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COLUMN
SIXTY-TWO, AUGUST 1, 2001
(Copyright © 2001 Al Aronowitz)
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SALMAN RUSHDIE & U2
Subject:
Salman Rushdie and U2
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 22:35:17 -0400
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by Salman Rushdie
<http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010709&c=1&s=rushdie>
In
the summer of 1986 I was traveling in Nicaragua, working on the book of
reportage that was published six months later as The Jaguar Smile. It was the
seventh anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, and the war against the
US-backed contra forces was intensifying almost daily. I was accompanied by my
interpreter, Margarita, an improbably glamorous and high-spirited blonde with
more than a passing resemblance to Jayne Mansfield. Our days were filled with
evidence of hardship and struggle: the scarcity of produce in the markets of
"Bono's
coming!" she cried, bright-eyed as any fan, and then added, without any
change in vocal inflection or dulling of ocular glitter, "Tell me: Who is
Bono?"
In
a way, the question was as vivid a demonstration of her country's beleaguered
isolation as anything I heard or saw in the frontline villages, the destitute
Atlantic Coast bayous or the quake-ravaged city streets. In July 1986, the
release of U2's monster album The Joshua Tree was still eight months away, but
they were already, after all, the masters of War. Who was Bono? He was the
fellow who sang, "I can't believe the news today, I can't close my eyes and
make it go away." And Nicaragua was one of the places where the news had
become unbelievable, and you couldn't shut your eyes to it, and so of course he
was there.
I
didn't meet Bono in Nicaragua, but he did read The Jaguar Smile. Five years
later, when I was involved in some difficulties of my own, my friend the
composer Michael Berkeley asked if I wanted to go to a U2 Achtung Baby gig, with
its hanging psychedelic Trabants. In those days it was hard for me to go most
places, but I said yes and was touched by the enthusiasm with which the request
Backstage,
after the show, I was shown into a mobile home full of sandwiches and children.
There were no groupies at U2 gigs; just cr?ches. Bono came in and was instantly
festooned with daughters. My memory of that first chat is that I wanted to talk
about music and he was keen to talk politics--Nicaragua, an upcoming protest
against unsafe nuclear waste disposal at Sellafield in northern England, his
support for me and my work. We didn't spend long together, but we both enjoyed
it. Bono was less taken with Michael Berkeley, however. Years afterward he told
me he'd felt condescended to by the classical composer.
My
own view is that there was a misunderstanding?Michael isn't a condescending
man, but a high culture/low culture rift had opened, and that was that.
Two
years later, when the giant Zooropa tour arrived at Wembley Stadium, Bono called
to ask if I'd like to come out on stage. U2 wanted to make a gesture of
solidarity, and this was the biggest one they could think of. When I told my
then-14-year-old son about the plan, he said, "Just don't sing, Dad. If you
sing, I'll have to kill myself." There was no question of my being allowed
to
It
was inevitable that both U2 and I would be criticized in Britain in bringing
these two worlds together. They have been accused of trying to acquire some
borrowed intellectual "cred," and I of course am supposedly
star-struck. None of this matters very much. I've been crossing frontiers all my
life--physical, social, intellectual, artistic borderlines--and I spotted, in
Bono and Edge, whom I've come to know better than the others so far, an equal
hunger for the new, for whatever nourishes. I think, too, that the band's
involvement in
An
association with U2 is good for one's anecdote stock. Some of these anecdotes
are risibly apocryphal: A couple of years ago, for example, a front-page Irish
press report confidently announced that I had been living in "the
folly"--the guest house with a spectacular view of Killiney Bay that stands
in the garden of Bono's Dublin home--for four whole years! Apparently I arrived
and departed at dead of night in a helicopter that landed on the beach below the
house. Other stories that sound apocryphal are unfortunately true. It is true,
for example, that I once danced--or, to be precise, pogoed--with Van Morrison in
Bono's living room. It is also true that in the small hours of the following
morning I was treated to the rough end of the great man's tongue. (Van Morrison
has been known to get a little grumpy toward the end of a long evening. It's
possible that my pogoing wasn't up to his exacting standards.)
Over
the years U2 and I discussed collaborating on various projects. Bono mentioned
an idea he had for a stage musical, but my imagination failed to spark. There
was another long Dublin night (a bottle of Jameson's was involved) during which
the film director Neil Jordan, Bono and I conspired to make a film of my novel
Haroun and the Sea of Stories. To my great regret this never
Then,
in 1999, I published my novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet, in which the Orpheus
myth winds through a story set in the world of rock music. Orpheus is the
defining myth for singers and writers--for the Greeks, he was the greatest
singer as well as the greatest poet--and it was my Orphic tale that finally made
possible the collaboration we'd been kicking around.
It
happened, like many good things, without being planned. I sent Bono and U2's
manager, Paul McGuinness, pre-publication copies of the novel in typescript,
hoping they would tell me if the thing worked or not. Bono said afterward that
he had been very worried on my behalf, believing that I had taken on an
impossible task, and that he began reading the book in the spirit of a
Bono
called me. "I've written this melody for your words, and I think it might
be one of the best things I've done." I was astonished. One of the novel's
principal images is that of the permeable frontier between the world of the
imagination and the one we inhabit, and here was an imaginary song crossing that
frontier. I went to McGuinness's place near Dublin to hear it. Bono took me away
from everyone else and played the demo CD to me in his car. Only when he was
sure that I liked it--and I liked it right away--did we go back indoors and play
it for the assembled company.
There
wasn't much after that that one would properly call "collaboration."
There was a long afternoon when Daniel Lanois, who was producing the song,
brought his guitar and sat down with me to work out the lyrical structure. And
there was the Day of the Lost Words, when I was called urgently by a woman from
Principle Management, which looks after U2. "They're in the studio and they
can't find the lyrics. Could you fax them over?" Otherwise, silence, until
the song was ready.
I
wasn't expecting it to happen, but I'm proud of it. It's called "The Ground
Beneath Her Feet." For U2, too, it was a departure. They haven't often used
anyone's lyrics but their own, and they don't usually start with the lyrics;
typically, the words come at the very end. But somehow it all worked out. I
suggested facetiously that they might consider renaming the band U2+1, or, even
better, Me2, but I think they'd heard all those gags before.
There
was a long al fresco lunch in Killiney at which the film director Wim Wenders
startlingly announced that artists must no longer use irony. Plain speaking, he
argued, was necessary now: Communication should be direct, and anything that
might create confusion should be eschewed. Irony, in the rock world, has
acquired a special meaning. The multimedia self-consciousness of
There
was a lot riding on this album, this tour. If things hadn't gone well it might
have been the end of U2. They certainly discussed that possibility, and the
album was much delayed as they agonized over it. Extracurricular activities,
mainly Bono's, also slowed them down, but since these included getting David
Trimble and John Hume to shake hands on a public stage and reducing Jesse
Helms--Jesse Helms!--to tears, winning his support for the campaign against
Third World debt, it's hard to argue that these were self-indulgent
irrelevances. At any event, All That You Can't Leave Behind turned out to be a
strong album, a renewal of creative force and, as Bono put it, there's a lot of
good will flowing toward the band right now.
I've
seen them three times this year: in the "secret" pre-tour gig in
London's little Astoria Theatre and then twice in America, in San Diego and
Anaheim. They've come down out of the giant stadiums to play arena-sized venues
that seem tiny after the gigantism of their recent past. The act has been
stripped bare; essentially, it's just the four of them out there, playing their
instruments and
And
they're playing my song. ##
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