of domestic dysfunction -- can relate to this line from "Walk On." The brilliance of it is that it's buried in a truly inspirational tune about overcoming injustice, which only emphasizes its impact.

3. I can't believe the news today

There are some song introductions that leave you no choice but to keep listening. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is a perfect example of one of them. The instant Bono brings you in with this line, you're begging to know what the "news today" is all about. This lyric is so powerful, it has undoubtedly helped the song become one of the band's most timeless hits.

2. I'll see you again when the stars fall from the sky

The heartbreaking loss of U2 friend Greg Carroll is immortalized in the song "One Tree Hill," which Bono wrote shortly after attending his burial in Greg's native New Zealand. This line, which lends itself to a spiritual certainty about the after-life, and also implies an arrival of peace in Greg's passing, is nothing short of spectacular. I still get goosebumps every time I hear it, and I bet I'm not alone in that.

1. Midnight is where the day begins

Perhaps one of the silliest songs in the U2 catalog is "Lemon." Its upbeat dance-vibe and video featuring Bono in full MacPhisto glory won't win it any awards for depth, but the lyrics certainly should; specifically this one, which is repeated in the background like a subliminal mantra. It has mystery, it has intrigue, and in just a few short words, paints the portrait of profound.

To weigh in on Tassoula's list (and post your own), visit this topic in the @U2 Forum.


© @U2/Kokkoris, 2008.

Maybe I'm just biased. But U2 can probably be quite safely described as one of the few mainstream bands that have managed to evoke at times intense spiritual sentiments in their songs whilst never coming across as preachy or zealous. Although much of the imagery in their work has been drawn from Jewish and Christian texts, they have rarely appealed to a sectarian mindset, evoking a view of the divine that has struck a chord with people of many different faiths and religious traditions. As someone whose spiritual and religious state owes its very existence to U2, this is a subject that I have long felt a tight connection to. My intention is not to evangelise or proselytise; below are merely a few of the U2 songs that I feel have resonated with me the most in this way.

10) "Tomorrow"
Appearing on what is probably U2's most overtly religious album, October, 'Tomorrow' is arguably the standout track: painful, disturbing, and brutally honest in its description of the singer's ascent from the agony arising in the wake of his mother's death to the healing and elation he receives from a sudden spiritual awakening. The song's slow beginning reflects Bono's grief and confusion as he veers between trying to form a dialogue with his mother to openly pleading for her return: "Going out/going outside mother/I'm going out there/Won't you be back tomorrow?/won't you be back tomorrow?/ will you be back tomorrow?" Yet as it speeds up and builds to a crescendo, it becomes unclear whether Bono's cry of "I want you/I want you" is addressed to his mother or to some higher being, as he startlingly admonishes the listener to "Open up, open up, to the love of God/to the love of he who made the blind to see/he's coming back, he's coming back/Oh believe."

This tight connection between the loss of his mother and his move towards faith is a theme Bono revisits time and again, particularly on the Pop album via the song "Mofo," where he directly asks her "Am I still your son?" in between his attempts to locate "the baby Jesus under the trash." As on "Tomorrow," no answer comes back from the silence. However, in his mother's absence, on both songs the singer's God maintains a constant, if at times aloof, watch.

9) "Drowning Man"
Despite containing no references whatsoever to "drowning," this low-key track on the War album arguably has a soporific effect on the listener, with the slow-paced drumbeat and repetitive guitar, interspersed with rapid bursts of melody from the violin, creating an aura of being submerged in sound. Bono was apparently on a particularly high plane of spiritual consciousness when writing the lyrics, in a state of mind akin to that of one speaking in tongues, the effect being of stepping outside of the self and surrendering to a higher sense of love. The lines toward the end -- "Rise up, rise up/with wings like eagles/you'll run/you'll run/you'll run and not grow weary" -- are lifted from Isaiah 40:31, with the line seemingly blurred at times between dialogue and self-reflection. Is the song aimed at anyone in particular (such as the claim by Niall Stokes in U2 Into the Heart that the song is addressed to the then-irreligious Adam Clayton), or is it merely Bono channelling through himself the sentiments expressed by the higher power he's communing with?

