diplomska seminarska naloga - core · 2020. 1. 30. · europe), the rock audience was from the...
TRANSCRIPT
UNIVERZA V MARIBORU FILOZOFSKA FAKULTETA
Oddelek za anglistiko in amerikanistiko
DIPLOMSKA SEMINARSKA NALOGA
Boris Hranjec
Maribor, 2010
UNIVERZA V MARIBORU FILOZOFSKA FAKULTETA
Oddelek za anglistiko in amerikanistiko
SOCIOPOLITICAL ISSUES IN ROCK
MUSIC WITH AN EMPHASIS ON
U2 SONGS
Mentor: red. prof. dr. Victor Kennedy
Kandidat: Boris Hranjec
Maribor, 2010
ZAHVALA
V začetku bi se rad zahvalil svojemu mentorju, red.prof.dr. Victorju
Kennedyju za strokovno pomoč pri izdelavi diplomske seminarske
naloge. Na drugi strani bi se rad zahvalil svojim najbližjim, ki so mi
kakorkoli pomagali, še posebej pa je ta zahvala namenjena mami, ki ji
hkrati posvečam to diplomsko nalogo. Mama, to je za tebe!
IZJAVA
Podpisani Boris Hranjec, rojen 9.5.1982, študent Filozofske fakultete
Univerze v Mariboru, smer angleški jezik s književnostjo in geografija,
izjavljam, da je diplomska seminarska naloga z naslovom “Sociopolitical
issues in rock music with an emphasis on U2 songs” pri mentorju red.prof.dr.
Victorju Kennedyju , avtorsko delo. V diplomski seminarski nalogi so
uporabljeni viri in literatura korektno navedeni; teksti niso prepisani brez
navedbe avtorjev.
_________________________________
Maribor, 9.2.2010
ABSTRACT
Since the late 1960s, when rock music started to develop, a variety of
sociopolitically oriented songs have been created in which famous rock musicians
have been dealing with diverse sociopolitical issues. Moreover, a pure meaning of
their lyrics is not the only significant component that makes their songs so special
because music itself can sometimes express specific situations that mere words
are unable to. For instance, music, in rock music usually a sound of guitars and
drums, can metaphorically represent specific situations, objects, and even a
movement of these objects (a plane flying). The Irish band U2 definitely fits into
this group of sociopolitically oriented rock musicians. In their 30-year long career,
U2 have created numerous songs that deal with various sociopolitical issues.
Interpreted songs in this diploma seminar are proof that rock songs of this type are
not just some meaningless and useless lyrics and music, but songs whose message
educates us about some significant sociopolitical issues.
Key words: rock music, sociopolitical issues, metaphors in music, U2, Sunday
Bloody Sunday, Bullet The Blue Sky, Silver & Gold, Miss Sarajevo
POVZETEK
Od druge polovice 60-tih let naprej, s pričetkom razvoja rock glasbe, so bile v
rock glasbi ustvarjene številne socialnopolitično obarvane pesmi, v katerih so se
znameniti rock izvajalci ukvarjali z najrazličnejšimi socialnopolitičnimi temami.
Še več, v njihovih pesmih niso pomembna samo socialnopolitično naravnana
besedila, ampak tudi glasba sama, ki ima včasih zmožnost izraziti določene
situacije, ki jih same besede v tekstu ne morejo. Na primer, glasba, v rock glasbi
je to največkrat zvok kitar in bobnov, lahko metaforično predstavi določene
situacije, predmete, in celo gibanje teh predmetov (letalo ki leti). Irska skupina U2
vsekakor spada v skupino rock glasbenikov, katerih glasba je socialnopolitično
naravnana. V njihovi 30-let dolgi karieri so U2 ustvarili številne, socialnopolitično
orientirane pesmi. Interpretirane pesmi v tej diplomski seminarski nalogi so
dokaz, da takšne rock pesmi niso zgolj nekakšna nepomembna besedila in glasba,
ampak pesmi katerih sporočilo nas uči o nekaterih pomembnih socialnopolitičnih
problemih.
Ključne besede: rock glasba, socialnopolitične teme, metafore v glasbi, U2,
Sunday Bloody Sunday, Bullet The Blue Sky, Silver & Gold, Miss Sarajevo
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION............................................................. 1
2 INTRODUCTION OF ROCK MUSIC .......................... 3
2.1 DEFINITION OF ROCK MUSIC................................. 3 2.2 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ROCK MUSIC. 5 2.3 SOCIOPOLITICAL ISSUES AND ROCK MUSIC..... 9
3 MUSIC AND METAPHORS......................................... 14
3.1 EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS IN MUSIC ............... 14 3.2 MUSIC AS A METAPHOR........................................ 16
4 U2...................................................................................... 19
4.1 INTRODUCTION OF THE BAND............................ 19 4.2 SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY ................................. 24 4.3 BULLET THE BLUE SKY......................................... 31 4.4 SILVER & GOLD ....................................................... 37 4.5 MISS SARAJEVO ...................................................... 42
5 CONCLUSION ............................................................... 49
6 WORKS CITED AND CONSULTED.......................... 50
APPENDICES ..................................................................... 55
INDEX OF FIGURES
Figure 1: The Beatles ..................................................................................... 6 Figure 2: Led Zeppelin .................................................................................. 7
Figure 3: The Clash........................................................................................ 8 Figure 4: early U2........................................................................................... 20 Figure 5: U2 on the cover of Time Magazine .............................................. 21 Figure 6: ZOO TV stage ................................................................................ 22 Figure 7: U2 today.......................................................................................... 23
Figure 8: The memory of Bloody Sunday 1972........................................... 26
Figure 9: Sign “COEXIST”........................................................................... 30
Figure 10: Beauty pageant “Miss of Besieged Sarajevo 93” ...................... 48
1
1 INTRODUCTION
In my diploma seminar I want to present sociopolitical issues that appear in rock
music with a special focus on U2 songs. I chose sociopolitical issues because they
deal with numerous educational situations. In today’s world where globalization
and capitalism are the symbol of our life and where boundaries between us
(people) are getting pencil-thin, social component of our lives somehow loses its
significance. On the other hand, various sociopolitical issues deliver messages and
bring out questions that we should talk and care about. In my diploma seminar I
could probably focus only on one specific component, social or political, but I
think they are too closely connected to be treated separately.
Rock music is definitely a musical genre in which different sociopolitical issues
play important role. Numerous significant rock artists have created famous songs
dealing with various sociopolitical themes; for example, rock musicians express
their discontentment with the countries’ specific political decisions, warn us about
inequality between people, make us think about purposes of wars, teach us about
justice and fairness etc.
The Irish band U2 surely fits into this group of rock musicians whose music is
sociopolitically oriented to a great extent. As far as U2 is concerned, I do not even
know where to begin, they have always had a special place in my life as far as the
music is concerned. I have been intensively listening to their music for several
years now, so I could say that I am pretty familiar with their musical opus. What
impresses me the most about their music is the number of various educational
themes that can be found in their songs. In a musical career that have lasted for
more than thirty years now, the band U2 has created a variety of thematic songs
where numerous socially and politically oriented songs play important role. And
what is the most important, these thematically diverse songs could easily be
transferred into our lives, they can educate us about specific life situations; they
carry a message. In addition, I am really glad that I have a chance to interpret
some of their songs in my diploma seminar.
2
My work consists of three major parts. First, it starts with rock music, its
definition and connection to sociopolitical issues in general. This part is followed
by the connection of music and metaphors. Music has ability to metaphorically
represent specific situation, object or even a movement of this object; for
example, musical instruments like guitars and drums can mimic a flying plain or
soldiers marching. Last part of my diploma seminar is about U2. I interpreted four
U2 songs that deal with specific sociopolitical issues. I thoroughly investigated
sociopolitical issues of “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, “Bullet The Blue Sky”, “Silver
& Gold” and “Miss Sarajevo”.
3
2 INTRODUCTION OF ROCK MUSIC
2.1 DEFINITION OF ROCK MUSIC
Rock music is a musical style that arose in the United States in the mid-1950s and
became the dominant form of popular music in the world, but to make a definition
of this musical style is quite difficult. There is a basic agreement that rock is “a
form of music with strong beat”, but it is difficult to be more explicit (“What is
rock?”).
Let us see how some prominent English dictionaries define word “rock”:
“a style of popular music derived from rock and roll that is usually played
on electronically amplified instruments and characterized by a persistent,
heavily accented beat” (The new Penguin English dictionary, 2000).
“form of popular music with a strong beat, usually played on electrical
instruments” (Essential English Dictionary, 1998).
“a type of popular music with a strong loud beat which is usually played
with electric guitars and drums” (Cambridge International Dictionary of
English, 1995).
“rock is a kind of music with simple tunes and a very strong beat that is
played and sung, usually loudly, by a small group of people with electric
guitars and drums” (Collins COBUILD English Dictionary, 1995).
However, it seems that definitions found in the dictionaries are away from being
perfect or complete. Rock was developed as a term to distinguish certain music-
making and listening practices from those associated with pop; what was at issue
was less a sound than an attitude. As opposed to some legislators who, for
regularity purposes, established some questionable rock definitions, the music
industry emphasizes clear, sociological difference between pop (instant single-
based music aimed at teenagers) and rock (album-based music for adults) (“What
is rock?”). Or, like Bono once said: “pop music often tells you everything is ok,
4
while rock music tells you that it’s not ok, but you can change it” (The Illustrated
Encyclopedia of Music, p 74).
According to the article “What is rock?”, rock music has been essentially a hybrid
form since this genre arouse as the mixture of county and blues. Although African
American music was at the center of this mix, rock resulted from what white
musicians, with their own folk histories and pop conventions, did with African
American music, and with issues of race and race relations. Although rock and
roll had rural origins (from the United States, Atlantic Ocean, and throughout
Europe), the rock audience was from the start urban, an anonymous crowd
seeking an idealized sense of community and sociability in dance halls and clubs,
on radio stations, and in headphones. Rock’s central appeal has been its ability to
provide globally an intense experience of belonging, whether to a local scene or a
subculture. Therefore, rock history can be organized around the sound of the cities
(Philadelphia, San Francisco, New York, Liverpool, and Manchester) and the
spread of youth cults like rock and roll, heavy metal, punk, grunge etc.
Rock music is better understood in terms of general use of technology rather than
by its use of one specific instrument, like guitar for example. Early rock and roll
stars’ success (Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly) did not depend only on the basis of
their vocal skills, but also on the sound tricks in the studio made by their sound
engineers. Similarly, guitar did not become central rock instrument because of its
acoustic qualities, but mostly because of the use of its amplifier. Multitrack tape
recording at the beginning, and then digital recording, made possible a
manipulation of various sounds that shifted the boundaries between music and
noise. Due to the breaking of technical limits of sound amplification, new
electronic instruments such as drum machine would eventually occur. This
constant pursuit of new sounds and new sound devices distinguished rock music
from other popular music forms.
Although rock music is produced, promoted, and sold by extremely successful
and sophisticated multinational corporations, it still somehow remains
noncommercial type of music. This non-commercialism is not shown in its
processes of production but in the motivation of its makers and listeners, in terms
5
of what, in rock, makes a piece of music or musician valuable. The defining term
in rock ideology is authenticity. As opposed to pop music, rock contains
expression of performer’s or composer’s feelings and the authentic representation
of social situation.
