Episode 26 - The Unforgettable Fire

welcome to this episode of the wolf and

the shepherd today we're going to be

talking about the band u2 and more

specifically

the album the unforgettable fire

so as typical once again i get thrown

into something i'm

not all too familiar with which is fine

i mean i

i like learning things i'm a big youtube

fan but not huge and

when the wolf presented this hey let's

talk about the

youtube record the unforgettable fire

i'm like okay so

what songs were on that was one on that

because

i don't quite remember exactly

what songs were on that he's like oh no

no

let me educate you so i'm about to get

an education on the band you two

well the album the unforgettable fire

came out

in 1984 it came out

at maybe an unpopular time for guitar

bands

so when was that well back back in like

the first part of the 80s

it was still very much a very new

romantic the end of

new wave you think of some of the bands

in england who were super popular at

that time the jam

there was still end in that kind of new

wave type era but you still have

had the new romanticism he had like

depeche mode and duran duran trying to

find their way but guitar bass

sorry guitar-based bands were not

at that point they didn't really have

much of a medium most of the radio

stations

they wanted to play popular music so if

you're a little bit alternative

they weren't really up for it right and

of course

even back in those days what alternative

rock came out to be in of course the 90s

was so much different than the 80s so

you had the

uh the new wave what they call it

now we call it retro right so you didn't

have

too much of that back then but then you

had these bands that had these sounds

and of course we've talked about the

smiths

and and they're always punted into that

category but

i never really considered the smiths and

you two in the same category but

maybe they were i maybe they were

actually in that same category well it

was

it was guitar based music so you have to

remember at this point the sex pistols

you know kind of made their point right

the clash

had not necessarily burned out but

you know it's kind of funny you bring up

the clash because there's a lot of

people that

i knew way back in the day that hated

the song should i stay or should i go

now

and that was a a big

hit for the clash and they

they would look at that song and they

would say oh you know i i don't like

this oh this is

something you want to listen to but they

didn't even realize that

that was actually driving their band to

make music

yeah and they they were just so adverse

to

that song yeah and at that period i

think

coming out of punk post punk going into

new wave and you saw the

not necessarily death but

you know a lot of live bands who

followed that

you know guitar bass thing were being

replaced by synthetic

sorry i've started with the th i should

have started with the s verse yeah

you have a castilian accent yeah i know

i'd get stabbed instantly um but

you know there weren't that many bands

at that time who could sustain

a guitar sound you know you had the ones

which had been around forever

who still had their fan base but it was

a older fan base sure

but you know most of the music coming

through again was the duran duran the

peshmerga the spandau ballet

the fluka seagulls it was still

surviving from this new

new romanticism and the commercialism at

this point in time of english music

was coming into american movies you know

all those kind of brat pack movies all

those american movies of the 80s

it adopted a lot of english soundtrack

movies

sorry songs but it was very poppy

there wasn't much room for you know

guitar pace bands to find that much of a

niche at that point especially given

the record companies pretty much told

you what you need to release

when it was going to release it and they

sold you out on a

you know your song was going to be in

this movie

well sure because the the record

companies controlled all that back then

yeah and now we're in this

era that the record companies do not

control

what gets released we're in the area of

youtube we're in the era of spotify

we're in the era of apple music we're

we're in the era where the independent

artists if they

put something out they they can create

their own following they can use social

media they can say

you know hey listen to this and somebody

listens and they tell

10 friends and those 10 friends tell 10

friends and next thing

you know it it it goes viral you know

that's

that's one of the things it's all about

going viral

way back then you didn't have that viral

ability

you only had radio stations and he had

music clubs so the

quote-unquote kids right would go

to the music clubs to hear the music

and it was always a kind of a trophy for

them

i heard this band first i i

heard them in a music club and they

played this great song

they they played these great songs and

and

i bought their tape

i bought their vinyl uh this is of

course

a little before cds but it right at the

cusp of cds but

i i bought their music medium and i took