8) "The Wanderer"
Here Bono makes Johnny Cash take on the role of the central character of the Book of Ecclesiastes, the wise old preacher whom he calls "the Wanderer." The post-Bill Gibson cityscapes of the rest of the Zooropa album are replaced by a still electronica-based, but more rural and folksy setting, where the protagonist, despite his insightful musings -- "I went out there in search of experience/to taste and to touch/and to feel as much/as a man can, before he repents" -- is mired with uncertainty, travelling through a land where corruption and temptation are never far away -- "I went out walking/through streets paved with gold/lifted some stones/saw the skin and bones/of a city without a soul" -- and where he is unsure if he'll ever make it back home, spiritually or physically: "Jesus, don't you wait up/Jesus I'll be home soon." In a brilliant and other-worldly fusion of industrial electronic beats and Johnny Cash's rustic vocals, the lost character in the album's title track here seems to have found his voice; although he may have a religion, he has no compass, and certainly no map.

7) "Love Rescue Me"
On this mournful track from Rattle and Hum, the strident certainty of the spiritual songs on U2's previous albums is replaced here with fear, guilt, despair and a sense of isolation from God. Described by Bono as being about "a man whom the whole world is looking to for salvation, but who needs a shot of salvation himself," the lyrics draw on imagery from the Psalms, where the King David-esque figure appears to be no longer deriving any comfort from the Lord's rod and staff (Ps. 23:4). Moving between self-hatred -- "I'm here without a name/in the palace of my shame" -- and anger at the outside world -- "Many strangers have I met/on the road to my regret/many lost who seek to find themselves in me/they ask me to reveal/the very thoughts they would conceal" -- the song is particularly moving live, perhaps most memorably during the band's 1989 New Year's Eve show at the Point Depot in Dublin, where Bono dedicated it to "those who work for Amnesty International and to those who depend on Amnesty International."

This was not the first time U2 had drawn on the love-hate howls of the Psalmist for inspiration, but in terms of their spiritual direction it marked a significant shift away from the unquestioning, wide-eyed devotion of many of their previous religiously-minded songs.

6) "The Playboy Mansion"
Spiritual discontent abounds on the Pop album, particularly so on "The Playboy Mansion," where the voice in the song wonders if in a world of rampant materialism, where "the banks they're like cathedrals" and "chance is a kind of religion," he has lost the ability to gain entrance to heaven, the ultimate "Playboy Mansion." Yet despite its cynicism, there remains a note of hope, with the speaker confident that the world around him does not need a sharp re-awakening, but will "come around." There are also echoes of Revelation 21:4 at the end when he asks "Then will there be no time for sorrow/then will there be no time for shame?" However, the speaker has to be content with solitary contemplation, as not for the first time, whoever resides within the mansion gives no reply.

5) "Wake Up Dead Man"
Bitter, enraged and at times desperate, the final song on the Pop album is a fierce antidote to any rose-tinted view of the spiritual life. Bono states his predicament bluntly and uncompromisingly in the first few lines, painting a grim picture of what is perhaps his boldest depiction of a life lived in isolation from both God and the wider world: "Jesus, Jesus help me/I'm alone in this world/and a fucked-up world it is too/tell me, tell me the story/the one about eternity/and the way it's all gonna be/wake up/ wake up dead man."

Crying out to a deity who may or may not have abandoned him, in "Wake Up Dead Man" (the lyrics of which were partly written by the Edge), Bono describes a bleak situation, one of being so consumed by naked anger with God that it makes hard listening for any believer. However, I've often found it the perfect sound track to those blackest of black moments, as the song almost perfectly articulates what it feels to have what Bono has called that "very valid" sense of outrage at a God who at times seems indifferent to the awfulness of the human condition. Like the best U2 songs, it makes uncomfortable, but undeniably necessary listening.