The effect of rock’s musical promiscuity, its use of technology, and its emphasis
on the individual voice is a unique sonic presence. Rock music has a remarkable
power to dominate the soundscape and to tempt the listener into the performers’
emotional lives.
2.2 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ROCK MUSIC
Because of the America’s military action in Vietnam during the mid-1960s, which
was escalating out of control, students from all over the world became more
politically involved; youth movements such as civil rights and feminism became
hot social issues, which were frequently accompanied by drug consumption.
Accordingly, certain strains of popular music melded attitude, experimentation
and social conscience, which resulted in the newly defined rock genre. Opposed to
the pop style, which had a reputation of tame musical style meant for oldies and
prepubescent teenagers, rock genre provided heavy dose of realism, serving as an
introspective outlet for a growing number of artists while expressing the concerns
of those who were no longer prepared to look at the world through rose-tinted
spectacles; Lennon style granny glasses, perhaps, but one who focused on hard-
hitting controversial topics rather than the innocent themes of boy-loves-girl, boy-
loses-girl (The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, p 74).
John Lennon and The Beatles led the way among the handful of artists who made
a successful transition from pop to rock. These included The Rolling Stones, The
Yardbrids, The Who, Bob Dylan, The Byrds, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and
Grateful Dead. As the result of the musical revolution that had exploded on both
sides of Atlantic a decade earlier, it was clear that rock was a new voice of youth
(p 74).
6
Figure 1: The Beatles
(Source: http://img29.picoodle.com/img/img29/3/10/10/f_TheBeatlesYm_4926b78.jpg, 17 September 2009)
Breaking with the pop tradition of producing catchy, jukebox-friendly three-
minute songs, vocally emotional acts like Janis Joplin and Joe Cocker, as well as
blues-based hard rock bands like Cream and the Jimmy Hendrix Experience
started to indulge themselves and their followers with far lengthier songs that
were often distinguished by extended instrumental solos. These acts paved the
way for subsequent decades’ acts of metal, progressive, jam, and arena rock
bands. Even though this kind of music was meant for mind rather for the body, it
was not long before the record companies tried to match the popularity of so-
called supergroups like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin (p 76).
In a world of Alice Cooper and David Bowie’s extravagant glam rock
performances, people were pushing for bigger sounds onstage and in the studios,
and concerts were getting more majestic and impressive. It was as if excess was
equated with success. It was evident that only twenty years after the revolutionary
rock ‘n’ roll music of Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, whose
music had inspired teenagers, outraged parents, and revolutionized Western
culture, contemporary music somehow lost touch with original message of rock
music; promoted instrumental virtuosity was completely opposite to easy-to-play,
7
do-it-yourself appeal of early rock ‘n’ roll. Punk rock, which came along, harshly
shook up current, sterile musical atmosphere (p 77).
Figure 2: Led Zeppelin
(Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7d/LedZeppelin1969Promo.jpg, 18 September 2009)
Between 1976 and 1978, the British punks in particular pumped up the aggressive
and rough attitude that was characteristic for their 1950s rock predecessors. Punks
“quite literally spat in the face of authority, middle-class values and, just for the
hell of it, one another” (The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, 2003, p 77). The
most famous acts of punk rock were Sex Pistols and The Clash, whose songs
expressed the frustration and disenchantment of disaffected youth. Almost as soon
as punk movement became an international phenomenon, it started to disintegrate;
it was getting hijacked by kids from comfortable backgrounds who did not have a
clue about life on streets, and it was even undermined by artists themselves, who
rather embraced commercialism over independence when signing with major
record labels. Despite the effort that record companies made in maintaining and
broadening punk’s appeal, and associating numerous more mainstream acts with
this genre from which hybrid “new wave” style occurred, punk rock somehow
8
started to lose its well-known and powerful message; punk music started to fade
away, while MTV pop music generation was getting more and more popular
(p 77).
Once easy to categorize, rock music continued to fragment into different
subgenres. At the same time, with a music style most similar to vintage rock ‘n’
roll which consequently had the most far-reaching impact on the subsequent rock
scene, the alternative-indie style served as a catch-all for various musical styles.
Grunge genre emerged from dissonant, early 1970s heavy metal guitars with
hostile attitude, alienated lyrics and aggressive music of punk; Nirvana and Pearl
Jam, whose music appeared in the first half of the 1990s, were the leading acts of
this rock genre (p 77).
Figure 3: The Clash
(Source: http://www.virginmedia.com/microsites/music/slideshow/best_cover_versions/img_7.jpg, 19 September 2009)
At the beginning of the 21st century rock music keeps subdividing and reinventing
itself, continually absorbing new influences from other musical spheres. Because
of this mutation process it also lacks freshness and vitality; due to the cultural
influence of some other music genres such as rap and hip hop, rock music no
longer shapes opinions to the extent that it once did (p 77).
9
2.3 SOCIOPOLITICAL ISSUES AND ROCK MUSIC
There is a long history of connection between music and politics, particularly
political expression in music. This political expression portrays specific political
messages that are found in numerous protest songs such as anti-war songs,
patriotic songs, national anthems and political campaigns (“Music and politics”).
Throughout the musical history, numerous political songs have been created.
Musicians have found inspiration for writing about political issues in specific
historical events they have witnessed. In addition, to completely understand a
song’s political message, listener has to be familiar with sociopolitical
background of the time in which specific song was created.
Period from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s represented for the first time in the
history of popular music tight connection with political issues. Andy Bennet (pp
24-25) suggests that the counter-culture movement of the years 1965 to 1970,
together with politicized rock music that shaped many of its central ideas,
represented a significant period in the post war youth cultural history. Certainly,
this was not the first time that music commented on sociopolitical issues. Prior to
that time, folk music of the early 1960s (Bob Dylan) had dealt with various
political issues. But prior to the mid 1960s, popular music had been considered by
many to be too firmly located in the arms of capitalism, and thus being too
commercial for some deeper connection with sociopolitical ideas. During the mid
1960s, however, it became clear that such a view of popular music was
oversimplistic; that there was scope for artistic control of musical and lyrical
content and for the dissemination of values which, in some cases, were anti-
hegemonic from the point of view of capitalist ideology. The shakedown which
would end this kind a of treatment of music began around 1965 when young
people’s experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs, notably LSD, and alternative
lifestyles drew them to the experimental music of psychedelic rock groups, like
Pink Floyd and The Grateful Dead, in the locations of London and San Francisco.
Equally important was the intellectualization of lyrics where the triviality of pop
lyrics was replaced by “rock-poetry” lyrics that expressed more serious feelings of
the new age.
10
Basis for the strong connection between music and politics from mid to late 1960s
was the counter-culture movement. The dominant sociological interpretation of
the counter-culture suggests that it consisted of white middle-class youth who
were disillusioned with the way their parent culture “controlled” society and they
did not want to become a part of this kind of social orientation themselves. That
was the case mostly in Great Britain and the USA. Disillusioned youth attacked
mainly institutions which reproduce the dominant cultural and ideological
relations – family, education, media, marriage etc. Parents largely contributed to
their children’s condemnation of existing society. Not by their words, but by their
actions, attitudes, and manner of living. Youth frequently witnessed the lifeless
life of their “successful” parents whose marriages often broke up because there
was nothing to hold them. In their homes, youth often felt despair and
estrangement. Parents somehow created the culture of technocracy, “a social form
in which industrial society reaches the peak of its organizational integration”, as
some sociologists like to define this term. In perception of society, the world of
technocracy was equated with idealism. From the point of view of the counter-
culture, this bourgeois world of parent culture was completely unacceptable for
human feelings and creativity. Therefore, the only solution for young people, the
disaffected middle-class youth, was to reject this kind of society and create a new
way of life (pp 26-27).
However, it is difficult to completely define the term counter-culture. It would be
falsely to think that counter-culture included only white middle-class and that the
sociopolitical discontent was a result of several cross-classes, usually working and
white middle-class, actions only. Not only were people from a variety of social
and cultural groups involved in the counter-culture movement, but also the term
counter-culture itself was, in reality, simply a hypernym for shapeless range of
activities and ideologies which, for a brief period during the 1960s, found a
common voice. The counter-culture enabled wide range of groups to express their
discontent with society. These groups included: The civil-rights movement, the
young (especially college students and disaffected intellectuals), the peace and
anti-war movements, the poor, women, the human-potential movement, prisoners,
gays and lesbians, environmentalists, the old, the physically different (the
disabled, the very fat, the very tall, the very short) etc. In addition, the counter-
11
culture seemed to be a common point to a number of social groups and in each
case popular music functioned as a galvanizing force. Perhaps one of the most
notable document of connection between music and counter-culture ideology is
the film Easy Rider where two hippies use money acquired through drug
trafficking to buy chopperized motorcycles and finance a road trip to Florida. The
soundtrack for the film includes bands like Steppenwolf, The Jimmy Hendrix
Experience, The Byrds, The Band and The Electric Prunes, whose music is
carefully used as a musical commentary that illustrates close relationship between
the songs’ lyrics and the knowledge, views and aspirations of those seeking out
alternative ideologies and lifestyles across the USA during the late 1960s (p 29).
During the mid to late 1960s music became a centrally significant medium for the
dissemination of a range of sociopolitical issues. Counter-culture embraced
several forms of organized protest movements against the dominant political
hegemony in the west. One of the most significant protest movements emerging
from the counter-culture was the anti-Vietnam war campaign. Demonstrators from
the USA and Western Europe worried about senseless nature of the Vietnam War
where already an enormous number of the dead was constantly increasing, and
accused the US government of interfering in the war and sending soldiers to
Vietnam who, in most cases, did not return back (p 33).
Many notable musicians of that time responded to the Vietnam War and replied
with anti-war songs. During the 1969 Woodstock festival, the psychedelic rock
band Country Joe and the Fish performed “I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag”, a
powerful anti-Vietnam war song that contributed much in popularizing the anti-
Vietnam war campaign (p 33). The song highly condemns the US government,
which was sending thousands of healthy young man to their deaths in the war
which only had an economic purpose (“Country Joe and the Fish”). This message
is clearly evident in the following lyrics:
And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for?
Don’t ask I don’t give a damn, the next stop is Vietnam…
You can be first ones on the block
to have your boy come home in a box
12
Other notable songs that criticize the US government interfering in the Vietnam
War are definitely “The Unknown Soldier” by The Doors and later, Bruce
Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” which has often been misinterpreted as the
American patriotic song.
However, the anti-Vietnam war campaign was largely ineffective in its efforts to
end the war and eventual withdrawal of the US military from Vietnam was not a
result of the campaign, nor the satirical attacks of the musicians. Victory of the
Vietcong in the 1968 Tet offensive and the escalating costs of the US involvement
in the war were much more significant in starting peace process than a dozen
marches on Washington, or a thousand protest songs. Nevertheless, the efforts of
the anti-Vietnam war campaign resulted in some success (Bennet, p 34)
Later, during the 1970s, several movements that concerned sociopolitical issues
occurred. Famous movement of this type was definitely “Rock Against Racism”.
The article “Rock Against Racism” says that this movement was set up in the
United Kingdom in 1976 as a response to a racial conflict and the growth of white
nationalists groups such as the National Front, a British conservative, whites-only
political party whose major political activities were intense during the 1970s and
1980s. The campaign included rock and some reggae and pop musicians
performing concerts with an anti-racist theme in order to discourage young people
from embracing racist views. The campaign was also founded as a response to
statements and activities by some well-known rock musicians that were widely
regarded as racists.
