Into the Heart: The Stories Behind Every U2 Song
Into the Heart: The Stories Behind Every U2 Song
Into the Heart examines the behind-the-scenes influences that shaped U2’s internationally popular and critically acclaimed music. Included are original and revealing interviews with band members and the key people close to U2. The band’s rich cultural and social context is fully explored, providing a colorful backdrop to the songs. Into the Heart traces U2’s meteoric rise from the early days of their career with Boy, their first album, to the spanning success of The Joshua Tree, Rattle and Hum, Achtung Baby, and Pop. U2 is a group that has become a world-class rock ’n’ roll band; a band that continues to invent themselves and is not afraid to take chances with their craft—as well as make a unique impact in the world of music wit
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when good ideas go bad,
It’s a scene familiar to any aficianado of musical bio-pics: at some point, one of the characters in the film will say something that incorporates a song title or a bit of the lyrics of the artist in question, as a kind of wink to the audience (examples: the “stu sutcliffe” character in BACKBEAT telling his doctor he’s been working “eight days a week,” Benny’s music teacher in THE BENNY GOODMAN STORY crying out “don’t be that way!”, etc.). There are two responses to this sort of winking– 1) You think it’s hokey and squirm in your seat or 2) You think it’s cute and feel pleasure at getting the joke. If you fall into category two, you will probably enjoy INTO THE HEART, which is full of such passages (Bono is said to be “ready for what’s next,” the band is “even better than the real thing,” etc.). If, like me, you fall into the first category, you’ll probably see the book as a missed opportunity. This is a wonderful idea for a book, and it starts off promisingly, with an introduction full of amusing anecdotes and thoughtful contextualization (you have to respect a writer who sees connections between the band’s music and the work of paul auster, for instance). But as Stokes moves from album to album, song to song, a sense of disappointment slowly descends– he seems caught between seeing the tunes as mere pop ephemera (there’s a constant resistance to interpretation) and wanting to place the band in a tradition of great irish artists (wilde is one touchstone mentioned). Fine, U2 *does* embody such seeming contradictions (“right in the middle of a contradiction, that’s the place to be,” Bono quotes Sam Shepard at one point), but Stokes, unlike his subjects, is unable to make these paradoxes work for him, and the result is a schizo volume that, for all of its author’s obvious knowledge of and love for the music, feels like a cheap fanzine. The most useful passages are on POP, an album whose genesis has not received enough attention, and ALL THAT YOU CAN’T LEAVE BEHIND, as stokes traces out U2′s turning back to earlier sounds and impulses after the glorious decadence of the 90s. For anyone interested in U2 — the songs, the image, the tours and their wider cultural and social meaning– between BOY and PASSENGERS, Bill Flanagan’s U2 at the end of the world is a far funnier, better written, more searching volume (one which Stokes borrows from quite a bit, actually).
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|Slightly Dissapointing,
I’m a big U2 fan, and I just got this book. It’s mostly good, but the author focusus alot on how each song was produced rather than the meanings behind the songs (not to say there wasnt some of that in there). Also, the interpretations of some songs were questionable at best (Grace is about the celebration of womanhood??? Where the streets have no name could be about Bono’s personal hell???WTF??). The author seemed to regard U2′s Christian influences and inspirations with little regard, bordering on contempt. Alot of the captions on the photos screamed cheese.
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|U2, Song By Song,
Into The Heart is an impressive look into the stories behind each and every U2 song from Boy to Pop. Writer Niall Stokes gets right down to brass tacks and relates the band’s own accounts about such classics as “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, “Bad”, “With Or Without You”, “One” and all the rest. The book gives a chronological account of all their recording sessions and includes b-sides, unreleased tracks, movie songs and songs that were released on albums like Sun City. The book is has a nice large size and is loaded with great pictures. Any fan of U2 should have this book in their collection.
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