ELMO KEEP

More often than even I hear that question, I hear, “Why won’t you shut up about Bono, Elmo?” 

I don’t know? Maybe I will now! I’ve tried to get it all down here in this cover story for the Big Issue. In it I’m arguing the (compelling!) case for why U2 should have split up in 1997 and the glorious, spotless history* they would have left in their wake if they had. It’s also about how seriously good the band were in the 90s. It’s difficult to describe the size of the place U2 took up in my imagination when I was growing up, a time which coincided with that time. As to why Bono won’t shut up, that’s not something I try to answer so much, as its just one of the many enduring, unsolvable mysteries of our age, and I have no real divining knowledge on the matter. All I know, is that U2 have never been bested on their ZooTV Tour…

Bono constructed the persona of the Fly, a decadent leather-clad rock star who prank-called George Bush Sr from the stage every night to heckle him. When the tour moved to Europe he turned into MacPhisto, an incarnation of Mephistopheles in a gold lamé suit and white face-paint with red horns who cranked out U2 tunes in a bizarre imitation of a lounge singer gone to seed.

So yes, back in the day, Bono was exhibiting a split personality, painting his face and once conducting an interview in the nude at a crowded New York restaurant. That was rock&roll. And it was also very angry. Achtung Baby and Zooropa were angry albums about sex and death. In the middle of a divorce, guitarist The Edge fed himself a diet of industrial noise bands like KMFDM and Nine Inch Nails before turning up at the Hansa Studios in Berlin in 1990 where U2 would record Achtung Baby with Brian Eno.

The result was an album about the misery of human relationships and the absence of God. It also contained some killer singles, like Mysterious Ways, and Even Better Than the Real Thing. U2 had gone weird. They had spectacularly killed off their previous selves and made being in a rock band look really, really fun. And if Bono had run into George W Bush back then, he would no sooner have posed for a photo than given him a root canal with a pair of pliers.

Please, U2, be like this again. You used to be so much more fun to be around. Swing the pendulum back to wacky experimentalism.

I sent an earlier draft of the story in which U2’s plane went down — preventing, clearly, any chance of their reformation — to AM, who replied:

“So, you’ve given up on the interview idea then? What with killing them off in a fiery plane crash.”

Perhaps? Probably?

No.

Do you know how difficult it is to get an interview with Bono? He lives under a no-fly zone where these days only people like Jann Wenner and Chuck Klosterman can get near him. In that way, he is kind of like the music writer’s Cormac McCarthy. So as far as it is pure stubbornness that drives my quest to ask Bono in person why he insists on wantonly stomping on U2’s legacy, I suppose I will never give up. I’m doing this out of love, you understand? Someone has to tell Bono to stop, and dammit, it should be me. It is for your own good, Bono!

Then we could have a quick cuddle and few beers afterwards, to smooth things over.

This edition of the Big Issue is on the streets next Tuesday.  OUT NOW! NOW, NOW, NOW! BUY IT!

*Yes, even Rattle and Hum is, with the benefit of hindsight, rather good. In the very least, it contains a few truly cracking tunes, not least the cover of Helter Skelter. It had strips torn off it for being overblown, but compared with U2 today, it looks positively restrained. And their collaborators on it were great! Dylan! B.B. King! I have to settle for fucking Wyclef Jean these days. KILL ME NOW.