Rock Against Racism organized several music festivals to act against the growing
wave of racist attacks. In spring 1978, London was a place of the major Rock
Against Racism festival. It has been reported that 80,000 people marched six
miles from Trafalgar Square to East End of London (a National Front hotspot) for
an open air concert. The concert featured several rock and punk rock bands among
which The Clash were most famous. Later, in the same year in July, another
notable “Rock Against Racism” concert was organized in Manchester, where
25,000 people joined the Northern Carnival concert (“Rock Against Racism”).
13
Most honorable acts performing at the concert were punk rock band Buzzcocks
and reggae band Steel Pulse (The Northern Rock Against Racism Festival”).
Rock music was connected in the 1980s and 1990s through a number of charitable
concerts such as Live Aid in 1985. Live Aid was a multi-venue rock music
concert held on July the 13th 1985. The event was organized to raise funds for
famine relief in Ethiopia. The concert was held simultaneously in Wembley
Stadium, London (attendant by 82,000 people) and JFK Stadium, Philadelphia
(attendant by nearly 100,000 people). It was one of the largest television broadcast
concerts of all time; an estimated 400 million viewers across 60 countries watched
live broadcast. Numerous world-wide famous rock artists performed at Live Aid.
A list of these musicians is pretty long so I will name only some of them: Queen,
Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, U2, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, The
Who, Dire Straits and many others (“Live Aid”). The sequel of Live Aid, Live 8
concert, was organized twenty years later in 2005. In addition, Brian Lonhghurst
(p 118) thinks that such huge events might raise the consciousness of the public
about various sociopolitical issues and political figures like Nelson Mandela.
Furthermore, they could deepen artist involvement in politics and contribute to
political change.
In the recent musical history, many rock artists dealing with various sociopolitical
issues emerged. Specific sociopolitical situations that were experienced by
musicians, forced them to write songs containing different sociopolitical themes.
The Irish band U2, whose songs will be interpreted in detail in chapter 4, is
definitely one of the most famous bands whose career has been deeply touched by
various sociopolitical issues.
14
3 MUSIC AND METAPHORS
3.1 EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS IN MUSIC
There would be difficult to find general agreement of how emotions are expressed
in music. Some theorists and linguists claim that emotion description should be
understood literally. They believe that music is somehow related to real emotions,
or to be more precise, their claim supports and idea that the main function of all or
most music is to express emotions, to arouse emotions, or to represent emotions.
However, Nick Zangwill (p 391) cannot possibly accept this allegation. He, on the
other hand, is convinced that emotion descriptions are metaphorical descriptions
of aesthetic properties. According to this view, music itself has nothing essential
to do with emotion.
Since this chapter is about metaphors, it would be appropriate in the beginning to
define the word “metaphor”. Metaphor is:
“a figure of speech in which one image, capable of comparison with
another, is substituted directly or by implication for that other image. It is
an implied comparison of unlike objects. The metaphorical relation has
been described as comparison, contrast, analogy, similarity, juxtaposition,
identity, etc.” (Jurak, p 224), (e.g.: crying river, Juliet is the sun, howling
wind, all the world’s stage).
Zangwill believes that emotions are essentially mental states that person has,
which have content, qualitative character, and distinctive rationalizations.
Emotions like anger, pride or fear could easily be applied to people because we
feel something in a certain way. When emotions (anger, pride, and fear are, of
course, only some of many other ones) are applied to a person, the meaning is
likely to be literal, but when they are attached to the word sky for example
(“angry sky”), the meaning is likely to be metaphorical (p 393).
The function of the music is to generate aesthetic properties that depend of
sounds. Crucially, the host of such aesthetic properties like beauty, elegance, and
15
daintiness for instance, are described by us metaphorically. As far as emotion
description is concerned, many people embrace the phenomenological theory
which says that music “moves” us when we listen to it, and generates emotions in
us, which we project onto the music when we describe it in emotion terms. It is
true that music affects us and makes us feel a certain way, but what we feel are
not the emotions that correspond to emotion description of music. Aesthetic
theory of music claims that ordinary emotions are neither part of either immediate
creation nor the immediate reception of music; what we feel when experiencing
music are not ordinary emotions that we often falsely ascribe to music, such as
pride or anger (pp 394-395). Nevertheless, in some live performances (for
example a live performance of “Sunday bloody Sunday” by U2, as we will see in
the following chapter), real emotions, such as anger for instance, could easily be
applied to music.
For more thorough understanding of this theory, I shall provide an example of it.
Suppose we are listening to the music that we describe in terms of “negative”
emotions, such as grief, melancholy, or despair. It would be insane if we wanted
to experience music with these characteristics because we certainly do not want to
make ourselves miserable. It is not that we would like to feel grief, melancholy, or
despair, and we want to experience more such feelings; that would indeed be
crazy. Instead, we experience characteristics of the music that we describe
metaphorically as sad, melancholy, and desperate, and this way of experiencing
such characteristics yields pleasure of the certain sort; these metaphorically
described aesthetic features of the music is what we enjoy. Or in case we listen to
the music we describe as “angry”. If we are really angry, we should believe or at
least entertain the thought that someone has wronged us, and if we imagine anger,
we should imagine state with such normative characteristics. But nothing like this
is true in experiencing angry music. It is more natural to describe such experience
as the experience of anger in music, which is a metaphorical description of the
content of our own musical experience (pp 397, 398). This way of experiencing
music allows that listening to the music causes feelings of pleasure and
displeasure (sometimes intense and ecstatic pleasures and displeasures), and
metaphors can describe what causes such pleasures. Such pleasures and
displeasures, which have the music as their intentional objects, are the grounds of
16
judgment of taste (or aesthetic value) about music. However, such pleasures and
displeasures are quite different from emotions such as pride or anger, which
emotion descriptions would describe if taken literally.
If I conclude, according to Zangwill’s theory (the aesthetic metaphor thesis), we
use emotion descriptions (anger, pride, melancholy, happiness, boredom etc.) to
describe the substantive aesthetic features of music that make it aesthetically good
or bad. In this kind of experiencing music, there is no room for ordinary emotions;
not in creation nor in reception of music (pp 394, 396, 398, 399).
3.2 MUSIC AS A METAPHOR
When we search a specific meaning or a message in a particular song, we usually
focus on a song’s lyrics. But interpreting specific song is not only investigating its
lyrical, but also its instrumental or musical part. If we focused only on lyrics, we
would deal with poetry. In addition, interpreting songs is the mixture of both,
lyrical and musical part, where the latter is at least as important as the lyrics
themselves.
Music has ability to deliver specific messages instead of words. It can play a role
of a metaphor by itself and bring out messages that mere words are unable to.
With words or action, music can establish a context which has a function much
like that of a linguistic metaphor. What is interesting about musical metaphor is
not only that it can refer to the specific thing in music (for instance a flying
plane), but it also has an ability to express the function of that specific thing (the
movement of the flying plane). If a listener wants to understand the function of an
object in the music, a clear context in which the movement of the object is
exhibited must be provided; distinctive context might contain listener’s clear
understanding of background information of the specific musical piece, a
distinctive major chord that contrasts the other chords etc. (Krantz, pp 352, 354).
For instance, in rock music we might find such examples in Aerosmith’s song
“Spaced” where synthesizers and guitars mimic the sounds of alien spaceship, or
in Ronnie Montrose’s “Bad Motorscooter” where Montrose’s highly distorted,
17
feedbacking slide guitar imitates the sound of a motor accelerating and even
changing gears (Kennedy). I will present similar examples of such musical
metaphors in subsequent chapter where I am going to interpret specific U2 songs
in which instruments’ mimicking of the specific events is clearly evident.
In their “Something in the Way She Moves”-Metaphors of Musical Motion,
Johnson and Larson (pp 65-66) claim that when we talk about music as a
metaphor, we have in mind a specific musical motion. Musical motion is a kind of
a metaphorical motion that takes place within the metaphorical space. Within this
motion we experience objects moving towards and passing us, and we experience
ourselves moving from one point to another along some path, and so we develop
our sense of moving from one place to another. In music, segments of a musical
path are called passages. Musical motion is a concept that we unreflectively use to
describe our own musical experience. Nevertheless, we have to bear in mind that
musical motion is anything but clear, literal, and unproblematic.
Something that is “coming” in a piece of music we are listening to, exists in a
musical space in front of the hearer and moves towards the hearer. When it
reaches the hearer it is experienced (heard), because it now exists in a present
moment. Once the musical event passes the hearer, it exists only in the memory in
the past, that is, in the metaphorical space behind the hearer. Phrases like “here
comes the recapitulation”, “the strings slow down here”, and “the music goes
faster here” describe the metaphorical motion of a musical event as moving
towards and then passing us. This journey of a piece of music is called the
“moving music metaphor” (p 69). Piece of music also move at some speed, and in
musical motion we call this speed a tempo; we describe music as fast or slow and
the way music moves might be marked by words like creep, crawl, stumble, fly,
slow down etc. We could compare the experiencing of the musical motion
described in the “moving music metaphor” to the everyday physical motion of
objects that move through the real physical space. These physical objects are
equivalent to the musical events that occur in the metaphorical musical motion (pp
69-71).
18
When we experience a bit of music, we also metaphorically travel through the
musical passage of the musical motion. We (listeners) take a journey over the path
that defines the particular piece of music being heard. The point where the
musical traveler (someone who is listening to the music) is at the moment during
his journey through the musical passage, is what musical traveler (listener) hears
at the moment. What has already been heard, is conceptualized as points in the
musical passage that are behind the traveler-listener, whereas parts of music not
yet heard, are the points in the passage that traveler-listener will encounter later.
This explains our expressions like “once you reach the refrain, the dissonant part
is behind you”, “we are approaching the refrain”, “the melody rises up ahead”
etc., when experiencing a specific musical work. Such metaphorical movement of
ours through the musical passage is called the “landscape metaphor” (pp 71-72).
Music has strong ability to affect us or to “move” us. By the metaphorical
movement of the musical events through the musical passages and our own
metaphorical movement through this passage, music arouses in us specific inner
states, sensations, and thoughts that we interpret to ourselves metaphorically.
Music is not the notes on the scores nor merely the vibrations that we hear as
sounds. On the contrary, it is our whole vast reach experience of sounds
synthesized by us into the meaningful patterns that extend over time. The
experience of musical motion is the product of our imagination. Importantly, the
way we experience a piece of music depends much on how we understand it. But
there is no rule of how we should understand a particular piece of music (pp 77,
78). One can interpret one distinct musical work in terms of whatever one likes.
Some of the interpretations may be more promising, but there is no general
statement which one is correct (Krantz, p 356).
Music “exists” on the intersection of organized sounds with our
sensory-motor apparatus, our bodies, our brains, our cultural values and
practices, our music-historical conventions, our prior experiences, and a
host of other social and cultural factors. Consequently, musical motion is
really experienced by us, albeit via our imaginative structuring of sounds
(Larson and Johnson, p 78)
19
4 U2
4.1 INTRODUCTION OF THE BAND
“We’re one, but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other, carry each other…One”
(“One” by U2)
The band U2 was formed in 1978 when the drummer, Larry Mullen Jr., pinned the
advert “musicians wanted” on the board at the Mount Temple School in Dublin.
