U2 formed in 1976 as a proto-punk band called The Hype. But soon enough they changed their name, and during the 80′s, they continued to evolve away from the amateur punk band they once were, and into MTV superstars. U2′s 1991 masterpiece Achtung Baby is a sonically adventurous album that explores the nature of interpersonal relationships. Author Stephen Catanzarite has proposed that the album is actually about the bible, and I’ve come up with my own off-the-wall interpretation: I think Achtung Baby can be heard as U2′s love letter to punk rock.
The fortunes of U2 and punk rock ran in opposite directions during the 1980′s. By 1991, U2 was on top of the world, while punk was almost dead as a genre. No one could have predicted that a then-unknown band from Seattle was about to fulfill punk’s commercial promise and re-ignite interest in the genre. Achtung Baby is an album that looks at failed relationships and here-and-gone passion, and even If U2 wasn’t addressing the punks in particular, that context provides fresh subtext for lines like “I can’t be holding on to what you got/When all you got is hurt” (from ‘One’) and “You’re an accident waiting to happen/You’re a piece of glass left in a beach” (from ‘Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses’). The former could be read as a passionate defense of U2′s decision to abandon the stylistic confines of punk, while the latter is a poetic description of punk burnouts like Darby Crash and Sid Vicious.
‘Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses’ gains surprising new life for me in this context. This song is a rhetorical question to a reckless lover, but heard another way it becomes a scorching sermon on why punk was destined to fail commercially. “You’re dangerous ’cause you’re honest/You’re dangerous, you don’t know what you want” is a wicked two-line assessment of punk’s greatest strength and biggest weakness. “The doors you open/I just can’t close” could be an eloquent acknowledgment of punk’s enduring influence on U2 and other mainstream rockers. This much is true: punk rock was an untamable beast that couldn’t be broken without sacrificing what made it beautiful in the first place, and ‘Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses’ has inadvertently opened my eyes to the idea that the genre was sown with the seeds of its own destruction.
Listen: Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
Tags: Achtung Baby, Darby Crash, Nirvana, Sid Vicious, Stephen Catanzarite, U2, Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
7 October 2009 at 3:48 pm |
a tiny bit off subject…this post just made me think of it.
not a fan of reality tv so much, but i did catch that older gal (Susan Boyle) from the UK that was runner up on Britain’s Got Talent do a song on the US version of the same show (still with me?). The song was a version of the Stones ‘Wild Horses’ – goodness I was impressed, made me choke up a bit. Gal can sing a little.
PS Brady turned 21 today…that must mean sombody else has just turned or is about to turn what, 80? HPEBDDK (I think you mentioned that you were a fit 79 year old a while back:))
7 October 2009 at 8:32 pm |
I got sidetracked into Patti Smith’s Horses…
Amazing that Brady is drinking legally – we’re officially old now…
7 October 2009 at 4:49 pm |
please don’t mention U2 and punk in the same post again or I will take a 2×4 to my computer monitor.
7 October 2009 at 4:50 pm |
…”punk’s commercial promise”?
wtf? are you doing shrooms again?
7 October 2009 at 5:20 pm |
That phrase might sound oxymoronic, but I was getting at the idea that a group like Green Day couldn’t possibly have enjoyed mainstream success before 1991. Even if the punks didn’t consider themselves to be commercial entities in the late-70′s, they were still signing contracts with major labels that were worth many thousands of dollars, and at one time every label viewed punk as the “next big thing”. That bet didn’t pay off until Nirvana’s Nevermind went multi-platinum, which is why ’91 has been called “the year punk broke”…
You might not like what U2 morphed into, but there’s no denying that they came out of the punk movement…
8 October 2009 at 7:28 am
actually Green Day isn’t a good analogy. They simply stole the punk sound and started making videos with their ‘edgi-ness’. I liked their music a lot better when the Dead Kennedys did it the first time around.
a better analogy would be – say – a-ha (remember ‘Take On Me’?) who I’m sure also “came out” of the punk movement. I also don’t like what a-ha “morphed into” (although the cartoon video was ahead of its time).
I’d rather have you compare Poison to Led Zeppelin than U2 to punk music.
7 October 2009 at 5:37 pm |
Culture Club is the greatest punk band of all time
7 October 2009 at 9:09 pm |
See also: Like Punk Never Happened: Culture Club And The New Pop by Dave Rimmer…
7 October 2009 at 9:12 pm
A guy named Rimmer writes a book on Culture Club. Coincidence? I think not.
7 October 2009 at 6:05 pm |
awesome
8 October 2009 at 8:13 am |
8 October 2009 at 8:14 am |
And a great spoof…
8 October 2009 at 8:18 am |
And one for Mr Pissbag and Mr Rimmer…
16 October 2009 at 4:20 am |
I dont think Achtung had to do with old punk as it was rather a new kind of punk. Namely in CyberPunk. ‘The Fly’ being the quintessential CyberPunk anthem.
I think U2′s album was progressive and futuristic, a push at the start of a new decade to move beyond what was already tired. But Nerviana took it back and lowered the standards. Pizza-boy delivery geeks stole the thunder from Achtung to an extent. A shame because still today, in the FUTURE, we’re still stuck on slobs doing tired re-hashes of whats already been sold.