it home and i played it for somebody

else

nowadays it's all about well hey let me

send you a link and you click in your

phone and you listen to the song

and maybe you like it maybe you don't

but if you like it maybe you share it on

social media and you do that way back in

those days

you had to have the record labels to say

this is what we like this is what we

think we can

sell so we're going to go ahead and

front these guys the money

to where they can record and we're going

to put out the

physical media for people to listen to

and we're going to control the market on

our basis of

taste yeah and that's what it came down

to it was

taste yeah and it was difficult coming

out of that time because

as we explained back in our smith's

podcast that

it was really that resonation

the identification of people who never

thought they'd find somebody who felt

the same way they did who was suffering

the same way they were and it created

this

community where even though it was

disjointed because they couldn't connect

with each other because the lack of the

internet

the music still reached out to people

and made them feel they weren't alone by

the time the unforgettable fire came out

in 1984

there still wasn't i guess that

connectivity and it came against like i

said it really went against the grain of

the new romantic bands which were really

you know um gaining ground at that point

and you know breaking into overseas but

until pride in the name of love

came out i don't think u2 really kind of

broke america

or had you know a sound that

really hit you know the u.s charge

remembering back in in my day when

you two started to become popular i

always remember

the record the joshua tree and and that

was one of those

that uh whenever you

you talked to a friend and you talked

about bands and you said oh i like you

too have you ever heard of youtube well

no way i haven't heard of you two

and you say well you gotta listen to

this record and it was always the joshua

tree

yeah there there was nothing before

the joshua tree in my circle of friends

that we

really heard of out of you too it was

always the joshua tree and even to this

day i

i see you know some of my friends on

facebook

or on social media or even the friends i

still talk to

that it came from you know way back in

the day

it was always the joshua tree that was

the beginning

for youtube in the united states

but before the joshua tree

we had the unforgettable fire yeah and

we and we had i mean like the first

u2 album we had was boy which released

in 1980

october 1981 and war 1983

and a lot of people might remember war

by you two

uh famous for the song sunday bloody

sunday

great song which is a very politically

based song

please don't sing it please don't sing

it

you should be asking please don't play

the drums yeah but please don't sing it

i could see that look in your eyes right

now you want to start singing the song

please don't sing it it's going to

happen on one other rather

but you know i mean their albums started

changing

from religion to politics

a little bit you know they um the actual

opening

when you go from uh between war

and um joshua tree when you have a

live at red rocks under a blood red sky

he introduces a song this is not a rebel

song

as in this is not about you know the

people

rebelling against you know the british

army and you know northern ireland you

know

it was about something completely

different and when you listen to those

lyrics sunday bloody sunday

again the last part of the song and it's

purely religious

i mean they still keep that religious

angle you know about and the battle's

just begun to claim the victory jesus

won

i mean it's still a very very religious

song

when it gets into it and i think the

shift to the unforgettable fire

was it was like if you could have had a

band

which maybe had a direction of okay

we're going to be kind of religious

we're going to sing a little bit about

love but

you know now we've had some dmt and

we're going to kind of like sing about

something completely different

you know i mean i think the

unforgettable fire when it came out

it was the first album that was recorded

in just a one take

thing not in recording studios just in

empty churches

and they just wanted to record the

sounds

in there and maybe the echoes of what

people were hearing in those songs meant

so many different things to so many

different people

that it was more that it was the most

regardless of the previous albums and

their religious songs

this was really the first spiritual

album

that people could connect to it and

actually

feel the reverberations through those

churches through those stone walls as

opposed to through the lyrics because

not many of the lyrics on the

unforgettable

fire through any of their songs are

really that

particularly religious compared to the

previous three albums

but it is the most spiritual album i

think they have ever done

i'm i'm wondering sitting over here in

the united states

when all this went on and

you have a band like you two that comes

out

and they're starting to put