After having read the advert, four teenagers gathered in Larry Mullen Jr.’s
kitchen. Their names were: Paul Hewson (known as “Bono”, the singer), David
Evans (known as “The Edge”, the guitarist), Larry Mullen Jr. (the drummer), and
Adam Clayton (the bass player). Four teenagers started to rehearse in Larry’s
kitchen which was approximately as large as the drum kit Larry uses today. In the
beginning, the members of the band were not skillful musicians. Bono
humorously likes to say nowadays that U2 had become a band before they could
play. Despite the lack of their talent and skills, initial U2 performances were
garnished with honesty, passion and energy; Bono’s charisma and connection
with audience was already evident in the beginning of his career. About the
beginning of their career, The Edge once said: “Realizing that actually not
knowing how to play was not a problem…music was more about energy and
trying to say something and not necessarily about great musicianship” (“The
Essentials”). The breaking point in U2’s career was March the 17th when U2 won
the talent contest in Limerick, Ireland. They received a reward of 500 pounds and
a chance to audition for CBS records. From the talent contest on, the band’s name
has been U2; earlier the band would have called themselves as “Feedback” or
“The Hype”. Soon, U2 with their manager, Paul McGuiness, would sign a
contract with Island Records (“Early Days – Irish Shows”).
20
Figure 4: early U2 (from left to right: Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr.,
Bono, The Edge)
(Source: http://www.morethings.com/music/u2/u2-100.jpg, 22 October 2009)
U2 recorded their first album Boy in 1980. Despite the promising start of their
career, the band had not achieved broader international recognition until the
release of the album War in 1983. The most famous two songs on the album are
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Year’s Day”. U2’s definite leap into the
worldwide recognition was famous Live Aid concert in 1985 which made U2
more relevant act in the world of rock music. Many rock fans and critics claim
that beside the outstanding performance of the band Queen, U2’s performance of
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Bad” was the climax of the Live Aid concert.
U2’s career was getting more and more successful. The album The Joshua Tree,
released in 1987, propelled U2 into the stardom of Rock ‘n’ roll music. In the UK
the album went platinum in 48 hours, making it by then the fastest selling record
ever recorded. Subsequently, the album topped the charts in 22 countries. Until
today, the album has been sold in more than 20 million copies worldwide. It also
won the Grammy awards for the “Album of the year” and “Best rock
performance”, and gave hits like “Where The Streets Have No Name”, “I Still
Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and “With Or Without You” (“VH1
21
Legends” DVD). The band was even put on the cover of Time magazine with the
headline “Rock’s hottest ticket”. It was only the fourth time a band made it to the
cover following The Beatles, The Band, and The Who. Without a question, U2
became the biggest band in the world. Extremely successful 1980s ended for U2
in 1989 with a series of four late December shows at The Point Depot in Dublin
when Bono announced that “this is the end of something for U2…we have to go
away and…and dream it all up again” (“The Essentials”). It was the
announcement that some new era in the music of U2 is about to arrive on the
horizon.
In the beginning of the 1990s, U2 made a huge change in their musical style.
Their songs contained dance rhythms, darker mood, and some electronic
melodies. The product of this kind of musical style was the album Achtung Baby,
released in 1991. At first, the album aroused shock and astonishment in U2 fans,
but soon it would become one of their most acclaimed albums ever. Many fans
consider this album even better then The Joshua Tree. Although album did not
give major no. 1-chart hits, it contains many excellent songs like the beautiful
“One”, “Mysterious Ways”, “The Fly”, “Until The End Of The World”, etc. The
album was the basis for the most unusual and extravagant tour seen so far, the
“ZOO TV tour”. The stage contained a “130-foot video wall juxtaposing 24-hour
hard news, shopping channel ephemera and postmodern slogans to ramp up the
irony levels like a phrase “EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG”. “ZOO
Figure 5: U2 on the cover of Time
Magazine (Source: http://www.u2.com/gallery/index/index/galleryID/14, 22 October 2009)
22
TV tour” was the answer to the enormous impact of the media on people at that
period of time; more sophisticated media technology started to develop and
people were surrounded by all kinds of different, often unnecessary news. It was
the time of the trivial “pop” culture and U2 were cynically making fun of that
(“The Essentials”). For example, during a concert, Bono interrupted a set list and
made satellite calls to the President Bush in the White House, ordered 10.000
pizzas, or parodied pop stars narcissism. “ZOO TV tour” lasted almost two years
(“VH1 Legends” DVD).
Figure 6: ZOO TV stage
(Source: http://u2fanlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/zoo-tv-escenario.jpg, 22 October 2009)
In the beginning of the 21st century, U2 somehow returned to their roots as far as a
musical style is concerned. Their songs were once again shaped by the pure sound
of guitars, drums and vocals. The result of this kind of musical approach was the
album All That You Can’t Leave Behind, another great U2 album released in fall
2000. Album was followed by the subsequent “Elevation tour”, which was total
opposition to the “ZOO TV tour” or later “POPMART tour”. The stage had a
shape of the heart, and the whole setting was very minimalist. It was like playing
a club gig where the connection with the crowd is more genuine. Some of the
greatest U2 concerts happened on the “Elevation tour”, like those in Boston and
23
Slane Castle, Ireland. The last U2 album recorded so far has been “No Line On
The Horizon”, released in early 2009.
Figure 7: U2 today (from left to right: Adam Clayton, Bono, The Edge, and
Larry Mullen Jr.)
(Source: http://missionalcanadian.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/u2-2.jpg, 22 October 2009)
U2 has been present in the rock scene up until today and being regarded as
one of the most important and influential rock bands in the history of rock ‘n’
roll. They have sold more than 150 million albums worldwide and won 22
Grammy awards. In March 2005 they were inducted in the rock ‘n’ roll Hall
of fame (“The Essentials”). U2 has never been a pure rock band – famous
rock label “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” never fit into their musical style. I
would say they have been far more than that; instead of flamboyant rock ‘n’
roll lifestyle they rather try to set piece in the relationships between Northern
Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, spread love between people, fight for
24
human rights and equality, write songs dedicated to the people of Sarajevo, to
Martin Luther King Jr. or Billie Holiday and so on.
Bruce Springsteen, the legendary rock musician described U2 at the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony as “the keepers of some of the most
beautiful sonic architecture in the rock-and-roll world” (“The Essentials”).
4.2 SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY
“Sean and Julia, Gareth, Ann and Breeda Their lives are bigger, than any big idea”
(“Peace On Earth” by U2)
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” was released in 1983 on the album War. The song’s
name refers to two tragic terrorist attacks in the history of the Troubles in
Northern Ireland, widely known as “Bloody Sunday”. Despite the clear reference
of the song’s name to these two events, Sunday Bloody Sunday is, according to
band’s comments on this song, not specifically about Bloody Sunday. It is about
horrible acts of terrorism and wars in general.
According to the article “Bloody Sunday 1920”, the first Bloody Sunday occurred
on the 21st of November 1920 during the Irish War of Independence when thirty-
one people were killed (fourteen British, fourteen Irish, and three republican
prisoners). First, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) killed fourteen people (twelve
of them were British) to which British forcers replied and struck back. They
started to shoot on the crowd at the Gaelic football match in Croke Park, Dublin,
and killed fourteen Irish civilians.
The more familiar (unfortunately) Bloody Sunday happened on Sunday, January
the 30th 1972. In the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, twenty-seven
innocent civilians, who were protesting during the Northern Ireland Civil Rights
Association march, were shot by the members of the British Army. Fourteen
people, of whom seven were teenagers, died. Many witnesses claim that all those
shot people were unarmed. The families of the shot people were campaigning for
some thorough inquiries about the event, but the exact reports about the incident
25
have not been presented yet, although they should have been long time ago
(“Bloody Sunday 1972”). Although many terrifying terrorist attacks have
happened in Northern Ireland since 1972, this Bloody Sunday remains one of the
most significant tragic events in the longtime ethno-political conflict in Northern
Ireland known as the Troubles .
The terrorist attacks that occured in Northern Ireland have roots in political and
religious arrangement of this country. The majority of the population in Northern
Ireland are Loyalist or Unionist who are overwhelmingly Protestants, while on the
other side, Nationalists or Republicans, who are predominantly Catholics, play
minor role in terms of population. The loyalists want Northern Ireland to remain
as a part of the United Kingdom, while the Nationalists wish Northern Ireland to
join the Republic of Ireland and be independent from the United Kingdom.
Loyalists have often discriminated against Republicans, which forced the latter to
campaign for civil rights movements and establish organizations like the Northern
Ireland Civil Rights Organization (organization that fought for civil rights for
Roman Catholic minority in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early
1970s). Discriminations of Loyalists against Republican have been the major
reason for the longtime ethno-political conflicts between these two political sides
known as the Troubles in Northern Ireland. This political unstable situation has
often led to some terrible incidents in which, unfortunately, many innocent people
lost their lives. The City of Derry (Londonderry), which is located near the Irish
and Northern Irish border and where Catholics represent the majority of
population, has often been the main target for various terrorist attacks (“Northern
Ireland”). Peace has been tried to set many times, like the agreement signed in
Belfast. The Belfast agreement was signed by the British and Irish governments
on April the 10th 1998 in Belfast and was a major political development in the
Northern Ireland peace process (“Belfast agreement). Despite this agreement,
terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland have not ceased until today. For example,
only few months after the Belfast agreement, IRA executed a car bomb attack in
Omagh, Northern Ireland. The result of the attack was devastating: 29 people
dead, more than 200 injured (“Omagh bombing”).
26
Figure 8: The memory of Bloody Sunday 1972 – banner and crosses carried
by the families of the victims on the annual commemoration march
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bloody_Sunday_Banner_and_Crosses.jpg, 31 October 2009)
“This song is not a rebel song, this song is Sunday Bloody Sunday” said Bono at
the beginning of the song at the “Red Rocks” concert in 1983 indicating that
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” is not a protest or a rebellious song, but an anti-war
song that calls for a peace not only in Northern Ireland, but also everywhere else
in the world. The song’s lyrics are straight-forward and quite easy to understand,
but they carry a strong message that begs for peace. Despite the religious, cultural
and political differences present in the world, we could, and we should live in a
peaceful environment. The last two lines in the first stanza deliver this message:
‘Cos tonight
We can be as one, tonight
Different acts of terrorism result in terrible consequences when innocent people
die, but it seems that the executors of terrorism and wars do not care about people
whose lives are more valuable than any other thing in the world, and whose
families and friends are left with nothing but painful sorrow and grief (the line
“The trenches dug within our hearts”). Some other interests that normal human
27
being can not understand are more important to the people that are responsible for
such terrible acts. The fourth stanza describes such situation:
And the battle’s just begun
There is many lost, but tell me who has won?
The trenches dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart.
It is important to mention that many U2 songs contain different religious
connotations and Sunday Bloody Sunday is no exception. Bono, like The Edge
and Larry Mullen Jr., is a Catholic and a very religious person who often finds
motivation for his lyrics in the Bible. Lines “And mothers, children, brothers,
sisters torn apart” paraphrase the text from the gospel of Matthew 10:35 (“Sunday
Bloody Sunday”). As far as this song is concerned, Bono mentioned that in the
song he tried to compare the historic Bloody Sunday events to Easter Sunday
which is the most important event in the religions of Catholics and Protestants
(McCormick, p 135). In my opinion, this is why the song is entitled “Sunday
Bloody Sunday”, where the first word “Sunday” is emphasized. In Catholicism,
Easter is about the resurrection of Jesus, which is described in the Gospel of John
20:1-9 (Stockman, p 49). The song’s last two stanzas are about Easter Sunday:
The real battle just begun
To claim the victory Jesus won
On…
Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday
Although the song was written a long time ago, it could easily fit into the present
moment, since the lyrics are about terrorism and wars, and these are getting more
frequent every single day. Although U2 could perform this song at every single
concert for the rest of their lives, Bono once said that they wish there will come a
time when they would not have to play this song again. As far as the song being
contemporary, I would like to emphasize the 8th stanza:
28
And it’s true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality.
