Love them or loathe them, U2 never sounded more urgent. But until nearly the moment Bono stepped up to the mic, he didn’t even know what the song was about.
This is one of those times where my age and experience get in the way of me taking other people's writing at its intended value. I'm not the audience.
I was 25 in 1983. I worked at Island at the time; my boss signed U2. The music that put U2 on our radar and their earnest early live shows were SPECTACULAR. I wish all of you could have seen and heard all that. Except then you'd be over 65, like me....
This is precisely why I love Substack: I can write about a great piece of music that shaped me as a 12-year-old—U2's "New Year's Day"—and then get commentary from someone who actually made that music happen. Incredible!
And I don’t exactly love substack yet but I love both you and Theresa - and Ed halter who introduced me to her. Freaks and rides make this world so wonderful
I was a genuine U2 fan fir their first three albums, but got off the train after 1) being bored to tears by most of The Unforgettable Fire, and 2) seeing them on that tour and realizing that Bono was a pompous knob. This song still really does hold up, though.
Ha, I love this remark, because I have long felt that they ceased to write and perform rock and roll after these three albums. The Red Rocks live LP "Under a Blood Red Sky" felt like an adieu to exciting rock and roll. I always thought it was ironic that Lillywhite produced some of their most exciting work, but his arrival in the control room during the Pogues' If I should Fall..." marked the *END* of exciting edgy production we saw during the Costello-produced records of their early output.
My sense is that Lillywhite, after a half-decade or so of cutting-edge work, had kinda blown his ears out by the mid-eighties. His production on Big Country's Steeltown is an overegged mess, and the work he subsequently did on the Stones' Dirty Work and Talking Heads' Naked is pretty generic sounding. Plus, I recently heard a podcast interview with him where he said he'd been only dimly aware of the Pogues at the time they approached him to produce, so it all makes sense that he would have smoothed the rough edges off them on that record.
I'm a NOVA guy about the same age, Seth, and like Dan in these comments I was fully on board with U2 until after Boy, but I'd never heard the Martin Hannett single until now. After a couple of listens I think it works best if I imagine it as a lost Factory Records oddity, and it makes me wonder what could have been if the band had gone on some kind of Virgin Prunes trajectory instead of the one that literally put them on a cereal box on my kitchen table a few years later.
I saw them at the Capitol Center in 1984, I think, a show that ended my time with them with an arena-sized display of self-importance we've since come to expect. I recall being mad I'd paid a whole $20 to see them...
If some youngster were to ask me what a record producer does, I'd play the single and album tracks and ask them to compare... And although I actually sought his name out on record covers back then, I cannot forgive what Lillywhite did to Marshall Crenshaw's second record.
Appreciate every single word of this, Randy! It makes me feel slightly less guilty for so thoroughly kicking them to the curb after "New Year's Day." Also: Any chance they were listening to Fugazi when they wrote "Bullet the Blue Sky"?
Just checked, "Bullet" still sounds huge, and I see your point, but I had to turn it off after a minute becuase of his delivery. Also, I meant I was done after "War" in the above, not "Boy", I wasn't that prescient! Now, back to that Hannett single...
Brilliant piece on how accidents shape great art. The detail about Lillywhite mixing this in 15 minutes while no one even saw it as a single is wild when you think how the Poland connection emerged later almost by accident. I rememmber hearing it for the first time and just knew somethng had shifted in what rock music could sound like, that urgency was so raw.
Appreciate that deeply. The bit about the song taking 15 minutes to mix really snagged at me; I suppose I felt gratified that music that sounded so urgent actually WAS!
I was all of five years old in 1983, so my U2 experience was witnessing their evolution, basically from that point ("New Year's Day") to Zoo TV and all that crap, via MTV. Also, having grown up in the Denver metro area, U2 were basically gods to the local population after immortalizing Red Rocks with Under a Blood Red Sky. However, I somehow instinctually knew as a nine-to-ten year old that my dad's liking of The Joshua Tree was a sure sign of the evaporation of their cool cred. Plus, my older sister's crush on Bono made me think he had to be super lame.