music you know getting close to the

mainstream

and you've got some americans listening

to it i mean that

that as an american i i

look at that as a dream come true for a

european band

right but most americans

do not understand the struggle

between ireland and england

and the ira in

all of this stuff and i i've talked

about rage against the machine before

where you know you've got a lot of

politically charged

lyrics in there you got a politically

charged band

and even though that had to do with

america

most americans didn't even understand

what rage against the machine

was talking about so now you have

you two they're talking about some

religious stuff they're talking about

some politically

charged things and

most americans we sit in a bubble i mean

we're over here in our bubble we we kind

of

sort of care what's going on beyond our

borders

but let's be honest we're on an island

here

i mean it's a big island you know it's a

continent

but we're on our own island and as long

as

some of those things don't affect us we

we don't really care

we was there something that we were just

listening to the melodies they they were

good musicians

and we were singing along with these

songs that were

you know slanting one way towards the

ira

and and we didn't even really know what

we were doing over here

well i think you know you too

should probably be considered

as you know one of the biggest

peacemakers you know bono

you know getting rid of the terrorism

between

you know the southern part of ireland

and the northern part of

ireland because and by by the way before

you go

forward you say southern part of ireland

versus

northern ireland uh

is that different for us americans yeah

i mean you have

ireland and then you have northern

ireland which most americans get

confused on

they i look at it as two separate

countries

well yeah i mean it it kind of is kind

of isn't

i mean aya eiri is basically the

southern part of ireland and then you

have northern ireland but

you know you were bought up in england

to believe

a certain way that all the people who

wanted

ireland to become whole were like

terrorists and all this but

then you were fed this kind of stuff of

all they're doing this really bad stuff

so then you double down on it

but you didn't necessarily at that point

in time

get it and reverse and see what we were

necessarily doing to them

and you know maybe being able to

understand

why the rest of ireland didn't like you

know the northern ireland part of it and

it's a difficult thing because we had a

very filtered media

you know you go back to you know bbc

used to be a world respected service and

then

you know it for various reasons in terms

of

jeremy clarkson ruined it with with uh

top gear well basically is what you're

saying yeah but

but the point is it's like you know you

you get used to listening to a new

source and i think it's the same thing

with cnn in the united states

you know probably up until i don't know

maybe 2005

you know it really was i mean most

americans it didn't matter which side of

the aisle you fell

you believed it was a credible news

source sure right

and so well it was the media yeah and

where else are you going to get your

information

it was a meeting and this is the thing

it's like you know you two

came out with this music which

tried to examine both sides of that

island you know ireland as a whole

and try to explain why people in the

south

and you know towards the north were kind

of pissed that we couldn't unify the

country

and then why people in the north

didn't want to unify the country but you

know in fact again it was really

you know politics again creating all of

this

type of well one thing you need to

remember that if you

showed i'm i'm going to go out on a limb

here

and you know how good i am with

percentages right

i know that you are at limbs yeah so

i'm gonna say if you presented

a map of great britain

yeah and and i picture it as the

big island on the right and the little

island on left

and you say okay show me ireland

show me scotland show me whales

show me northern ireland most americans

can't do that yeah

we can't we we can't i i i know

most americans probably wouldn't even

realize wales is

somewhere in there i i know kind of

maybe where northern ireland is i know

ireland's floating around in there and

no scotland

somewhere up in the north and and that's

why they had

the the wall wrapped around them because

it's colder up there

but let's be honest most americans don't

even

realize all these countries see you know

ireland

everything they're all wrapped really

close together and um

once again i've done almost 10 seconds

of research on this

i'm pretty sure you could take the

british aisles

and put them inside of texas like

10 times well no you can uh it's england

and scotland you can fit into texas six

times

yeah there you go yeah so i i was close

yeah you know what we'll use that

we'll use the new version of math the

the common core math

so so i was correct but it it's such a

small area right

but there's so much going on over there