4) "Mercy"
Only recently have I begun to realise what an absolute gem this song is. Upon first hearing it, I was admittedly unimpressed. But gradually, repeated listening meant that it worked its way under my skin, at times talking to me quietly like a voice whispering in the ear, at others almost shouting to me at the top of its lungs. More than any other U2 song, "Mercy" seems to express pure humility, awe and devotion at the divine, one who is always referred to directly via relatable sentiments yet only described in specific religious terms in the first two lines: "I was drinking some wine/and it turned to blood/what's the use of religion/if you're any good?" The listener is instantly plunged into a familiar U2 theme: that of questioning organised religious structures whilst simultaneously cutting through determinedly to an instant dialogue with God. It has echoes of both "Please" ("You know I've found it hard to receive") and "Acrobat" ("Yeah, I'd break bread and wine/if there was a church I could receive in"), but instead of frustration, the sentiment expressed here is pure joy. Conveying both an overwhelming desire to give ("You're gravity searching for the ground") and receive ("Your heart is my home"), "Mercy" is arguably one of the few U2 songs where a true, unquestioning union with the deity, whoever or whatever he, she or it may be, is achieved. I can only begin to guess at why it was left off How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

3) "Yahweh"
Luckily, this is one song that the band chose to include on the aforementioned album. Despite certainly being a good choice as a closing track, "Yahweh" (which takes its title from the Hebrew word for God) is a song that in my view works best live. Stripped down to just an acoustic guitar, keyboard and vocals, this is heartfelt, content and intimate dialogue with the Lord, where Bono lays clear his perceived flaws -- "Take this mouth/so quick to criticise/take this mouth/give it a kiss" -- whilst never ceasing to subject the object of devotion to rigorous questioning via the refrain of "Yahweh/Yahweh/still I'm waiting for the dawn." A greater spiritual wisdom seems more apparent here than on the likes of "Wake Up Dead Man" as, despite his demand at the end to know "why the dark before the dawn?", Bono shockingly surrenders himself completely to the deity: "take this heart/take this heart/take this heart/and let it break." One of my most treasured moments as a U2 fan was watching "Yahweh" performed in Cardiff three-and-a-half years ago, with the final lines being sung against a background video of an egg hatching and a bird flying freely upwards, seeming to depict spiritual growth and freedom. To quote Bono, God was truly walking through the room at that point.

2) "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
Along with "Running to Stand Still," this song has often competed to be my favourite on The Joshua Tree. Drawing on the rich language of the Psalms -- "I have spoke with the tongue of angels/I have held the hand of the Devil" -- "I Still Haven't Found..." is first and foremost, to quote Bono, "a song of doubt far more than it is of faith." The inevitable sense of restlessness and torment that defines the life of almost any believer at one time or another comes through particularly strongly here, as despite Bono's assertion to the Almighty that "You broke the bonds/loosed the chains/carried the cross/and my shame/all my shame/you know I believe it," he still remains unsatisfied: "But I still haven't found what I'm looking for."

Although Paul Gambacinni's description of the aforementioned lines as being like "a human being on a plate" is perhaps a little over-zealous, the spiritual condition inherent in the song certainly seems to match Bono's statement in Bono In Conversation with Michka Assayas that "the life of a true believer is one of a more uphill struggle, with things illuminated along the way." Judging by the way the line "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" is repeated throughout until the end, that struggle seems destined to be a never-ending one.

1) "40"
To this day, I still feel that all U2 songs that deal with matters of a spiritual, philosophical or religious nature ultimately have "40" as their benchmark. More than any other, this is a U2 song that for which the word 'transcendent' absolutely applies.