I didn't really give them a chance until I started working at record stores and actually listened to Boy, recognizing "I Will Follow" from the not-so distant past and realizing they were not lame and very much part of the Post-Punk zeitgeist. Then I had the full-on epiphany after hearing "An Cat Dubh" and other highlights on the album. "Wait, early U2 is actually good!?"
I was really stoked when I found the 11 O'Clock Tick Tock / Touch 7-inch single because I saw Martin Hannett's credit. That sealed the deal. From then on, I was a fan of early U2 (emphasis on early). I still can't hang with The Unforgettable Fire, except for "Pride", which is undeniably great and very stirring.
You learned early: Dad Rock is for stooges (I say this as the proud father of a music-obsessed 18-year-old). It's a trip going back in time and discovering mega-artists like U2 actually had something on the ball once, yes? I was gobsmacked by the Joy Division connection, too....
As one who has written about music off and on for four decades, I learned something a long time ago: writing about specific models of hardware while describing sound can either succeed or fail for various reasons, and most do not succeed. That's because most people do not get a chance to work with, experiment on, or test the limits of those models and what they can do.
For instance, I have no idea what kind of tone or timbre the Vox AC30s give one, or whether sounds more like a Casio or a Moog. Ultimately, it's the author who can build a bridge between the hardware and the resulting sound, and you, Mr. Lorinczi, can congratulate yourself on not letting the specificity of hardware get in the way of the emotional impact of the overall song.
Appreciate that hell out of that, Peter! There is a razor-thin line between techie slavishness and getting at the heart of WHY music (and the tools used to make it) matter. Glad to get it right at least occasionally....
This is one of those times where my age and experience get in the way of me taking other people's writing at its intended value. I'm not the audience.
I was 25 in 1983. I worked at Island at the time; my boss signed U2. The music that put U2 on our radar and their earnest early live shows were SPECTACULAR. I wish all of you could have seen and heard all that. Except then you'd be over 65, like me....
This is precisely why I love Substack: I can write about a great piece of music that shaped me as a 12-year-old—U2's "New Year's Day"—and then get commentary from someone who actually made that music happen. Incredible!
And I don’t exactly love substack yet but I love both you and Theresa - and Ed halter who introduced me to her. Freaks and rides make this world so wonderful
I was a genuine U2 fan fir their first three albums, but got off the train after 1) being bored to tears by most of The Unforgettable Fire, and 2) seeing them on that tour and realizing that Bono was a pompous knob. This song still really does hold up, though.
HA! 1) Yes and 2) OMFG!
Ha, I love this remark, because I have long felt that they ceased to write and perform rock and roll after these three albums. The Red Rocks live LP "Under a Blood Red Sky" felt like an adieu to exciting rock and roll. I always thought it was ironic that Lillywhite produced some of their most exciting work, but his arrival in the control room during the Pogues' If I should Fall..." marked the *END* of exciting edgy production we saw during the Costello-produced records of their early output.
My sense is that Lillywhite, after a half-decade or so of cutting-edge work, had kinda blown his ears out by the mid-eighties. His production on Big Country's Steeltown is an overegged mess, and the work he subsequently did on the Stones' Dirty Work and Talking Heads' Naked is pretty generic sounding. Plus, I recently heard a podcast interview with him where he said he'd been only dimly aware of the Pogues at the time they approached him to produce, so it all makes sense that he would have smoothed the rough edges off them on that record.
Right! At that point, his whole raison d'etre is smoothness, right?
I'm a NOVA guy about the same age, Seth, and like Dan in these comments I was fully on board with U2 until after Boy, but I'd never heard the Martin Hannett single until now. After a couple of listens I think it works best if I imagine it as a lost Factory Records oddity, and it makes me wonder what could have been if the band had gone on some kind of Virgin Prunes trajectory instead of the one that literally put them on a cereal box on my kitchen table a few years later.