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die.
The leaders of the most significant countries in the world, their governments, and
people in general do not care what is really going on in reality as far as terrorism
and wars are concerned. We are interested instead in trivial, shallow and
unimportant things that we usually watch on television; all kinds of the-same-
scenario soap operas, reality shows, or 30-second long educational headlines are
our reality. Why would we bother with insignificant issues like terrorism if such
terrible acts are present in the countries of the Middle East, for example, far away
from our homes? It is like we do not understand the simple sentence that occurs in
the first stanza “I can’t close my eyes and make it go away”. The line “We eat
and drink while tomorrow they die” is taken from the Bible, from the First Epistle
to the Corinthians 15:32 (“Sunday Bloody Sunday”).
“Sunday Bloody Sunday’s” instrumental is at least as important as its lyrical part.
Larry’s militaristic drumbeat, The Edge’s guitar that becomes louder and harsher
as we move to the end of the song, the electric violin part, and Adam Clayton’s
bass result in the song’s protest mood and atmosphere. Bono garnishes militaristic
mood of the song with his aggressive singing. Guitars are in many U2 songs the
most important instrument, whereas in “Sunday Bloody Sunday” drums take a
central role. The article “Sunday Bloody Sunday” suggests that trough his
drumming, Larry Mullen Jr. metaphorically represents a military band and
soldiers walking, which gives the song a military mood and indicates that a battle
field is ready for a fight.
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” is among U2’s best songs with some memorable and
amazing live performances. In 1983 at the Red Rocks concert in the “War tour”,
Bono came on stage marching like a soldier and carrying a white flag during
Larry Mullen Jr.’s drum solo in the middle of the song. The song’s message and
its military mood were perfectly presented in this scene (“Under a Blood Red
Sky” DVD).
29
On the 8th of November 1987, the IRA placed a bomb in Enniskillen, Northern
Ireland. The bomb exploded during the Remembrance Sunday commemoration
ceremony. Remembrance Sunday is the second Sunday in November and the
closest one to November the 11th, which is Remembrance Day, the day when the
Commonwealth of Nations commemorate the people who died during the First
World War (“Remembrance Day bombing; Remembrance Sunday”). Eleven
people died that day in Enniskillen and many more were injured. It was one of the
most brutal terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland. The same day, U2 had a concert
in Denver. Bono was devastated after having heard the news. His singing of
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” was harsh and aggressive, expressing his rage. In the
middle of the song, he condemned the Enniskillen bombing and terrorist attacks in
general while saying:
And let me tell you somethin'. I've had enough of Irish Americans who
haven't been back to their country in twenty or thirty years come up to me
and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home...and the glory of
the revolution...and the glory of dying for the revolution. Fuck the
revolution! They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution.
What's the glory in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in
front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the
glory in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old age pensioners, their
medals taken out and polished up for the day. Where's the glory in that?
To leave them dying or crippled for life or dead under the rubble of the
revolution, that the majority of the people in my country don't want. No
more! (“Rattle and Hum” DVD).
I would like to conclude this chapter with U2’s live performances in 2005 during
their “Vertigo tour”. During “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, Bono wore a ribbon tied
around his forehead. On that ribbon the “COEXIST” word was written. The letter
C was written in the shape of a crescent presenting the Islamic religion, the letter
X in the shape of the Star of David, presenting Jewish religion, and the letter T
depicting the Christian cross which is the symbol of Christianity. Bono pointed to
these religious signs and said: “Jesus, Jew, Mohamed, it’s true. All sons of
Abraham” (“Live from Chicago” DVD). This is a very beautiful message that
30
calls for coexistence between various religions around the world, but despite the
beauty and depth of this message, I am afraid that living in coexistence today is
utopia since extremists in religious ideologies nowadays usually generate terrible
terrorist attacks and wars. Every normal person wants to live in a peaceful
environment but I am afraid that this is, unfortunately, in today’s society
impossible. “Sunday bloody Sunday” contains the lines:
How long must we sing this song?
How long, how long?
I am afraid we will have to sing this song for quite a long time, or maybe even
forever.
Figure 9: Sign “COEXIST” depicted on the screen during the U2’s “Vertigo tour”
(Source: http://www.anacampos.ch/Photogallery%20New/BSC01950.JPG , 2
November 2009)
31
4.3 BULLET THE BLUE SKY
“America, when will we end the human war?” (from “America” by Allen Ginsberg)
“Bullet The Blue Sky” is U2’s one of the most significant political songs which
harshly condemns the USA foreign policy under the presidency of Ronald Regan.
The song was released on the album The Joshua Tree in 1987. U2’ autobiography
U2 by U2, edited by McCormick (p 177) says that in terms of writing the album
The Joshua Tree, U2 was traveling around the USA seeking the themes for the
upcoming album. Before their journey the band had not know much about
America, its tradition, literature, landscape etc. But while traveling around the
country, the band members somehow fell in love with the country, especially with
its distinctive landscape of the south-western desert area and the rich tradition of
the literature and its writers. However, in that time, in the middle of the 1980s, the
reality of the USA was something completely different. It was the time of the
Wall Street phenomenon where money, winning, and greed were more important
than any other thing in the society of the USA. It was no time for losers in that
materialistically developing country, which was relentlessly “bombing” its
citizens and people from other countries around the world with its capitalistic
mentality and popular, spending oriented culture. This kind of mentality also
reflected on the US policy which did not feel unease when meddling in someone
else’s affairs. U2 experienced these two different faces of the USA. They were
enchanted by America, but not the real one from the television, but America’s
dream, its spiritual richness, and the one that Martin Luther King, Jr. believed in.
Through their songs, U2 expressed these two different as night and day sides of
the USA; after all, like Bono said, album The Joshua Tree should have been
initially entitled as “The two Americas”.
Bono wrote the lyrics for “Bullet The Blue Sky” after he himself had witnessed a
horrifying killing and kidnapping of peasants in Central America and destroying
their houses. Bono was interested in what was going on in Nicaragua and El
Salvador in the middle of the 80s, which was the big political issue in that time. In
El Salvador Bono joined Sanctuary, the group that supported and helped farmers
32
who were caught in a crossfire during the Civil War in El Salvador. Guerillas and
the government troops were terrorizing farmers and they were, what is the most
significant, backed up by the US forces which feared the Nicaraguan socialist
revolution would spread (p 177). In the 1980s, Nicaragua was the place where the
revolution of Sandinism started to develop. The article “Sandinism” suggests that
Sandinistas were spokesmen of various social improvements: social justice
influenced by Marxism, Christian liberation theology, nationalization of property
and natural resources, improved rural and urban conditions, control of living
costs, improvement of public services and education, freedom of speech, equality
of women, abolition of torture, political assassination and the death penalty,
international non-alignment etc. Opponents, fully supported by the US
government, believed that the Sandinista revolution would turn into Communism
like in Cuba. In addition, the Sandinista revolution had to be squashed because it
had the potential of spreading, and the USA would feel unsafe.
Bono went to a small village up in the mountains in El Salvador where he
experienced a horrible terrorizing of small villages. The government troops would
inform a rebel-sympathetic village that they were going to destroy it and
everybody had to leave, but people would not leave their homes, so there were
many casualties. There would be fire-bombing and mortaring. Bono, who almost
got himself into serious troubles during the bombing, was watching this horror
happening on another hillside, next door to where he was, but close enough to feel
this terror. Peasants, in Central America called “campesinos”, were not even
blaming their own government. It is like they were asking themselves: “Why do
we feel like this, who is destroying our lives, who is shaking the walls of our
houses?” And the answer would be: “Americanos.” This terrible experience
forced Bono to write lyrics for “Bullet The Blue Sky”, where he wanted to
describe this “hell on earth” being present in Central America (McCormick, 177,
179).
The lyrics of the songs that appear on the album The Joshua Tree are in general
more fundamental and poetic than the lyrics that occur on the albums prior to The
Joshua Tree, and “Bullet The Blue Sky” is no exception; the song’s lyrics are full
of metaphors and different allusions. Bono admitted that the lyrics on the first four
33
albums are not really lyrics at all, they are sketches. He was not really a writer; he
was more like a painter, an emoter or a shouter, somehow being afraid of the
failure in case of writing bad lyrics. So when creating The Joshua Tree album,
Bono spent more time on writing lyrics. He was also substantially encouraged by
the American writers and poets whose works he was reading during the U2’s
journey in the USA. Bono admired the Native American writing, the works of
black writers like James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison, and poets and playwrights
like Tennessee Williams, Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski
and Sam Shepard (177, 179).
Terrorism of the El Salvadoran countryside and its inhabitants is vividly described
in the stanzas 1, 2, and 4. The sound of the planes coming is metaphorically
described in the stanza 4 where the first two lines say: “In the locust wind
…Comes a rattle and hum”, and a crossfire probably being translated as “From
the firefly…A red orange glow”. By using metaphors, Bono definitely wants to
depict the horrifying situation in El Salvador as vividly as possible. Like many
other U2 songs, “Bullet The Blue Sky” also contains some Biblical references. In
the first stanza the lines that say “See it drivin’ nails… Into the souls on the tree
of pain” are obviously the reference to Jesus being nailed on the cross. By this
allusion, Bono emphasizes the suffering of people living in the El Salvadoran
countryside. Lines “Jacob wrestled the angel…And the angel was overcome”
refer to the story from the Bible when Jacob was wrestling with a man who
supposed to be an angel (Genesis 32:23-33). The story from the Bible describes
the Jacob’s deception of his twin brother Esau and his father Isaac in order to
receive a blessing. His fraudulent behavior represents evil winning over good, or
overcoming an angel who is the symbol of good and honesty. In “Bullet The Blue
Sky” Jacob might be the metaphor of the El Salvadoran government and the US
foreign policy terrorizing peasants, while an angel being the metaphor for the
farmers living in the countryside of El Salvador.
Graham and van Oosten de Boer (p 32) believe that “Bullet The Blue Sky” also
dramatizes the USA’s own angels and demons. The Ku Klux Klan sect, which is
known for its conservative beliefs, discrimination of blacks, torture and killing, is
34
described in the line “We see them burnin’ crosses” which occurs in the fifth
stanza:
You plant a demon seed
You raise a flower of fire.
We see them burnin’ crosses
See the flames higher and higher.
Bono contrasts this “demon” with the liberating spirit of John Coltrane and his “A
Love Supreme”. John Coltrane is mentioned in the eighth stanza in the line “As a
man breathes into his saxophone”. The comparison of the Ku Klux Klan to John
Coltrane, a demon versus an angel, is an excellent metaphoric description of the
USA as a double-faced country; the USA’s richness of its tradition, culture, and
landscape on side, and its birth of materialism, capitalism, and the foreign policy
being relevant in this song, on the other, much darker side. The similar
contradiction is achieved in the stanza 8 where the “John Coltrane” line “As a
man breathes into his saxophone” is immediately fallowed by the line “And
through the walls you hear the city grown”, exemplifying the pain that civilians of
El Salvador were going through.
