U2's War
Reconciling a world that is with a world that should be
Whatever happened to protest music? The current political climate feels like it would lend itself to the type of music that struck a powerful tone in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. I have a few theories:
The music industry has gotten too corporate. Big name recording studios don’t want to produce that song that upsets the establishment.
The artists that make that type of music today aren’t big name enough to be heard by that large of an audience. Our media ecosystem is so fragmented that it’s hard for one album to break through, unless your name is Taylor Swift or Beyonce.
The protest album for my generation is sadly more relevant today than it was in 2004. It’s almost too perfect for the moment that you don’t need to listen to anything else. That would be Green Day’s American Idiot.
I recently listened to the U2’s album War. It is a protest album. U2 has always been very socially conscious. The band’s third album, released in 1983, is fitting to the late Cold War period in which it came out. The album cover, itself, strikes a frightening nerve. This young boy with anger in his eyes and a cut lip. You can assume that he is a victim of some sort of armed conflict. War includes songs like:
“Sunday Bloody Sunday,” the most famous song from the album. It is about the civil unrest and violence that took place within the band’s home country of Ireland.
U2 opened the Chicago concert of their Joshua Tree 35th Anniversary Tour with “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” Soldier Field was pitch black, then you heard Larry Mullen Jr. on the drums, and the rest of the band came out to perform. It was sick.
“Seconds,” about war and imperialism in the Atomic Age.
This was my favorite song on the album when I was younger. It’s still pretty good today.
“The Refugee,” about the innocent people that flee their homes because of the horrific violence at home, and ironically, many have to find their way to the imperial powers that perpetuate that violence.
“New Year’s Day,” about the Polish Solidarity Movement. This is a cool thing that I just learned about. An independent trade union in Poland protested Soviet rule and its leader, Lech Walesa, won the Nobel Peace Prize. Walesa would eventually become the first democratically elected leader of Poland in 1990.
War attempts to reconcile a world that is versus a world that should be. Those two things always seem diametrically opposed to each other. There is a wrestling between the violent opening of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and the peaceful conclusion of “40.”
A lyric from “New Year’s Day” resonated with me:
“And so we are told this is the golden age
And gold is the reason for the wars we wage”
I can’t emphasize enough how much being an impressionable kid post-9/11 has impacted my worldview. Looking back and seeing this 13-year old that living in a country that romanticized and glorified war. War may sometimes be necessary, but it is neither romantic nor worthy of glory.
Greed is a crazy thing. We are told that are in a golden age, yet we need to fight wars to attain more gold. Gold can be anything….power, land, national glory, oil, etc. It feels like a generational cycle of insanity where the other end of the war is met with, “What did we get ourselves into?”
Why do we continue to do this? Why do we turn a blind eye to the devastating cost of war? Too many leaders in my lifetime have viewed war as a game to be won. It’s like they played too much Call of Duty and thought they could pull it off in real life. You can’t start a two-decade war based on a lie just because you look cool in a cowboy hat and a “Mission Accomplished” banner. You can’t kidnap a world leader overnight and say that you’re going to run the country and steal their oil. Thousands of innocent people die because of this arrogance.
And circling back to “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” There’s something Bono yells:
“I’m so sick of it!”
Federal agents murdered a woman in Minnesota this week and her name is being smeared by those in power. Our neighborhoods are safe and calm. We don’t need masked agents coming in to cause chaos. We don’t need them violating the rights of citizens and non-citizens. Renee Good was not a domestic terrorist and she was not trying to kill anyone with her car. You can Zapruder the footage from every angle. She did not deserve to die. Reality cannot be fabricated. The authoritarian thugs and the lowlifes that hold power in this country are lying.
2+2=5 in 1984, but it equals 4 in the United States. A leader’s power is restrained by the law, not their own personal morality. Thugs that break into the Capitol in search of congresspeople to murder are not patriots. A violent coup attempt to overturn a free and fair election is an attack on the Constitution. Three shots at a driver when you’re still standing after getting bumped isn’t self-defense. It is murder. The truth should still matter.
I’m so sick of it.