I saw them at the Capitol Center in 1984, I think, a show that ended my time with them with an arena-sized display of self-importance we've since come to expect. I recall being mad I'd paid a whole $20 to see them...
If some youngster were to ask me what a record producer does, I'd play the single and album tracks and ask them to compare... And although I actually sought his name out on record covers back then, I cannot forgive what Lillywhite did to Marshall Crenshaw's second record.
Appreciate every single word of this, Randy! It makes me feel slightly less guilty for so thoroughly kicking them to the curb after "New Year's Day." Also: Any chance they were listening to Fugazi when they wrote "Bullet the Blue Sky"?
Just checked, "Bullet" still sounds huge, and I see your point, but I had to turn it off after a minute becuase of his delivery. Also, I meant I was done after "War" in the above, not "Boy", I wasn't that prescient! Now, back to that Hannett single...
Uhhh…I strongly dislike being the one to tell you…
https://humansvshollywood.substack.com/p/exclusive-bono-venezuela-and-the?r=6quy37&utm_medium=ios
https://share.icloud.com/photos/006P_7S9Z1Kg--f69HyAo1r6Q
We defintely led parallel lives in 1983. (Had a fender jazz…not a rickenbacher)
Ha! Nice one. The Rick was actually my third bass; the first was...you guessed it, a Fender Jazz.
That was a big chunk of bar mitzvah $$. (Jealous friends called us “jew2”)
OUCHIE.
Brilliant piece on how accidents shape great art. The detail about Lillywhite mixing this in 15 minutes while no one even saw it as a single is wild when you think how the Poland connection emerged later almost by accident. I rememmber hearing it for the first time and just knew somethng had shifted in what rock music could sound like, that urgency was so raw.
Appreciate that deeply. The bit about the song taking 15 minutes to mix really snagged at me; I suppose I felt gratified that music that sounded so urgent actually WAS!
I was all of five years old in 1983, so my U2 experience was witnessing their evolution, basically from that point ("New Year's Day") to Zoo TV and all that crap, via MTV. Also, having grown up in the Denver metro area, U2 were basically gods to the local population after immortalizing Red Rocks with Under a Blood Red Sky. However, I somehow instinctually knew as a nine-to-ten year old that my dad's liking of The Joshua Tree was a sure sign of the evaporation of their cool cred. Plus, my older sister's crush on Bono made me think he had to be super lame.
I didn't really give them a chance until I started working at record stores and actually listened to Boy, recognizing "I Will Follow" from the not-so distant past and realizing they were not lame and very much part of the Post-Punk zeitgeist. Then I had the full-on epiphany after hearing "An Cat Dubh" and other highlights on the album. "Wait, early U2 is actually good!?"
I was really stoked when I found the 11 O'Clock Tick Tock / Touch 7-inch single because I saw Martin Hannett's credit. That sealed the deal. From then on, I was a fan of early U2 (emphasis on early). I still can't hang with The Unforgettable Fire, except for "Pride", which is undeniably great and very stirring.
You learned early: Dad Rock is for stooges (I say this as the proud father of a music-obsessed 18-year-old). It's a trip going back in time and discovering mega-artists like U2 actually had something on the ball once, yes? I was gobsmacked by the Joy Division connection, too....
As one who has written about music off and on for four decades, I learned something a long time ago: writing about specific models of hardware while describing sound can either succeed or fail for various reasons, and most do not succeed. That's because most people do not get a chance to work with, experiment on, or test the limits of those models and what they can do.
For instance, I have no idea what kind of tone or timbre the Vox AC30s give one, or whether sounds more like a Casio or a Moog. Ultimately, it's the author who can build a bridge between the hardware and the resulting sound, and you, Mr. Lorinczi, can congratulate yourself on not letting the specificity of hardware get in the way of the emotional impact of the overall song.
Appreciate that hell out of that, Peter! There is a razor-thin line between techie slavishness and getting at the heart of WHY music (and the tools used to make it) matter. Glad to get it right at least occasionally....