there's so much going on that we sit

over here in the united states and we

don't even

think about that like europeans

look at us yeah but the point but the

point is you do though because you look

at

you know the violence and a lot of inner

cities it's because of people come from

a different block

you know they come from a different side

of the street they come from a different

school

there's always that division and the

thing in

you know between you know the southern

part of ireland and northern

ireland it was this you know the thing

between

you know protestants you know the

catholics

but the division had been created by the

church because the core belief is still

jesus's lord jesus came in the flesh

jesus is my

lord but somehow

the politicians had hijacked the message

of the church that

you know your belief will be squashed if

you don't

fall into these political lines and

you know going with you too going into

the unforgettable fire the first three

albums boy october and war

again very religious and

engaging more politically when you say

very religious

what do you mean by very religious on

these albums well i mean like

pretty much hymns i mean you listen to

the early youtube songs and i mean it's

like hymns

almost you know i mean like old school

yeah oh lord my god yeah

no i'm not awesome wonder yeah i mean

what i mean

it's like singing songs in church well i

mean you have to remember

the end of every youtube song they seem

that some the uh

some 40 kind of how long

to sing their song you know the end of

every album they have done like forever

i mean it's always a steep religious

thing but with the unforgettable fire it

shifted

to this almost like

the edge started stabbing the guitar

with a knife i mean you want to take

into like

a sort of homecoming the unforgettable

fire you introduce this guitar style

where like

instead of a plectrum you were picking

these notes out with a knife i mean it

was hard and it was kind of

chilling and it had this like very cold

feel to it

and you know for the first time i mean

i think you had this sound this new

sound

where people tried to get emotion

through the guitar playing

not the lyrics and it was not

you know you know black people

brown people whatever people this was

like these are white people

white irish people and they're playing

this song

and what gets through to you the most is

it almost sounds like

somebody's got a kitchen knife and they

are stabbing

into these lyrics i mean pride in the

name of love you know the most famous

one which came out

you know of the unforgettable fire album

i mean it literally

sounds like somebody's got a knife and

stabbing into these guitar strings

yeah in in ironically even that song

they called it pride but then they had

to put in

parentheses and then i mean in the name

of love because of the chorus you know

yeah the name of love

yeah and blah blah yeah and i get that

part but

if you listen to it it's not really a

love song

yeah so a lot of people would hear that

like oh in the name of love yeah it's a

love song it's not a love song

not a love song oh yeah it's about

assassination of

you know civil rights leader but it was

the first

youtube song which really broke through

outside of sunday bloody sunday which

made a few movies

honestly i i didn't even realize sunday

bloody sunday came out before that

you know when when you presented this

topic once again

we we do about 30 seconds of prep for

each one of these podcast episodes

i i would have admitted that sunday

bloody sunday came out

long after this yeah no that came that

came from the war album

and uh obviously at the live at red

rocks under a blood right

under a blood red sky thing and that

you know really i guess kind of polarize

the view

at least in terms of

young people seeing an actual irish band

give a comment on the struggles in

northern ireland

and when you know he came out and said

you know about the bombing and that

skill and everything else

that you know this is about humanity

this is not about politics it's not

about religion

and if you support killing old people

who fought a war for you to give you

this freedom

there is something wrong with you and

it's such a very

simple and actually a very

kind of short pause when he came out and

said this

when he you know to wrap the irish flag

and said all i see is read

that well no no so before we did this

podcast you were

telling me about that so so walk us

through

what uh what bono did with the irish

flag well

willie had like a predominantly uh irish

audience i guess

and you know he held the irish flag up

and he was

saying like you know what is this color

what is this color what is this color

and he was trying to get in these

ingrained irish people who

you know got these you know 30-minute

segments of you know how how are things

going back in the real island and all

that stuff

and you know he got to the point was you

know calling out the

colors on the flag and he said all i see

is

f in red because it just means blood you

know it just means