The US foreign policy was especially active in Central America under the
presidency of Ronald Reagan, who was the president of the USA in years 1981-
1989. Bono remembered a man whose face was “red like a rose on a thorn bush”.
It was the face of Ronald Reagan who is described in the seventh stanza:
Suit and tie comes up to me
His face red like a rose on a thorn bush
Like all the colours of a royal flush
And he’s peelin’ off those dollar bills
(Slappin’ ‘em down)
One hundred, two hundred.
The song continues with the couplet “And I can see those fighter planes”, which
brings out the effect of cacophony, and together with the previous stanza
35
emphasizes the US foreign policy supplying the El Salvadoran government with
necessary military facilities and money. On May the 9th 1987, president Reagan
said:
San Salvador is closer to Houston, Texas, than Houston is to Washington,
D.C. Central America is America; it's at our doorstep, and it has become a
stage for a bold attempt, by the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua, to
install Communism by force throughout the hemisphere
(“Salvadoran Civil War”).
The US government sent overall 7 billion dollars of aid to the El Salvadoran
government in ten years (last three lines in the 7th stanza: “And he’s peelin’ off
those dollar bills…). Under the Reagan’s presidency the number of the US
military advisors largely increased in El Salvador, and the US army was even
training Salvadoran military at the School of the Americas, in Georgia. The US
government justified their deeds as preventing the revolutionary left-winged
political parties from terrorizing and killing civilians, which would be a serious
threat to the Salvadoran government, but that was just a lame excuse for
oppressing the Communism at all costs (“Salvadoran Civil War”). It was
unbelievable that the USA, the same people who represented liberty to the reset of
the world, were firebombing villages in El Salvador and trying to crush liberation
theology wherever it showed its righteous way. Of course, dictatorial political and
social arrangements like Communism must harshly be squashed, but Sandinistas
in Central America just wanted more rights and classless society.
The song’s end again metaphorically describes the suffering of peasants, of
women and children living in the El Salvadoran countryside (the line “See the rain
comin’ through the gapin’ wound”), whose destiny was in the hands of their own
government which was infamously supported by the Ronald Reagan’s foreign
policy.
36
See across the field
See the sky ripped open
See the rain comin’ through the gapin’ wound
Howlin’ the women and children
Who run into the arms
Of America.
Bullet The Blue Sky contains The Edge’s one of the most distinctive guitar solos.
Bono asked The Edge whether he could put El Salvador, this “hell on earth”
through his amplifier to convey a sheer horror he had went through in El Salvador
(McCormick, 179). Especially during his long guitar solo right before the song’s
last stanza, after Bono repeats the word “America” for three times, The Edge
metaphorically represents the fighter planes flying in the sky of El Salvador and
dropping bombs that explode on the ground (“U2 lists: top 10 political U2
songs”). Also at the beginning of the song, before the first stanza, The Edge’s
guitar mimics fighter planes flying and bombs exploding, which creates a dark,
gloomy atmosphere. Bono’s singing is aggressive, especially in the first part of
the song and during the chorus, where he expresses his rage and frustration about
killing and terrorizing innocent people, and accuses the US government for being
responsible for such terrible acts. His tone changes in the last part of the song
where he, in the last stanza, practically recites the words, expressing his sadness
while describing suffering of the El Salvadoran people.
The Salvadoran Civil War lasted for twelve years (1980-1992). During these years
approximately 75,000 people lost their lives. The El Salvadoran Government,
substantially supported by the US foreign policy, was killing and terrorizing
mostly peasants, but it did not feel unease to kill anybody who seemed to be an
obstacle on its way, or who showed a sympathy with the revolutionary left-
winged parties; these included clergy (man and women), church workers, political
activists, journalist, medical workers, liberal students and teachers, human-rights
monitors etc. However, revolutionary left-winged parties also violated human
rights of many Salvadorans and other individuals who showed the government’s
support. Revolutionists were executing terrorist bombings and were also torturing,
37
kidnapping, raping, and killing politicians, intellectuals, public officers, judges
etc. (“Salvadoran Civil War”).
It seems that El Salvador was just one of the several countries around the world in
whose political and social difficulties the USA interfered. The US foreign policy’s
trace could be found in some countries in Latin America, Vietnam, the Middle
East, Afghanistan…
4.4 SILVER & GOLD
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their
character.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
“Silver and Gold” was originally released in 1985 on the album Sun City, which
was a result of a collaboration of numerous famous musical artists who worked on
the album and recorded the song “Sun City” as the group called “Artists United
Against Apartheid”. The group, whose development and function is presented in
the article “Artist United Against Apartheid”, was founded by Steven Van Zandt,
nicknamed as “Little Steven”, who had been the member of The E Street Band
and had worked with Bruce Springsteen, but later decided to start a solo career.
During his visit to South Africa, Van Zandt was devastated by what he
experienced in a place called Sun City, a luxurious interracial gambling resort
located in the heart of a “bantustan”, nominally an independent homeland of black
Africans during apartheid, placed in the middle of the impoverished rural land.
Sun City resort was a symbol of the white South African society, which was
strongly oppressing human rights of black people during apartheid, and who had
the “right” to entertain itself in any way it wanted to. Therefore, many prominent
musical artists gathered and recorded the song “Sun City”, which condemns the
South African government’s treatment of blacks in the late 1980s during
apartheid. Artists who worked on the song and the album vowed that they would
never perform in the resort Sun City.
38
Version of “Silver and Gold” that appears on the album Sun City was recorded by
Bono with Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood from The Rolling Stones, but was
later re-recorded by U2 and appeared as a B-side on the single “Where The Street
Have No Name”. Although the song is about apartheid, some of the song’s lyrics
are not easy to interpret; for better understanding of the lyrics, a reader must be
more familiar with the political background of South Africa, while some of the
allusions in the song could be interpreted in different ways. Bono briefly
described the meaning of the song at the U2 concert in Denver in 1987. At the end
of the song, right before The Edge’s solo, Bono said:
Yep, silver and gold... This song was written in a hotel room in New York
city 'round about the time a friend or ours, Little Steven, was putting
together a record of Artists Against Apartheid. This is a song written
about a man in a shanty town outside of Johannesburg. A man who's sick
of looking down the barrel of white South Africa. A man who is at the
point where he is ready to take up arms against his oppressor. A man who
has lost faith in the peacemakers of the west while they argue and while
they fail to support a man like bishop Tutu and his request for economic
sanctions against South Africa. Am I buggin' you? I don't mean to bug
ya... Okay Edge, play the blues... (“Rattle and Hum” DVD).
During apartheid black people were racially segregated and forcefully moved to
one of the ten black African homelands called “bantustan”, which were mostly
located in the eastern and northeastern impoverished rural land of South Africa.
But many blacks also lived in peripheral parts of the larger cities in South Africa,
like the township Soweto (abbreviation for South Western Townships), located in
the southwestern peripheral area of Johannesburg. Blacks lived here in extremely
poor conditions, in falling apart barracks, where they were often terrorized and
arrested by the police. The first stanza in “Silver and Gold” describes these poor
living conditions in shanty towns. Bono describes these townships as “tin can
town”, “shithouse”, and by the metaphor that spreads through the first stanza’s
last four lines “No stars in the black night…chained to the ground”. In the 1980s
and especially in the last years of this decade, the political situation in townships
was extremely unstable and intense. Anti-apartheid protests movements by blacks
39
and various organizations escalated, to which the South African government
severely responded. The government undertook extraordinary measures in order
to squash protest movements in unrest areas and gave the police and military
every right to treat blacks as they wished. The result of these radical measures was
a rapidly-increasing number of arrests of blacks who were put in detention
without a trial. Many blacks were tortured in prison. By 1988, approximately
30.000 people had been detained (“South Africa under apartheid”). The third
stanza vividly depicts this torturing of black people, who were hanged and killed
in many cases. Helplessness of blacks is described by the lines “I scream at the
silence…It’s crawling, crawls under the door”. Stanza is concluded by the lines
“Jesus, say something! I am someone, I am someone”, which patently emphasizes
the human rights of blacks and them supposedly being equal with white people.
South Africa was primarily colonized by British and Dutch, with British being the
beginners of a racial segregation in the 19th century, which later, in 1948,
culminated in the segregation called apartheid. British invasion to South Africa
began in the beginning of the 20th century, around 1900, after the discovery of
enormous amounts of diamonds and gold, especially in the area around
Johannesburg, in province Gauteng. After all, the old nickname for Johannesburg
and its surrounding areas is “Place of gold” (“Gauteng”). As the colonialists and
the first settlers of South Africa, British are described in the fourth stanza:
Captains and Kings in the ship’s hold
They came to collect
Silver and gold, silver and gold.
Graham and van Oosten de Boer (p 40) suggest that Bono “stole” lyrics “Captains
and Kings” from an Irish writer Brendan Behan. “Captains and Kings” lyrics can
be found in the Behan’s poem “I Remember In September”, which is a part of his
collection of poems called “The Hostage”. In his poem, Behan despises British
government, its leaders, and their military actions (“I Remember In September”).
In “Silver and Gold” these Behan’s British political leaders are mentioned in the
fifth stanza where they, together with the US leaders, represent the Western
countries that put veto on economic sanctions against South Africa during
40
apartheid in the 1980s. According to the article “South Africa under apartheid”,
which thoroughly presents apartheid in South Africa, the USA and the UK that
were in the 1980s led by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, followed a
“constructive engagement” policy with the South African apartheid government,
believing in free trade and a vision of South Africa as a defender against
presumably Marxist forces originating from black people. However, by the late
1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, the USA and the UK’s support towards the
South African government started to melt, while their impatience with apartheid
system began to grow. Bono condemns the US and the UK foreign policy in terms
of apartheid in the fifth stanza, with the UK and the US leaders and officers
denoting as “Seen their navy blue uniforms”. Navy blue color got its name from
the dark blue worn by the officers of the British Royal Navy since 1748, and was
subsequently adopted by other navies around the world (“Navy blue”). In
addition, the line “Seen their navy blue uniforms” might refer to the British
colonists (Captains and Kings), as well as to the UK and the US leaders of the
navy or the military in general, since they usually wear navy blue uniforms. Their
rank and “importance” are depicted in the last line by the words “bright and shiny
things”:
I seen the coming and the going
Seen the captains and the Kings
Seen their navy blue uniforms
Seen them bright and shiny things, bright shiny things.
The sixth stanza represents the climax of the song’s theme, a time when black
people decide to stand up against the brutal apartheid regime. Unfortunately,
blacks often paid the price for their uprisings. Their decision to revolt against the
South African government is presented in the lines “The temperature is
rising…The fever white hot”, while the lines “Mister I ain’t got nothing…But it’s
more than you’ve got” correspond to the line “I am someone”, where the
significance of blacks in terms of human rights, their freedom, and spirituality
prevailing over materialism are emphasized. Undervalued status of black people
under the apartheid regime is metaphorically described by the lines “These chains
no longer bind me…Nor the shackles at my feet” where blacks are presented as
41
the prisoners. On the other hand, these two lines could also have literal meaning,
since many blacks were imprisoned, especially in the second half of the 1980s.
These two mentioned lines manifest the resistance of blacks against apartheid
regime and their struggle for freedom.
