U2 // How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb [Universal]
One of the most eagerly anticipated releases for 2004, U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb was released last month. It’s been in my player for a fair proportion of the week, so I thought that the time was ripe to post some thoughts on the CD.
The impression that is resonating in my head at the moment is of the CD as a Psalm. Bono [who has written the majority of the CD’s 11 tracks], moves us through the feeling of disorientation in Vertigo, (beautifully highlighted in the video clip), through to Yahweh, which seems to provide closure. The CD deals with themes of death, love, peace.
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is close to, if not the most personal and honest song-writing Bono has done. The earnest, sincere heart of the band is out on its sleeve I feel How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is U2’s most consistent CD in terms of song writing. On the whole I would say though some lyrics seem forced the CD is still impressively strong. Finally Dismantle has more religious imagery [highlighted in the book provided with the Limited Edition] than most of their back catalogue. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is arguably U2’s most spiritual record or perhaps second only to October. I also think the song writing is more open to interpretation than the 2000 offering, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, (although some songs were given new meaning during the 2001 Elevation Tour).
The CD features a number of beautifully moving songs – Sometimes You Can’t Make It … (they should rename this one Tough), City of Blinding Lights, One Step Closer and Crumbs From Your Table. Crumbs moves me a little more each time I hear it. I think in this song I’m hearing a plea to a church that has the capacity to do some much more, but fail to give even the crumbs from our tables. Another way to look at the song is a letter to the first world from the so-called third world. The chorus is one of the more gut wrenching in U2’s catalogue. From whatever angle you look at this song, it’s a killer, and the outro, wow. A Man and a Woman is another typically U2 love song, with the protagonist of the song, valuing love, over romance.
The CD has been strongly growing on me since the first listen. On each subsequent listen my appreciation of the musicianship and the chemistry of the band has grown – last time it was the piercing guitar in Love and Peace or Else, which must be an audio illusion to a bullet ripping the sky [Vertigo], realising The Edge sings a bit of Miracle Drug (beneath the noise, below the din), and one of the moments of the record is Bono’s beautiful emotionally charged ‘Sing you are the reason I sing’ from Sometimes You Can’t Make it On Your Own, a song Bono wrote for his father [along with One Step Closer].
And the CD finds its climax in the concluding line of Yahweh - Take this heart … and make it break. Only through the breaking of our hearts do we realise we are alive, do we know of our compassion - and concern, the breaking of who we are, to consider more than we are, to rebuild ourselves. Bono on this record has beared his soul. Dismantling the Atomic Bomb, is dismantling ourselves, dismantling what we value, dismantling what we have, and reassembling our attitude to the world. For as flashed across the screens of Zoo TV: It’s your world, you can change it; or as Gandhi said, (quoted on the booklet) ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’.
As to where the CD fit into their body of work? I definitely feel the songs on this CD will not age, and will be considered as good in 5-10 years as now, and this deserves to be considered alongside The Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby as U2’s masterpiece.
these songs are in my eyes [and through my heart],
you’ll see them when I smile.
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