conflict it's why we still at this point

when politically you know we have an

arm to connect everybody together it's

not like

you know 400 600 800 years ago where

people didn't have a voice

we can avoid this bloodshed these

bombings these terrorist attacks and

again

i i you know i mean i don't agree with

obviously you know the ira and a lot of

stuff they did but equally i don't agree

with a lot of the stuff

the british government did because you

know you push people

especially youth into a position where

they feel

that they're being pushed down they

don't have a voice they're under

some type of draconian government it

doesn't take much to get those people

to kind of uprise against that level of

hand upon them and that's

i think where it went wrong that you

know yeah the iry were bad but yeah the

british government were bad and the way

everything went at that time was banned

but i think

you know bono and u2 at that time

as were especially responsible

for showing you know a lot of old irish

people in the united states that

this is not about what you've read what

you've seen

this thing is disgusting on both sides

and we need just to get

rid of this crap and i mean it really

did within about a year

and when yeah i mean it really did kind

of help to

so if if you walk

walk the typical american like me

through that

you know you're you're growing up in

england back in those days

we didn't know anything about this we we

didn't know about the struggle between

the english and the irish

i mean most american people were like oh

you know

it's just white european right yeah

they're all the same white people

and there's there's a big

difference in europe between

white people they're you're not

just all white in europe you're

english you're irish you're scottish

you're

welsh i i i remember hearing a joke

about the

you know everybody makes fun of the

welch

there's all this that's going on so so

you're listening this music

and you're realizing that you know there

there is a struggle between

the english and the irish and

you know we hear about the irish potato

famine

and we hear about st patrick's day and

most americans that's pretty much all we

know about the irish it's like okay

you got leprechauns you got a potato

famine

and you like to drink guinness and

that's about it

and other than that you're just a

different version

of an english person that that's really

what most americans believe about

you know that the british isles so to

speak so you've got this

irish band you two that's

delivering this message as an english

person not living in ireland

living in england how did that

what was that struggle there how did

how did people in england feel about

them delivering this message well the

problem is i mean

when you come to the song sunday bloody

sunday and what that represents

is that we got a very

i guess one-sided you know news

story of everything that was going on on

in northern ireland and

well it was it was it was propaganda 101

and

we never really saw kind of what was

going on and so when the song

sunday bloody sunday came out the

you know it the lyrics you know from a

protestant

band as such as they were at the time

still stoke

still spoke of the struggles in northern

ireland but

we were never allowed to see it because

they deliberately on the bbc

they took out scenes of stuff which was

going on

so we never saw if like you know you

know the irish at the time were being

maltreated or anything else they cut it

all out and they made

you know irish you know southern irish

you know irish catholics out to be

terrorists when

that wasn't really the case we got such

you know polarized news and the thing is

most people 95 of people 98

of people in ireland didn't matter that

we are in the north or the south

just wanted peace you know they didn't

care about it and

right it was a heart it was a hard thing

because like i said that song bla

sunday bloody sunday opened a lot of

people's eyes into

you know this is really what's going on

from somebody who's living in ireland

and that's

you know the shift of the unforgettable

fire went into

i guess more like the late

books you know of the new testament in

terms of you couldn't really tell

what it was saying unless you studied it

i mean it's still

very very very political but

right you know you had to understand it

was going from a rebel stance

to a point of we've got to smooth this

over otherwise

this is gonna be almost like a civil war

for the next hundred two hundred years

do you think you two did a good job of

trying to smooth it over did they stir

up the pot

i think they did i mean i think um they

think they did what

well i think they did a good job in

terms of smoothing it

yeah because they still kept i mean

right up until

maybe a tongue baby they still had a lot

of songs which are very religious and

you have to understand

as an island regardless of how you

separate it

island is very religious between the

catholics and the protestants

you've got a heavy number of people who

believe in god and believing that the

will of god regardless of how it takes

