and so another year, look you see, with this one being 2026. well, this being the first post of that year i suppose, for goodness knows when in the future (rather than the past) you, or anyone, is actually reading it. either reading it or just looking at the pictures, yes.
perhaps the more better, or correct, title for this post would be notes on playing a thirtieth anniversary edition of a tape (disc) around nine or so years after it was released, but that's a bit extensive. as to which album, or if you like tape (disc) i speak of, it's The Joshua Tree off of U2.
yes, i am indeed (quite) aware that in the present day one is "meant" to slate, slag off or be disparaging of the band U2. rather peculiar. i have had a little think and tried to trace the origins of the backlash, or what you would call it. don't think it was down to them releasing a really, really poor album in the form of No Line On The Horizon, back in, what, 2005 or thereabouts? from memory around the time they played Glastonbury (was in 2012?) a small yet vocal group demanded that U2 "pay taxes", like everyone (and i am sure those demanding the group do this did) goes about seeing how they can pay as much as possible over to governments. of course there was the (in)famous giving an album away for free to all Apple customers, which upset the former (or ex) Mr Kim Kardassian (or whatever) who was inexplicably popular around then and so lots of people kicked off about being given (what turned out to be a fairly decent) album for free.
let me invite you to set aside whatever (or however) it is that the "trendy" or popular way to view U2 is for this post. should you decline that invitation, well, that's absolutely fine, but rather likely you may wish to skip the rest of this. unless you get entertained by reading stuff you are knowingly going to probably disagree with and just wish to pour scorn over it. go for it.
not all that much of this (if that makes sense) is written with any sense of being "definitive fact" or a reliable account of the record. it's more just how i hear it, how i remember the time of its release, how the album has followed me for what is close to four complete decades. odd thing, our love of the decimal for anniversaries or significant things. maybe that is the lasting legacy of the Romans. bits and bobs of trivia shall come, true. as in the next paragraph.
what one has to do is try and imagine a time when U2 were (most decidedly) not one of the biggest bands in the world. yes, this is the album that made them such. for a brief history, and entirely from my perspective as i experienced it rather than fact, they were a band that had one hit (Pride) yet seemed to get a lot of attention, in particular a BBC documentary around The Unforgettable Fire. despite an array of considerably bigger pop stars available Bono was handed what i consider the single most powerful, devastating and poignant line ever included in a pop song. they were given longer than, say, Adam Ant and The Style Council at Live Aid, with Bono nearly causing the band to split by opting to hug someone instead of doing another song. it felt like they more or less disappeared after Live Aid, to be honest, with no new record within a year or so of that event.
but they returned, of course, with The Joshua Tree. pretty sure that it was With Or Without You they released as the first single, and i can recall going to buy it off of HMV. but i shall get to that. for now it kind of makes sense to sort of do a "track by track" of the album. sorry if this is as disjointed as, well, everything else i have ever written, here and beyond.
WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME is an epic opening to the album. the slow build up, with the song itself (in)famously taking up about half of all the time spent on the whole record, feels like a cinematic fade in on a classical work of art. fair to say they knew what they were doing when they insisted on this being the opening song. to me this has always been an anthem of release. it captures that sense of freedom which comes from being in a dark place, walled in mentally or physically (or both), the glorious feeling of that weight being lifted reverberating through the song. plus the video, a rooftop concert which caused mayhem, is awesome.
I STILL HAVEN'T FOUND WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR remains to this day one of the most jaw dropping, daring total exposures of the soul i have ever experienced an artist doing. ostensibly, in sound a structure, a gospel song, and one can interpret it that way. the song speaks of desire fulfilled leaving one still unfulfilled. in terms of my initial comment it's that lyric "you broke the bonds and loosed the chains, carried the cross of my shame" which comes to mind. perhaps it's one of them "just me" things, but the bravery and courage required to stand and say something like that is what makes an artist of any nature celebrated. if you ever wondered why painters paint yet seem reluctant to let others see their work it is because they fear they are going to see just how much of them is laid bare in the work.
WITH OR WITHOUT YOU is, to perhaps my ears only, one of those "classically misunderstood" songs. like, you know, Every Breath You Take off of The Police. don't really see how one can interpret the line "i can't live with or without you" as meaning anything but a despondent, defeated and down declaration of simply "i cannot live". generally i think it gets interpreted "lighter" as being of the frustrations with any relationship. however one interprets it doesn't take away from its brilliance.
BULLET THE BLUE SKY has been a song i have "wrestled" with. over the years i have gone from skipping it to playing it (and singing/shouting along) with enthusiasm. perhaps i should have noted what my mood, or state of mind was, or what was going on in the world, at those different times. yes, the song is famously (ostensibly) about a very specific bit of shady interference by the Americans in a particular conflict, yet the essence of it resonates with just about every conflict since. the more i think about it the more i wonder why they didn't call this album Outside. as much as that may have gone on to change the history of David Bowie.
