A RAW CELTIC SOUND

Analysis of My Favorite U2 Song

This week my presence is required as a priest in a Diocesan Synod (meeting with all the other synors); but I will post a more substantive piece afterward. For now, here is something I hope you appreciate.

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Among the best-ever Rock bands is U2, a group of Irish musicians who have always openly declared their Christian faith, but have never been “that kind of Christian band.” They have lasted as a band with no break-up for a record breaking forty-nine years as of this date (in April 2025). Rock Music in the mid 1970s was plagued by the garbage that The Who openly derided as “Sister Disco,” as well as by the budding intrusion of canned factory music that was modeled after the lowest common denominator of minimal business risk, record labels aiming less at success than at playing it safe for investors. After the explosive creativity of the 1960s and the early 1970s, it was quite a bitter reality for creative artists. U2 proved that creativity, that treating Rock music as High art, was still the higher road for those who chose to take it.

Below is my cover of the song that is my favorite of their creations. The whole band is listed as the song writers, with Bono and “the Edge” listed as having written the lyrics. What strikes me about the score is that there are few actual chords. Most of the accompaniment is in open fifths, something that I found difficult to adjust to. The refrain uses chords (G,D,B minor, A, then G,D,A), after the verses suddenly use the D major chord to lead in to the refrain. The open fifths, the strong drumbeats, the rhythm that draws listeners in, all come from their Celtic lineage in a manner not at all standard in Rock music. The melodic lines that form intervals within the open fifths give the effect of chords, thirds, fourths, and sixths traveling between them, all very reminiscent of Medieval music, but with the electric power of Rock.

It is also quite apparent that the song, about a personal crisis Bono experienced as the lead singer, very happily resolved upon hearing Joey Ramone’s singing, takes us to something more. “All the stolen voices Will someday be returned, The most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.” I hear in that his Catholic faith in the general resurrection on the Last Day, coupled with apparent belief in Universal Salvation, which may be why the approaching Eastertide moved me to record my cover.