us to

get to a certain point you know it's

validated by god so i mean

it it was a musical

kind of scene which was trying to almost

escape island in a way you know it tried

to get to england

to explain what was going on ireland and

then

go to america which had this very

polarized

and very terrible actually

stuff that they made out that irish

people were being massacred it was some

like kind of genocide when it really

wasn't that but

you know there were people going around

in irish pubs with collection bags and

you know kind of yeah let's gain up some

money to buy some hand grenades to blow

out the british uh

army and the truth is it's

somewhere definitely in between i mean

the british weren't good

the irish weren't good i mean it was a

very

kind of uh well look i mean we're we're

looking at that

in today's politics in the united states

and once again i'm i'm going to preach

back to

most americans we sit in our bubble

we we don't really concern ourselves

with

what's going on in europe we concern

ourselves with the middle east we

concern ourselves with asia

we concern ourselves with a little bit

of russia

but beyond that most

americans do not understand

european politics most americans don't

care about it most americans would look

at a band like you too

and say oh they make good music

i remember the the movie and i think

i've actually brought this up on a

podcast before

the movie blown away uh loved that movie

my wife doesn't understand why i like

the movie because

spoiler alert the dog dies in the movie

and i

truly hate any movie where a dog dies

i just i i totally hate that but

i remember tommy lee jones is playing a

ira person in that movie and he kills a

dog

and i hate that part of the movie

but you start to learn

a little bit about the ira

in in the fight and all that and what's

going on

but i do remember in the movie

the woman and i don't remember she's the

girlfriend of the jeff bridges character

in the movie and she's trying to sell

some stuff on a

roadside kind of garage sale thing sells

the

tommy lee jones character a tape

of you too and a lot of the

soundtrack of that movie is youtube

because it's always

oh well you know irish music it's either

pub music where you're sitting there

clanking your

your steins together or your pint

glasses together full of guinness

or it's some kind of ira

thing going on and that's where most

americans

look at that and it's kind of sad that

we're so wrapped up in what we're doing

over here

that that's basically our view of what's

going on with the rest of the world but

do you not think that that

stereotype of iris music is exactly the

same

as how people stereotype like texan

music i mean oh absolutely there's no

there's no boundaries that you can

bypass and get out if you live in texas

you wear a cowboy hat you wear cowboy

boots you ride a horse to work you

listen to country music

and when you're not riding your horse

you drive a pickup truck

that's how most people think and

i fit into only one of those categories

because

i wear cowboy boots almost every day

because they're

comfortable but i don't own a horse i

don't ride a horse

i can i have several times i can

outride a lot of people on horse but

beyond that

i'm not your stereotypical texan

but most texans aren't stereotypical

texans

and stereotypes just kind of get out

there

and everybody believes that and

especially when

there's an ocean separating

another country another island another

continent

most people get confused and like well

that must be what's going on there

everybody believes that irish people are

sitting in pubs all day

drinking guinness getting drunk and

that's all they're doing

british people are eating terrible food

and

you know talking with the snooty accent

and bowing down to the queen and it

that's what we look at

as americans yeah that's not that's not

too far off the mark to be honest

um now well so there's something

about stereotypes but now we're we're

about to go down one of those rabbit

holes

let's be careful with the rabbit holes

now

before the podcast started you know when

i said you

i want to introduce unforgettable fire

album and i said that

it really shifted guitar-based

music i guess among a

very popular track of new romanticism

like

with again duran duran the pesh mode and

everything else

that you know it is almost a beacon in a

way

because we didn't really have too many

outside of queen

and you too too many arena bands

were really kind of making that music

and with queen

it's kind of weird when you go back to

some of their songs like

fat bottomed girls and uh

i'd like to ride my bicycle and all this

type of stuff kind of

well yeah i like the song but i just

don't know where you're going with it

but with you too i mean it changed

i mean i think once they got out of that

war album and went into the joshua tree

and when it hit the american market

things changed a lot because within a

year they had

rattle and hum which was their tour of

the united states and it was out in the

movies studios but