Yet it is another that I feel is only truly brought to life when performed live, as the version on War in many ways feels far too restrained. Most live versions of the song, from the 1989 concert at the Point Depot, to the one on the Chicago DVD, to the 1987 version in Paris that came with last year's super deluxe re-mastered edition of The Joshua Tree, have spanned at least five minutes in length, with Edge's soaring guitars, Larry's pounding drums and Bono's vocals drawn from Psalm 40 -- "I waited patiently on the Lord/He inclined and heard my cry/He lifted me up out of the pits/and out of the miry clay" -- ensuring that when "40" is performed live, what BP Fallon described as "the U2 magic" truly happens.

What I could honestly call my first true experience of God happened when I was listening for the first time to the version of the song performed live at the Point Depot that came with The Complete U2. Maybe it was the way the guitar just seemed to create the feeling of spiralling upwards, outside of oneself; maybe it was the continuous singing of "How long to sing this song?" by the crowd as every instrument bar the drums faded away into nothingness; or maybe it was just the sheer joy that the song seemed to express, free from doubt, pain or disillusionment. Things weren't quite the same for me after those seven minutes and 25 seconds came to an end; and every time I listen to it, they somehow still aren't.

ROLLING STONE

Exclusive Audio: Bono grapples with the question "If you could only pursue U2 or activism, which would it be?"

What is your most cynical vision of the future?

That's a good one. I'm genuinely excited about the future, but it's clear that there's jeopardy. I don't know if you've read Martin Amis' short-story collection Einstein's Monsters. He's writing about the post-splitting-the-atom universe. In an essay at the start, he writes about feeling sick in his stomach because he can't escape the mathematical implications of there being all these nuclear weapons around the world and the odds of them going wrong. He's putting his kids to bed, and he just can't put that thought out of his head. He wrote that in the late Eighties or early Nineties, when there were vaguely organized control systems to hold back Einstein's monsters. What are the odds now?

What's changed?

We don't know where Einstein's monsters are. Are they moving around the world? Are they coming to my city? If you talk about a demonic view of the world, that's my first thought. Unless things calm down, it is clear that if you want to take out the head of a nation, you probably can. Now that's always been true, as we found out in the Sixties, but in the future, I can imagine a situation in which heads of state no longer have a set residence. And it also might be true that you can take a city out if you really want to.

It is absolutely the monster in the room. And you feel it here in Manhattan. You must. But of course you don't talk about it. You don't think about it. But it must change the way you walk. And it must change the shape of your day in some tiny, tiny little increment. That thought is in the back of your head.

So we're in the era of asymmetrical war. The greatest army cannot protect you from hatred that gets busy and organized and has enough of an audience to protect it. There's a moment. Was that true of Caesar? Was that true of Napoleon? No. Might was always right. Strangely, we have now entered a phase where being powerful and having the biggest nuclear arsenal leaves you completely defenseless.

Now let's flip that. That could be a positive. Because if for the first time in history, military capacity doesn't protect you, what would? It would point us in the direction of prevention, rather than protection. When I'm arguing for increased aid to Africa, I always say, "Isn't it cheaper and smarter to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?"

We seem to be headed in exactly the opposite direction. Maybe it was possible to think that way right after 9/11, but that opportunity was squandered.

When the French have you on the cover of their most treasured newspaper with the headline WE ARE ALL AMERICANS, something has been stirred! [Laughs]

But this administration destroyed that. I know that you have to deal with a lot of these people. . .

There was a plan there, you know. I think the president genuinely felt that if we could prove a model of democracy and broad prosperity in the Middle East, it might defuse the situation. I don't believe that, and in the capacity I had, I told them that.

You said that?

I told Paul Wolfowitz, all of them, to go ask the British army what it's like to stand on street corners and get shot at. Remember that during the British army's first years on the streets of Northern Ireland, they were applauded by the Catholic minority. Go look at that, and ask yourself how that all got turned around.

It was always going to go wrong. I remember in the first moments after "shock and awe," I was watching it at home with [my wife] Ali and I said, "These people have just hidden their guns in the basement, took off their uniforms and come out waving American flags. And they've been told to. They knew this was coming, and they know what they're doing."