Bono creates a persona in the song; he puts himself in a role of a black person
who, in the first person singular, describes his status under apartheid regime.
Bono’s voice is calm and quiet at the beginning of the song, but later, especially
in the third and the sixth stanza in which terrorizing of black people and their
struggle for freedom are described, volume of his voice rapidly increases, he
literally screams expressing his simmering rage. It is also important to mention
that by repetition of the specific lines (“I am someone, I am someone”), Bono
emphasizes the song’s key message: equality of black and white people. Although
not literally, blacks and whites are mentioned in the song as adjectives in the
phrases “black night” and “white hot”.
The deep sound of the bass guitar creates in the first verse, together with Bono’s
quiet singing, a dreary, pessimistic atmosphere, which reflects the living
conditions in which black people live. The lead guitar does not enter until the
third verse when The Edge’s guitar accompanies the brutal treatment of a black
person. The same guitar playing by The Edge could also be noticed in the sixth
stanza, in which black people’s struggle for freedom is described. Although it is
difficult to suggest the real meaning of The Edge’s guitar, in my opinion, in the
third and sixth verses, The Edge metaphorically tries to represent the brutal,
inhuman treatment of black people, and their resistance and fight for freedom.
Officially, the apartheid regime in South Africa ended in 1994 when Nelson
Mandela won the presidential elections, but despite the fact that human rights of
black and white people should be equal, it is not difficult nowadays to find
situations where blacks are still undervalued and considered inferior to white
people.
42
4.5 MISS SARAJEVO
“If there's an order in all of this disorder Is it like a tape recorder?
Can we rewind it just once more?” (“Wake Up Dead Man” by U2)
“Miss Sarajevo” arose on the basis of the documentary Miss Sarajevo produced
by Bill Carter. According to the brief summary of his life and work in the article
“Bill Carter”, Carter is an American writer and director, who became involved in
the Balkan conflict when he was traveling around the world in the beginning of
the 1990s. After traveling to Split, Croatia, he joined The Serious Road Trip, a
humanitarian aid organization distributing food and medicine to the places the
United Nations and the Red Cross would not go. In 1993, Carter traveled to
Sarajevo to offer humanitarian aid to Sarajevans, but soon he would find himself
in the heart of atrocities in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War,
where he lived for six months in a burnt-out office building with scarce amounts
of food and water. Despite these extreme conditions, Carter decided to stay in
Bosnia, being inspired by the way Sarajevans tried to maintain the life they had
had before the war. Later, Carter managed to get an interview with Bono and so
he established contacts with U2.
The Irish band was in the middle of their famous “ZOO TV tour”, which was
widely know for using improved technology, like cameras, huge video walls and a
satellite dish to fulfill specific concert purposes. According to the article “Miss
Sarajevo”, Carter thought that by means of the “ZOO TV” satellite dish
transmissions, Sarajevans, who were cut off from any kind of communication
with the rest of the world, could present by themselves to the people from all over
the world the horror they were going through. In addition, brief and unedited
speeches of Sarejavans, mostly teenagers, were broadcast live in the middle of the
U2 concerts in which young Sarajevans talked about their lives they had had
before the siege. Before the Bosnian War started, teenagers in Bosnia and
Herzegovina had lived a normal life like any other teenager; they were hanging
around with their friends, went to school, listening to the music etc. Soon, they
43
would have fighter planes above their heads, mortar bombing in front of their
houses, and no friends to hang out with. Although U2 concerts in a way suffered
from these live connections with Sarajevo, U2 fans and also people from the rest
of the world had a chance to see what was really going on in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Bono, who was deeply touched by the stories of the young
Sarajevans, promised Bosnian people to play U2 concert in Sarajevo. His promise
was fulfilled in 1997.
The documentary Miss Sarajevo is based on one of the most bizarre events of the
war in former Yugoslavia. In the middle of the besieged Sarajevo where bombing
was common thing in everyday life of Sarajevans, several Sarajevan artists
organized an elaborate beauty pageant under mortar fire (“MISS SARAJEVO: A
documentary by Bill Carter”). The title of this beauty pageant was “Miss of
Besieged Sarajevo 93”. At one point during the pageant, all contestants were
holding up a banner with the words “DON’T LET THEM KILL US”. The winner,
the Miss Sarajevo, was a 17-year-old blonde Inela Nogić, who later appeared on
the cover of the “Miss Sarajevo” single. This beauty pageant was the symbol of
Sarajevans’ desire to continue with a normal life, the one they had had before the
war started. Beauty pageant was a Sarajevans’ respond and defense against the
enemy. They did not want to be demoralized, they still wanted to laugh, to love,
and to embrace the normality of human life, the one that most of the other people
around the world have. About the documentary, Bill Carter said:
The idea was simple, instead of doing what the news does, which is
entertain you, I wanted to do something that the news rarely does, make a
person care about the issue...I wanted young people in Europe to see the
people in the war, I didn't want them to see politicians or religious leaders
or military spokesmen…The war is just a backdrop, it could be any war,
the point is the vitality of the human spirit to survive, to laugh, to love,
and to move on, that is something we will be addressing always. (“Miss
Sarajevo”)
On Bill Carter’s webpage, a short description of the documentary “Miss Sarajevo”
say that Carter’s involvement in the Bosnian War was not about following the
44
scenes of carnage that the main media so often squeezes into thirty second
dramatic headline. Instead, his camera follows the alternative scene of artists and
young people, and captures the striking images of tunnels and cellars of Sarajevo,
giving an unique insight into life during a modern war where civilians are the
targets, but who want to continue with the normal life under these difficult and
dangerous conditions. The documentary, whose executive producer is Bono, won
several awards; it was the winner of the International Monitor Award, Golden
Hugo Award, and the Maverick Director Award. In 2009, Bill Carter becomes
honorary citizen of Sarajevo.
“Miss Sarajevo” was produced as a soundtrack for the documentary and was also
released as a single in 1995. The song arose from a collaboration between U2,
U2’s long time collaborator and producer Brian Eno, and opera maestro Luciano
Pavarotti. The result of this collaboration was a beautiful piece of music, called
“Miss Sarajevo”. The song was performed for the first time in 1995 at the
“Pavarotti and Friends” concert in Modena, Italy. Bono many times denoted
“Miss Sarajevo” as his favorite U2 song.
The song opens up with a stanza that accuses the United Nations, the western
world and its media for neglecting and being indifferent towards the human aspect
of the Bosnian war. People from Bosnia and Herzegovina were practically cut off
from any kind of connection with the rest of the world and had to find their own
ways to survive. The United Nations did not undertake any radical measurements;
organization was mostly standing by proposing some negotiations and economic
sanctions, but not executing some serious actions in terms of human aspect of the
Bosnian war.
Is there a time for keeping your distance
A time to turn your eyes away
Is there a time for keeping your head down
For getting on with your day
Almost every line of the song begins with the words “Is there a time”, making a
question whether there is already an appropriate time for different occasions,
45
customs, but mostly an appropriate time for normal, everyday life of Sarajevans
and people of Bosnia and Herzegovina in general. These questions also try to
warn a reader that people in Bosnia and Herzegovina are not able to preserve a
normal life. Instead of love and laughter, for example, for them it is time for
shelters and sadness. It seems like the song somehow contains rebellious spirit.
The second stanza, for example, asks the question if there is a time for women to
make themselves up, to buy a nice dress, and look beautiful. The second stanza is
the introduction for the chorus that occurs in the third and sixth stanzas. Chorus
depicts the beauty pageant called “Miss of Besieged Sarajevo 93” and its winner,
at that time 17-year-old Inela Nogić. Chorus emphasizes the winner’s beauty and
in some sense also the beauty of the other contestants, since the beauty pageant
was a symbolic and surreal way of rebellion against the oppressor (the lines “Here
she comes…To take her crown…Surreal in her crown”). In U2’s autobiography
U2 by U2, Bono said that “Miss Sarajevo” was a response to the surreal acts of
defiance that had taken place during the siege of Sarajevo. For example, one
woman refused to go to the shelter during the bombing and played a piano
instead, another one said: “We will fight them with lipstick and heels”. It was a
pure Dadaism (McCormick, p 262).
The fourth and fifth stanzas continue to provide questions of the suitability of
normal living in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and specifically mention the inhabitants
of this country. Ethnic diversity in Bosnia and Herzegovina capturing Bosnians
(Muslims), Serbs and Croats, was one of the major reasons for one of the
bloodiest wars in modern history. This ethnic diversity is in the song mentioned
by the line “Is there a time for different colours”. The line “Different names you
find it hard to spell” tells about the specific names of these people, usually ending
with letters “ić” which are difficult for the people living outside the area of former
Yugoslavia to spell and pronounce. Bosnians, who are Muslims or Islamic in
terms of religion, are mentioned in the line “Is there a time to turn to Mecca”,
since Mecca is the holiest city of Islam and the pilgrimage site for Muslims.
While praying during a mass, Muslims are always turned to Mecca. Bosnian
teenagers are depicted by the line “A time for East 17”. Young Bosnians probably
suffered the most; many of them lost their friends, or even worse, their siblings
and parents. During the war teenagers were unable to enjoy listening to their
46
favorite music; idolizing their favorite artists, listening to their music, and gluing
their posters on the walls was replaced by the dreadful sound of bombs and
grenades. East 17 is an English pop boy band, who was one of the most popular
boy bands in the early 1990s and idols to many teenagers around the world.
Bono’s whisper-like singing (reciting) of the lyrics and the song’s quiet melody
that creates melancholic atmosphere depicting resigned, wartime atmosphere in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, is in the seventh stanza disrupted by Luciano Pavarotti’s
powerful, passionate opera solo. Translation of his Italian words would sound
like:
It's said that a river
Finds the way to the sea
And like the river
You shall come to me
Beyond the borders
And the thirsty lands
You say that as a river
Like a river...
Love shall come
Love...
And I'm not able to pray anymore
And I cannot hope in love anymore
And I cannot wait for love anymore
The arrival of love to people of Bosnia and Herzegovina is compared with the
metaphor of a river coming to its final destination, the sea, which happens sooner
or later. Listening to Pavarotti’s singing and reading his translated lyrics, we can
feel the frustration and resignation of Bosnians (the last three lines), but at the
same time their desire, their yearn for love, for Pavarotti’s screaming type of love
(the way he sings word “l’amore”) they had been waiting so long, too long.
Officially, the arrival of love and humane life came back to Bosnia and
Herzegovina in early 1996.
47
The song ends with a stanza that is once again sung quietly, gently, with a melody
creating a resigned mood. Lyrically, the stanza is about Christmas which is for
many the most important family holiday. Unfortunately, families in Bosnia and
Herzegovina had not been able to wrap presents, decorate their Christmas trees or
gather for Christmas dinner for almost four years.
