Rock 'n' Roll and Social Change

Excerpts from "U2: Anthem for the 80s"

Edge
“Rock ‘n’ Roll should be escapist, should be just about having a good time…and sure, I think rock ‘n’ roll has always had that. But why shouldn’t it also face what’s actually happening and try to deal with that as well.”

Bono
“I’m aware of the contradictions of being in a successful rock ‘n’ roll band and yet at the same time writing about the lack of success in my own contemporaries. …literally the people on the same street as I grew up are having to leave Ireland and go to America to find jobs.”

Dr Garrett Fitzgerald, Irish Prime Minister 1982-1987
“According to the New York Times, U2’s performance in the US has caused the Democratic Party in its approach to the next Presidential election to reevaluate its understanding of how young people in America think and feel.”

Bob Geldof
“In the 60s, Dublin was a very small, pretty European city. Due to corruption and mismanagement and appalling planning, they removed people from the heart of the city out to these appalling ghettos out in the suburbs….When they removed the heart of the city they took its soul with it. Some of the businesses started folding and it became a wasteland. And the city itself became destroyed at the hands of the city management.”

Kenny
“We’re only a number in this country. U2 have a name.”

Bob Geldof
“If over half the country is under 25 you are looking at a potentially vicious explosive situation where you have classic African conditions like urbanization…a city that can’t live up to the expectations of the new immigrants…no jobs for those who have got the gumption to go out and try doing things themselves or for those who just look for a regular job or for university graduates then you have mass immigration again and that destroys the country.”

Bono
“People think because I am attracted to people like Gandhi or the Reverend Martin Luther King or even my faith, my believe in Christ, that I therefore am some sort of hero or man of God or peacemaker….One of the reasons I am attracted to these people is because I am the very person who would not turn the other cheek. I grew up with the violence in me and it’s still in me and I despise it."

“There was shouts of “Up the IRA”…. We were an Irish band and they thought we would fit into this version of Ireland and the revolution. I’m very clear on the way I feel about that. I would love to see a united Ireland but I never ever could support any man that would put a gun on somebody else’s head to see that dream come true. And we wrote Sunday Bloody Sunday in a rage.”

“I just set out this story: Broken bottles under children’s feet, bodies strewn across a dead end street. But I won’t heed the battle call. It puts my back up, puts my back against the wall. And then: And the battle’s just begun, there’s many lost but tell me who has won? The trench is dug within our hearts. Mothers , children, brothers, sisters torn apart. How long, how long must we sing this song?”

“I have often thought to myself…maybe we did fail…maybe the song Sunday Bloody Sunday is a failure…we didn’t succeed in making the point that we wanted to make…it has been misinterpretated…we’ve alienated the Republicans who wanted to use it as a battle cry and we’ve alienated the Unionists who only see it as a slap in their face.”

“LiveAid proved that music can unite people towards very specific ends if called upon. …music in the 60s surely contributed to the close down of the Vietnam war.”

Edge
“I think we write songs that we believe in. I don’t think we are trying to create a movement or tell people what to think. I think if there’s a message to U2 it’s think for yourself.”

Bono
“Amnesty International has doubled its membership as a result of the Conspiracy of Hope tour in the US. That’s real…that’s tangible evidence that the tide is turning…”

Edge
“I see that kind of concern coming in waves. I think the early 80s was a particular low point… and LiveAid was the beginning of a new awareness…I don’t think it’s unusual or precedent. I think it’s happened before and it will happen again…