So you mentioned this to Wolfowitz. Who else did you say this to? Did you say it to Tony Blair?

I said it in all my conversations. To Condi. To Karl Rove. I did not discuss it with President Bush. I try to stick to my pitch, and it's an abuse of my access for me to switch subjects. But I'm a lippy Irish rock star, and I'm more used to putting my foot in my mouth than my fist. So occasionally I'm just going to talk about it.

I want to be very, very clear, however: I understand and agree with the analysis of the problem. There is an imminent threat. It manifested itself on 9/11. It's real and grave. It is as serious a threat as Stalinism and National Socialism were. Let's not pretend it isn't.

I think people as reasoned as Tony Blair looked at the world and didn't want to be Neville Chamberlain, who came back from meeting with Hitler with a piece of paper saying "peace in our time," while Hitler was planning to cross the channel from France.

So what needs to be done?

There's a word all of us have learned to undervalue: compromise. Bill Clinton once rang us, because he was collecting opinions on whether he should give Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams [of Sinn Féin, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army] a visa into the United States. I thought, "These people have put bombs in supermarkets, and many innocent people have lost their lives." So I said, "No. Don't dignify them." And he said, "But shouldn't you always talk to people?" And I said, "Yeah, but you dignify them."

I was wrong. Clinton did exactly the right thing in talking to the Provisional IRA and other extremist elements. Now they have to do the same, in my opinion, with Hamas, and they have to do the same with Al Qaeda. You have to involve them in dialogue.

But then you've also got to try to cut off the oxygen supply of hatred, which is false ideas about who you are as an American, who you are in the West. I know that sounds like limp liberalism, but it's really not.

How would you describe it?

I'm arguing for a demonstration to the world of what we're capable of in the West, with our technology, our innovations, our agriculture, our pharmacology. We've developed this unimaginable prosperity. Let's show the world what we can do with it. America, as I always say, is not just a country, it's an idea. The world needs to see right now what that idea means. Because there's an oncoming train on our track, and it's going to be met one way or another. It isn't going away.

As a kid, did you have a particular vision of what the future would look like?

When I was about sixteen, my head exploded. I had violent outbursts. I smashed things up. I went into myself. And I had a kind of poetic reverie, a couple of them, and one was a vision of the future. It was of a single, a 45. The grooves were going round and round, like a spiral, and things started to repeat much quicker.

I don't know whether this was just a bad pint - I'm not ruling that out. But I remember staring at the ceiling and seeing a picture of the world speeding up, things repeating quickly. So the Fifties were going to happen again, the Sixties were going to happen again, and then they'd happen quicker. It was postmodern - there are no new ideas out there, everything is just being repeated. But it was this spiral thing I had. There was the first Buzzcocks EP, which is called Spiral Scratch, and it's like the picture we had in "Vertigo" as well.

Now sometimes when I'm walking down the street, and I see a hippie, a punk and so on, I think, "This is exactly this world I pictured when I was a kid." It's like every age is present in this moment. I don't know what it means, exactly. I don't think it's negative or positive. It's just, we do live in a fractional present. No one mood predominates.

What would be easier for you at this point, giving up U2 or your anti-poverty work?

I can't live without music. I don't think I physically could live without music, because it's the thing that allows me to feel normal. It's like asking a psychotic person to do without their lithium, OK? [Laughs]

But there are people out there whose lives are dependent on people like me who have access to agents of change, and I would have to take a big, deep breath before I gave that up. What I'm hoping is that the social movement that is growing around our issues will be so strong that in the event of somebody like me not being around they won't notice. In the end, social movements carry the day, not rock stars.

Thirteen hundred campuses have signed on to our One Campaign - as part of our Millennium Development Goals, getting the world's wealthiest nations to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. Those college kids are redefining their country through the prism of the fight against poverty. Issues like that afford a chance to America to redescribe itself to the world. But they also afford America a chance to redescribe itself to its citizens. That's what's going on.

What do you mean?

