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you know, it is incredible how much more there is to this band than i could put in a single book. i was just listening to a online version of "peace on earth" leading into "walk on" from East Rutherford NJ on October 28, 2001. Totally spine-tingeling. wow. I didn't deal with the song "walk on" at all (i only mention the line, 'love is not the easy thing' in the chapter on love). and the power of those post-9/11 shows, this one ending with the bitter honest longing of "peace on earth" but then winding through "walk on" to the ending with wave upon wave of halle, halle, hallelujah--it was a gutsy and totally transcendent moment, even to someone hearing it via mp3 five years later.

and i keep having these experiences. seeing things, or thinking about things that I didn't deal with at all in my book. it is not writers regret, really, but just appreciation for how any portrait can only be one angle of vision and never sum up the subject.

I have to say, however, that on the new U2 iPod video clip there is a sequence of interviews with the band about the song "mofo" and they speak pretty highly of it, with Bono even saying that song somehow "sums him up." I'm glad I did deal at some lenth with that song, although even here, I didn't say nearly all that could be said about that one song. perhaps this is the truth about good art--not only is it multivalent, but it is also somehow inexhaustable, even if one doesn't buy into the postmodern view of the endless deferral of meaning.

ah, friday afternoon musings.

peace,
Chris