The first live performance of Miss Sarajevo happened at the “Pavarotti and
Friends” concert in Modena, Italy, on September the 12th 1995. Right after the
song’s end Bono recited the words of the famous Croatian poet Ivan Gundulić,
saying: “O lijepa, o draga, o slatka slobodo” which means “O beautiful, o
beloved, o sweet freedom”. It was a beautiful announcement of freedom that
emotionally touched everyone who witnessed the concert and especially the
people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1997, four years after it had been arranged,
U2 concert in Sarajevo was finally performed. It was an extremely emotional
concert, not only for Sarajevans, but also for the band. Although Bono practically
lost his voice during the concert, Sarajvo’s gig remains one of the most notable
U2 performances ever. Songs like “Pride (In the name of love)”, “Stand By Me”,
“I Still Haven’t found What I’m Looking For”, Bono’s thanks to Sarajevans,
saying “Svirati u Sarajevu je vaš poklon nama” (“to perform in Sarajevo is your
gift to us”), and finally a performance of “Miss Sarajevo”, at least for a moment
brought tears on the fan’s eyes (“Sarajevo bootleg DVD”). Sarajevo’s concert was
a symbol for things getting back to normal in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
48
Figure 10: Beauty pageant “Miss of Besieged Sarajevo 93” and the banner
“DON’T LET THEM KILL US”
(Source: U2 BEST OF 1990-2000 DVD, 6 December 2009)
49
5 CONCLUSION
Rock music is a musical source where various sociopolitical issues have a chance
to be expressed. This musical genre has power to educate us about specific social
and political situations, which are getting more frequent practically every day,
since the society in which we live is garnished with problems that keep growing.
U2’s songs which are interpreted in this diploma seminar vividly present some
sociopolitical issues. These kinds of songs that carry an educational message also
carry an ability of eternity. For example, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” was written in
1983, twenty-seven years ago, but its topic is still felt contemporary and will
always be because these kinds of themes guide us and educate us about how we
should treat specific life situations, in this case terrorism and wars. A name of the
band is not even important here, instead of U2 it could be The Beatles, Bob
Dylan, Neil Young or other prominent rock musicians and their songs containing
a powerful message.
These kinds of songs could also be easily applied to younger generations and their
growing-up process. Why would not learners in elementary or high school learn
about apartheid through “Silver & Gold”, for example? This way of learning
would surely be interesting to students and in some cases also a replacement for
official curriculum, which teenagers in adolescence usually find boring.
Moreover, music, which has an amazing ability to express and present specific
situations (a plain flying and bombs exploding) that mere words are sometimes
unable to, would present a particular sociopolitical issue to learners more vividly.
“Sunday Bloody Sunday”, “Bullet The Blue Sky”, “Silver & Gold” and “Miss
Sarajevo” are only a few, thematically fundamental songs that U2 have created in
their long and rich career, and several of U2’s sociopolitically oriented songs. My
interpretation proved that these four songs are not just songs with some
meaningless words and music, but sociopolitically significant songs with an
educational and eternal message.
50
6 WORKS CITED AND CONSULTED
Allen, Robert, ed. (2000). The New Penguin English Dictionary. London: Penguin
Books.
Du Noyer, Paul, ed. (2003). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music.
London: Flame Tree.
Artists United Against Apartheid. 25 November 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artists_United_Against_Apartheid>
Bennett, Andy. (2001). Cultures of Popular Music. Buckhingham, Philadelphia:
Open University Press.
Belfast Agreement. 31 October 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belfast_Agreement>
Bloody Sunday (1920). 30 October 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1920)>
Bloody Sunday (1972). 31 October 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972)>
Bill Carter. 4 December 2009. 6 December 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Carter>
<http://www.billcarter.cc/mainpages/films.htm>
Cambridge International Dictionary of English. (1995). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Country Joe and the Fish. 10 December 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Joe_and_the_Fish>
51
Early Days – Irish Shows. 22 October 2009.
<http://www.u2gigs.com/show176.html>
Gauteng. 29 November 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauteng>
Graham, Bill and van Oosten de Boer, Caroline. (2004). U2: the complete guide
to their music. London: Omnibus Press.
Greer, Miranda. (2008). U2 lists: top 10 political U2 songs. 15 November 2009.
<http://www.atu2.com/news/u2-lists-top-10-political-u2-songs.html>
Hamilton, Hamish. (2005). Vertigo 2005/U2 Live from Chicago. (DVD).
Island Records.
Higgleton, Elaine, ed. and Seaton, Anne, ed. (1998). Essential English dictionary.
Edinburgh: Chambers.
Jurak, Mirko. (1987). English poetry: an anthology with a critical and historical
introduction for foreign students. Ljubljana: Državna Založba Slovenije.
Johnson, Mark L. and Larson Steve. (2003). “Something in the Way She Moves”-
Metaphors of Musical Motion. Metaphor and Symbol, 18, 63-84. 13
October 2009.
<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a785873248&db=all>
Kennedy, Victor. Metaphor is the Magic of Music. 15 October 2009.
<http://oddelki.ff.uni-
mb.si/filozofija/files/Festschrift/Dunjas_festschrift/kennedyv.pdf>
Krantz, Steven C. (1987). Metaphor in Music. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism, 45, 351-360. 13 October 2009.
<http://www.jstor.org/pss/431325>
52
Live Aid. 12 December 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Aid>
Longhurst, Brian. (1999). Popular music and society. Cambridge, Oxford,
Malden: Polity.
McCormick, Neil. (2006). U2 by U2. London: HarperCollins Publishers.
Miss Sarajevo. 4 December 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Sarajevo>
“MISS SARAJEVO: A documentary by Bill Carter”. 4 December 2009.
<http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~nrc/Additional%20Materials%20for%20Mi
ss%20Sarajevo.pdf>
Music and politics. 10 December 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_and_politics>
Navy blue. 29 November 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_blue>
Northern Ireland. 31 October 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland>
Omagh bombing. 31 October 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing>
Remembrance Day bombing. 1 November 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day_bombing>
Remembrance Sunday. 1 November 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Sunday>
Rock Against Racism. 10 December 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Against_Racism>
53
Salvadoran Civil War. 12 November 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvadoran_Civil_War>
Sandinism. 10 November 2009.
<http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Sandinism/>
Sinclair, John, ed. (1995). Collins COUBUILD English dictionary. London:
HarperCollins.
South Africa under apartheid. 26 November 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_under_apartheid>
Stockman, Steve. (2005). Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2. Orlando:
Relevant Media Group, Inc.
Sunday Bloody Sunday. 31 October 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Bloody_Sunday_(song)>
The Essentials. 22 October 2009. <http://www.u2.com/essentials/>
The Northern Rock Against Racism Festival. 10.12.2009.
<http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/rock-against-racism-1978.html>
Theodorakis, Mikis. I Remember In September. 29 November 2009.
<http://www.mikis-theodorakis.net/hostpoem.html>
U2- Best of 1990-2000. (2002). (DVD). Interscope Records.
U2 LIVE AT RED ROCKS “UNDER A BLOOD RED SKY”. (2008). (DVD)
U2 RATTLE AND HUM. (2001). (DVD)
“U2 Sarajevo”. (bootleg DVD)
54
VH1: LEGENDS U2. (2005). (DVD). Slovenian National TV.
What is rock?. 10 September 2009.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/506004/rock>
Zangwill, Nick. (2007). Music, Metaphor, and Emotion. Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism, 65, 391-400. 13 October 2009.
<http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118531261/PDFSTART>
55
APPENDICES
Sunday Bloody Sunday
I can't believe the news today I can't close my eyes and make it go away. How long, how long must we sing this song? How long, how long? 'Cos tonight We can be as one, tonight. Broken bottles under children's feet Bodies strewn across the dead-end street. But I won't heed the battle call It puts my back up, puts my back up against the wall. Sunday, bloody Sunday. Sunday, bloody Sunday. Sunday, bloody Sunday. Sunday, bloody Sunday. Oh, let's go. 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? 'Cos tonight We can be as one, tonight. Sunday, bloody Sunday. Sunday, bloody Sunday. Wipe the tears from your eyes Wipe your tears away. I'll wipe your tears away. I'll wipe your tears away. I'll wipe your bloodshot eyes. Sunday, bloody Sunday. Sunday, bloody Sunday.
56
And it's true we are immune When fact is fiction and TV reality. And today the millions cry We eat and drink while tomorrow they die. The real battle just begun To claim the victory Jesus won On... Sunday, bloody Sunday Sunday, bloody Sunday..
Bullet The Blue Sky
In the howlin' wind Comes a stingin' rain See it drivin' nails Into the souls on the tree of pain. From the firefly A red orange glow See the face of fear Runnin' scared in the valley below. Bullet the blue sky Bullet the blue sky Bullet the blue Bullet the blue. In the locust wind Comes a rattle and hum. Jacob wrestled the angel And the angel was overcome. You plant a demon seed You raise a flower of fire. We see them burnin' crosses See the flames, higher and higher. Woh, woh, bullet the blue sky Bullet the blue sky Bullet the blue Bullet the blue. Suit and tie comes up to me His face red like a rose on a thorn bush Like all the colours of a royal flush And he's peelin' off those dollar bills (Slappin' 'em down) One hundred, two hundred.
57
And I can see those fighter planes And I can see those fighter planes Across the tin huts as children sleep Through the alleys of a quiet city street. Up the staircase to the first floor We turn the key and slowly unlock the door As a man breathes into his saxophone And through the walls you hear the city groan. Outside, is America Outside, is America America. See across the field See the sky ripped open See the rain comin' through the gapin' wound Howlin' the women and children Who run into the arms Of America.
Silver & Gold
In the shithouse a shotgun Praying hands hold me down. If only the hunter was hunted In this tin can town, tin can town. No stars in the black night Looks like the sky fall down. No sun in the daylight Looks like it's chained to the ground, chained to the ground. The warden says "The exodus sold." If you want a way out... Silver and gold, silver and gold. Broken back to the ceiling Broken nose to the floor. I scream at the silence It's crawling, crawls under the door. There's a rope around my neck And there's a trigger in your gun. Jesus, say something! I am someone, I am someone. Captains and Kings in the ship's hold They came to collect Silver and gold, silver and gold.
58
I seen the coming and the going Seen the captains and the Kings. Seen their navy blue uniforms Seen them bright and shiny things, bright and shiny things. The temperature is rising The fever white hot Mister I ain't got nothing But it's more than you've got These chains no longer bind me Nor the shackles at my feet Outside are the prisoners Inside the free (set them free). A prize fighter in a corner is told Hit where it hurts - For Silver and Gold You can stop the world from turning around You just gotta pay a penny in the pound.
Miss Sarajevo
Is there a time for keeping your distance A time to turn your eyes away Is there a time for keeping your head down For getting on with your day
Is there a time for kohl and lipstick A time for cutting hair Is there a time for high street shopping To find the right dress to wear
Here she comes Heads turn around Here she comes To take her crown
Is there a time to run for cover A time for kiss and tell Is there a time for different colours Different names you find it hard to spell
Is there a time for first communion A time for East 17 Is there a time to turn to Mecca Is there time to be a beauty queen Here she comes Beauty plays the clown Here she comes Surreal in her crown
59
Dici che il fiume Trova la via al mare E come il fiume Giungerai a me Oltre i confini E le terre assetate Dici che come fiume Come fiume... L'amore giunger L'amore... E non so più pregare E nell'amore non so più sperare E quell'amore non so più aspettare [Translation of the above] It's said that a river Finds the way to the sea And like the river You shall come to me Beyond the borders And the thirsty lands You say that as a river Like a river... Love shall come Love... And I'm not able to pray anymore And I cannot hope in love anymore And I cannot wait for love anymore [End of Translation]
Is there a time for tying ribbons A time for Christmas trees Is there a time for laying tables And the night is set to freeze
● All lyrics are copied from www.u2.com and www.u2wanderer.org (for
“Miss Sarajevo” English translation of Italian part)