People are nauseous about being perceived as the enemy. After Abu Ghraib, reasonable, rational people were saying the most despicable things about America. Imagine that. The country that not only liberated Europe but rebuilt Europe with the Marshall Plan. The country of Omaha Beach. The heroism of people who gave their lives for people like my dad. I mean, this is the United States of America.

And, by the way, whoever fixes that problem gets elected. People say, "Oh, it's all about the economy." This is the first time it's not. It's about turning that idea around. We're the United States of America, and we do not like being seen as the enemy.

And it's a wave. I think the next generation is going to roll right over us. There's a new kind of hard-headed idealism out there, which is not about "Let's hold hands and wish away the world's problems." People are ready to change the world one brick at a time. I really believe that.

What can that idealism produce?

It is utterly accepted in the U.S. and Europe that you cannot live a life of peace and prosperity if at the end of your avenue there are hungry people without clean water, losing their children because they cannot access a twenty-cent vaccine or dying for the lack of drugs we have falling out of our medicine cabinets.

So, some optimistic thoughts: In the near future, distance will no longer decide who your neighbor is. It will be accepted that the slums of Kibera, Kenya, the rural poverty of Lalibela, Ethiopia, the refugee camps of Darfur, Sudan, are at the end of our lane. In the not-too-distant future, the anopheles mosquito will be all but chased off the planet, saving 3,000 children's lives that right now are lost to malaria every day in Africa.

In the not-too-distant future, the rich world will invest in the education of the poor world, because it is our best protection against young minds being twisted by extremist ideologies - or growing up without any ideology at all, which could be worse. Nature abhors a vacuum; terrorism loves one.

Has your activism affected how you think about being in U2? I've spent a lot of time in these two-dimensional worlds - numbers, values, analysis of statistics. And when I get away from it, being with U2 is such a playground. It's made me realize how sacred music is. It's a kind of sacrament - like marriage, like friendship. I'm not sure the other three in the band know this, because they - maybe sensibly - have avoided that other world. They just think they're in U2, and that's great. But I really know how great it is to be in U2.

Is it as great as what you dreamed it might be like when you were young?

When I was a kid and I was at school, I worked at a gas station. And I would just get wound up thinking about practice on Saturdays - or Wednesdays sometimes. Just hearing the sound of a drum kit in a room, the silver of the ride cymbal and the skin of a tom-tom. It meant a great deal to me. Then, as it became my job to be in a band, you take for granted that you've got a few hours with your mates in the studio.

I don't anymore. It is sanctuary and escape from the material world of causalities, profit and loss, cynicism and hard-bitten victories over your own indifference or somebody else's. You get into this fucking room and everything seems possible, and I've never really appreciated it more than now. Really and truly. It's this incredible thing. I treasure it. I treasure it now more than ever. I'm terrified that I might lose my first love in the supermarket, in the maw of so many choices of what you can do with your time.

But I also think I'm better for having my brain pummeled in so many different areas.

Has your activism made you more or less idealistic about government?

Just being in D.C., and meeting all the people I've met - I've now been going there for nearly ten years. They let me in their rooms and they listen to my rhetoric or invective or whatever it turns out to be. And I come away from that city not with nausea but with admiration. These people work like dogs. These lawmakers, they're trying to move between their families back home and Washington. All of them could make much more money in the private sector. Not all, but most of them are there for the right reasons. There's very little glamour. And they're listening to me, who's completely over-rewarded for what I do.

Yes, I have my moments and I lose patience. I'm in a rage sometimes. But my overall feeling when I look at the body politic, which I know now very well, is "God, these people can behave very badly, but they work very hard and they're often motivated by much higher intentions than I thought when I came into the process." I'm amazed by it.

So are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future?

It's a problem, because sometimes I don't see obstacles, and if I had, I might not have set out on the course. It's a criticism of me that I've underestimated obstacles.

Do you accept that?

