Album Review Friday
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#10 Couldn’t Stand The Weather - Stevie Ray Vaughan
#9 Let It Be - The Replacements
#8 Learning To Crawl - The Pretenders
#7 The Smiths
#6 Born In The USA - Bruce Springsteen
#5 Reckoning - REM
#4 The Unforgettable Fire - U2
Although one of the most popular and biggest selling acts of the past thirty years, U2’s creative efforts rarely attract universal praise. While some artists have albums that seem to be loved and admired by all (Springsteen’s Born To Run, the Stones’ Let It Bleed for example) each U2 album almost always has a love or hate critical reaction. Probably their most universally appreciated album was 1983’s War, which became their first number one album in the UK largely due to the anthems “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Year’s Day”. The music on War is aggressive, political, and angry, which pretty much described the band’s identity at the time. But their next effort remains a flashpoint of criticism even three decades later. The Unforgettable Fire, released in 1984, is one of those albums the listener either loves or hates, either listens to regularly or rarely can stomach more than a few tracks. Count me in to the former, as it is not only one of my favorite U2 albums, it is clearly one of the best albums of 1984.
Great artists do not follow the predictable path. Dylan went electric, the Stones embraced country, the Who wrote an opera. U2 fell into that lineup with The Unforgettable Fire. It would have been all too easy to come out with another War, another album of stadium friendly, angry and bombastic political songs (do not forget, the four members of U2 are Irish). Instead, The Unforgettable Fire is, I believe, one piece of music divided into ten chapters that together deliver a message on life’s spirituality and fragility. Recall, they began as a band with strong Christian influences, and God and religion have been a continuous theme in their music. On The Unforgettable Fire U2 puts their struggle with religion and their own future front and center.
Have no doubt, though, that U2 was still a confident and arrogant band. They had to be to release an album filled with atmospheric and panoramic sounds that on first listen seemed to stray from their prior work. But the music on The Unforgettable Fire really is not much of a departure as the critics would have you think. Listen to “The Ocean” or “An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart” off of their debut album Boy and you hear similar ambient soundscapes that permeate so much of The Unforgettable Fire. This is a band in evolution, confident to stretch their talent and experiment rather than settle for the sure thing that worked in the past. They created a story on this album, and to appreciate each chapter it is essential to look at each song and how it contributes to the narrative.
A Sort of Homecoming – The opening track. The grandeur of the slow lead in bolstered by Larry Mullen’s persistent drumbeat sounds like he’s announcing the arrival of a marching army. And that is exactly what is happening. U2 is declaring their arrival, and Bono is clear that they have struggled with the rock star/spirituality conflict but are moving on when he sings “on borderland we run/And still we run, we run and don’t look back”. The song is less heralded than other stadium pleasers, but is one of their very best.
Pride (In The Name of Love) – Their first US top forty hit, and deservedly so. Probably the most ‘traditional’ U2 song on the album. Edge provides guitar work that sounds like it will explode any second, but never gives in which creates a tension that is matched by the simple yet profound lyrics from Bono. Clearly describing the pain of Martin Luther King Jr’s assasination
Wire – Coming off two epic tracks “Wire” sneaks up on the listener expecting relief only to be met by Adam Clayton’s thunderous bass line that gives this track energy and spirit. Even with that groove the lyrics return to life and its struggles, this time supposedly about drug use the cost of the wrong choices. “Throw your life away/Such a nice day…So lay me down/The longest sleep”.
The Unforgettable Fire – The album is often described as atmospheric, and the title track certainly is responsible for that description. It is the first song of the album to truly have that ethereal feel to it, with guitar and drums taking a backseat to synthesizers. The music and Bono’s vocals work together to create musical imagery unlike anything the band had made up to that point.
Promenade – A little over two minutes but just enough time to create a dreamy feel of Bono’s reportedly improvised lyrics. Edge fills just enough space to match the words that again reflect their focus on life and what comes after. “Earth, sky, sea and rain/Is she coming back again?/I’d like to be around in a spiral staircase/To the higher ground”
4thOf July – An instrumental piece that opens side two of the album, continuing the scaled down more atmospheric sound. Reportedly recorded by their producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois without the band’s knowledge, it is primarily Clayton’s bass line slowly weaving between skeletal riffs from Edge’s guitar. Its place on the album is crucial and why it is so important, because it almost bleeds right into the first notes of the next track that take that simple rhythm and expand into an unmatched classic.
Bad – An instant classic, the song is a thinly veiled narrative of a struggle with heroin addiction, written about a personal friend of Bono’s who died of an overdose. The repetitive guitar riff from Edge would become a staple of future U2 songs, but here it appears in its original form. The song builds behind the power of Clayton’s bass beat and Mullen’s relentless rhythm and climaxes with Bono’s sincere cry of being ‘wide awake’ to the tragedy around him. This remains U2’s best, and certainly is in the conversation of greatest rock song ever with “Gimme Shelter” from The Rolling Stones and “Like A Rolling Stone” from Dylan. The live version consistently get more praise than the album track, and their performance at Live Aid is legendary.
Indian Summer Sky – The song begins as if the listener came in late, with the beat sounding like a horse galloping from a distance and approaching at a breakneck pace. And that pace does not slow, with Bono delivering the lyrics with urgency as Clayton’s bass propels the song to an exhaustive finish.
Elvis Presley And America - Probably the most criticized song on the album, this is reportedly Bono adlibbing vocals to an altered rework of the backing track from “A Sort Of Homecoming”. It is actually an essential chapter to their story on this album, and its position on the album allows the listener to come down from the frenetic track before it and prepare for the conclusion that is soon to come. It also is the clearest example of the band’s new fascination with America, which would be front and center on their next two releases The Joshua Tree and Rattle And Hum.
MLK – I see this song in the same vein as “40” from the album War. A tribute to Martin Luther King, the music and Bono’s gentle vocals drive home what becomes a spiritual requiem to their hero. It is a fitting and audacious song to close the album, and emotionally leaves you exhausted, spent, but at the same time energized.
The Unforgettable Fire was recorded in a castle, a fitting setting for four Irishmen that were ready to battle to be the best rock band in the world. The album, tour, and Live Aid performance would put them in contention for that title. And this was possible because they pushed themselves to change, to defy expectations, to try and make themselves better than they even thought they could be. To look at this album as ten separate songs that do not sound like the U2 of War is a mistake. This is a ten chapter story, a story of struggle with the temptations of life’s reality, and the struggle of a band searching for greatness.