RUNNING TO STAND STILL a brooding masterpiece specifically about a couple of doomed heroin addicts but with a far greater, wider reach. vivid, unforgiving and haunting imagery gets catapulted into the mind via lyrics breathtakingly inspired in their genius. you are better off just listening to it instead of having me throw some random examples here.
just why, exactly, did i go ahead and buy another copy of The Joshua Tree? i think i was kind of curious about the "bonus" live tape (disc) and the set was at the right price when doing some random browsing. the above image are just the copies i had within reach. whereas no, i am not adverse to purchasing multiple copies of (essentially) the same record, it seems to happen quite often with this one.
RED HILL MINING TOWN gives an unusual, odd instance of Bono getting accused of not being political enough. the roots of the song are in the UK Miner's Strike of 1984, with some (i think it was mostly Bob Geldof) saying that he didn't "go far enough" as there was no scathing attack in the song about the government of the day. he argued that the only aspect he felt qualified to write about was of the devastation on a personal level, which he does brilliantly. rare is it that i have ever been quite so touched, or affected, by a lyric in the way i am by the way "i'm hanging on.....you're all that's left to hold on to" is delivered, no matter how many times i hear the song. utter, utter, utter genius.
IN GOD'S COUNTRY has the illusion of being a bit of a "throwaway" song. it eventually got released as a single after the band opted not to release Red Hill Mining Town as one (Bono felt he could never do it live, also the video they made for it was awful), and even then they released One Tree Hill in Australia and (obviously) New Zealand as the single (with same artwork) instead of this. deceptively short yet full to the brim of outstanding lyrics (hence me borrowing one for the title). pretty much like the overwhelming majority of things i could write of the song here it really is better to just go and listen to it, especially if (for some reason) you have not heard it before. just make sure you have it at the correct volume.
TRIP THROUGH YOUR WIRES is f*****g rubbish. seriously. a dull, monotonous, misguided attempt at fusing all sorts of "bluegrass", "roots", "country" and whatever else came to mind so as to, you would think, in some way "honour" the American influence across the record. before writing this i forced myself to listen to this as part of the album entire, where normally i would skip it straight away. nope, not getting why it is here. basically any song from the b-sides (except perhaps the overt politics of Silver & Gold) would have been a better choice for the album. actually just leaving this out and not replacing it would have made the album more better.
ONE TREE HILL was born of the anger at the sudden death of a long term friend. if you want an example of a singer throwing all that they have into a song, of a band playing like they will take on the world if for no reason than sheer defiance, here it is. yes, i did indeed eventually make it there. rather foolishly i, on the flight back from New Zealand, decided to play this song and promptly became so overwhelmed with emotions i bawled my eyes out. which i am sure the passenger next to me was absolutely thrilled about. beyond stating the obvious of this being a quite important song for me i am not sure there is much else i can say. except yes, go and play it. loud.
EXIT is really, really dark, man. so dark that the lyrics are hidden, if not buried, under some serious layers of music. it's either that they are hiding what they are saying or forcing us, the audience to hear it. contradictions like that are a bit part of their song structures. whereas it generally gets described as being about a "psychotic killer", to me it sounds like straying into the darkness of psychosis, something anyone could / would be susceptible to. to borrow some of the lyrics, it talks of how the hands that build can also destroy. a foil, if you will, to the reference of Jara's "hands of love" in One Tree Hill, a bit like, maybe, how With Or Without You is the unrequited version of the requited but seeking further of I Still Haven't Found What I Am Looking For. someone cleverer than me can probably say that more better.
MOTHERS OF THE DISAPPEARED for all the bluster, the shouting, the anger, the "play war through the speakers" of the album, it is in this deceptively soft sounding song that complete anguishing heartbreak comes. ostensibly referencing the nightmare of the military removing children in South America, this is far more universal, speaking of the horror of a lost child. it doesn't get angry, it doesn't preach, it doesn't shout, it doesn't demand justice. the songs speaks only of unrelenting, perpetual heartbreak, casually holding a mirror up for us to see what a f*****g stupid species we are, what a damned f*****g horrible place we have let our world be.
going back to the many, many copies of The Joshua Tree i have and i would suggest you try and seek out the big box one, the 20th anniversary edition. pirate it, if needs be. other than a set of b-sides, all of which would have been (considerably) more better to be on the album than Trip Through Your Wires, is perhaps the most fascinating video (disc) of U2 to exist. it's a Joshua Tree tour gig, live in Paris. even allowing for the usual disinterest of the French, it really does capture the moment the band went from popular and having "a bit of a following" to being, well, one of the biggest bands, ever.
could one argue that The Joshua Tree has a case for being that impossible to name "greatest album of all time"? no, and i refer you to the comments above concerning the including of one song in particular that rules it out of the debate. many argue that this isn't even U2's best album, and there is a compelling case to agree with those that claim that is Achtung Baby. but i am not writing about that here.
the short version of this post is, was (hang on - tl;dr?) that The Joshua Tree is a remarkable album, and it would be a worthy use of your time to listen to it or listen to it again, cutting away the "noise" or what have you what comes with the name U2 in the present day. so. let me leave you to maybe do that.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