Yeah. But I think I'm less like that now. Now I'm about "Describe Everest, then climb it." Know what you're in for. I think you can achieve much more than you'd ever imagined by getting busy and getting organized. And don't get too interested in what's "possible." The impossible is made possible by a combination of faith, gift and strategy. You need faith for sure - as Lou Reed says, "A busload of faith to get by." You need some talents, and if you don't have them, you better find people who do. And then: strategy. That's as true of making U2's next album as it is with the One Campaign to make poverty history.

What's the next important challenge ahead?

The next presidential election will be a real moment for America. Talk about the battle of ideas - I mean, this is it. You will get the country you deserve. You have to ask hard questions of who will be your leader, because we fans of America - annoying fans, maybe, but real fans - have a lot at stake. Even those who are not fans - everybody who values freedom, progressive thinking, innovation, has a stake in America. The country you may own. But not the idea.

Actually, I heard a great one. I was wandering through France, and I ended up in this vineyard. They asked me to sign the visitors' book - it was a very posh wine: Petrus - they said, "Do you want to see the other people who have signed here?" I said, "Sure. Show me the first book." Thomas Jefferson. That makes me laugh so much. Here's this guy dreaming up an idea called America, drinking some fancy wine. My kind of guy.

I was a U2 fan before the compact disc.

I bought their second album, "October," on vinyl after I saw a video of the song "Gloria" on MTV in 1983.

I loved their combination of clanging guitar riffs and subtle Christian lyrics. How cool that a band that sounded so great sang so much about Jesus.

The band peaked with "The Joshua Tree" in 1987. Every song a winner, not a second of filler.

My enthusiasm for the band cooled soon after, when they started producing junk like "Zooropa." But they kept churning out the hits and gaining fans.

One of their newest is the Rev. Heather Buchanan Wiseman, associate rector of St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Anderson Township. With 1,000 members, it's the largest church in the Diocese of Southern Ohio.

About 18 months ago, the 63-year-old grandmother was looking for a way to bring people to church who don't traditionally attend.

Last January, she hit on a few things that clicked: a Celtic service, a Taize service and a "U2charist."

The U2charist has the same elements of the Eucharist, the service of bread and wine, but the music is all U2. Many of the group's songs lend themselves to worship, such as "40," whose lyrics lead singer Bono took from Psalm 40.

But Wiseman's fondest of "When Love Comes to Town," a collaboration between the group and blues legend B.B. King:

"I was there when they crucified my Lord.

"I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword.

"I threw the dice when they pierced his side,

"But I've seen love conquer the great divide."

At 5 p.m. on the first Sunday of the month, the casually clad worshippers meet in the parish hall, not the sanctuary.

About 30 middle-aged worshippers sing, clap and sway along to "Where the Streets Have No Name" or "Pride (In the Name of Love)."

There are no bulletins - the entire liturgy is projected onto a large screen. Accompanying the songs are videos of the band performing, or still photos that illustrate the things sung about.

Sometimes Wiseman uses song lyrics in her sermon, such as, "What you don't have you don't need it now," a phrase in "A Beautiful Day," which she used in a sermon on materialism.

The offering goes to Bread for the World, which feeds hungry people, or to Millennium Villages, which works on lifting one village at a time. U2 allows churches to use its music in services like this only if the offering supports the goals of the ONE Campaign, which include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.

Wiseman was in Columbus a year ago when the General Convention of the Episcopal Church made the ONE Campaign a top priority.

She heard a new liturgy written for a child moving from a crib to a bed, which doesn't sound remarkable until you realize that most of those it was written for die before they leave the crib.

Hearing that was like getting punched in the stomach, she said.

Sometimes, when the U2 music's playing, the worshippers see photos of a village in Honduras, where many of St. Timothy's parishioners have done mission work.

The church supports a school, El Hogar, where boys who live in one-room, dirt houses can learn a trade and improve their lot. It's one place where the church has made a different in a place of abject poverty, Wiseman said.

No doubt Bono would approve.

Staff reporter Kevin Eigelbach writes

U2CHARIST