you know you you've you know you said

like uh

that from actual baby like one is like

and that was 91 and then they went back

to electronic stuff

i mean yeah i mean i i remember hearing

the song one

and in quite honestly if you had to

pin me down and say give me your top 10

songs of all time one by youtube

is going to be on there my wife knows

that

she knows i love that song i hate cover

versions

let's be honest i hate the cover

versions of one of the etiquette cover

version of

yeah and you're not going to because

you're never going to hear a good cover

version of that song

but i think

back to that song and i think it you

know what a great song

what's your favorite lyric in that song

god they're all so good i mean i i'm i'm

sitting here and i'm playing the song in

my head

i learned how to play it on the guitar i

used to play

son tell me mine it's like that yeah i

asked you to enter and then you make me

cruel

and i can't keep holding on yeah i mean

it's just

it it's such a great song all the way

through and even

you know when i was younger and i heard

the song i

liked it if you ignore the lyrics and

everything else and just take it at the

melody and everything it's great song

but then when you start digging into the

song you realize

what's a great song even more and that's

why i

learned to love the song even

more than when i liked it before

i mean it's it it's just a fantastic

but between that and say a song like

with or without

you and there's a four-year gap between

those because obviously with or without

you

well but but let's be honest that that's

a great song too yeah

it wouldn't make my top 10 but still a

great song

but does does the uh i don't know

words of that song or thing i mean does

it really send a different message i

mean across those four years i mean

i mean a lot of people i think you hear

the suffering

yeah in both of those songs well a lot

of professional musicians have said like

with a without you was like

song that saved my life but you get the

same thing with like

one i mean it's that they hit something

within a very specific point of time

where they shifted from religion and

politics to love

and they really captured love and then

they moved on and then they well

now remember they shifted back to

politics

that they got a lot of fans because

they shifted to that mainstream of

music and then once they got a bunch of

mainstream

fans and then they went back to politics

everybody got confused

yeah they said well well wait a second

why are you saying this why are you

saying that

and everybody got upset with bono and

all that but they didn't realize what

the initial

message behind all their music was

all they heard was like i said before

in america it was always the joshua tree

was that kind of quintessential album

and we didn't hear anything before that

we didn't understand

what was going on with european politics

we didn't understand the british house

we didn't understand

any of the irish stuff we we didn't get

that

and then once you two got popular

then they said okay well now we have a

voice

now we now we've got people's

attention now now that we have their

attention

let us explain what we were trying to

say

and then they began to get ostracized

and i don't remember was it

octune baby or uh there

there was some tour that they did and it

was all about

putting videos up on the screen they

they were one of the first

oh that means no that was the band after

zoo roper

you'd go to the show and they would put

these videos on the screen

and most americans were like i i

i'm just coming here to watch a show and

and they're doing all this and well i

think

everybody i think the edge i think the

edge mostly drove that album that was

europa tour

because he sang i think the only song or

the first song they released off the

album was like a lemon and he sang the

lyrics on it

and they had this is that the one the

music video where the women came in

and rubbed his face yeah or whatever it

was i

i do remember seeing that if i was gonna

do a video that's what i'll probably

get someone will come around my face but

no for mac tongue baby i mean

you think the opening song on that album

was the fly do you remember that

i mean it was a very harsh intro

i mean from like the previous albums

that gone before because remember

they went through that kind of

westernish sound of like joshua tree

rattling harm and then they went into

this hard almost

german electronic sound they did

not the fly song and and they

all of a sudden started losing fans

because they switched their genre

a little bit they said hey we're gonna

start the water

there were some songs on them like

ultraviolet

and and that stuff was to me i mean that

was

absolutely fantastic and i thought they

actually gathered that

because i think brian eno might have

still been producing their albums at the

time and he was like guy responsible for

like craft work

and all this other stuff and i i kind of

got why especially with the edge

why they got into that type of sound but

after that tongue baby

i really disconnected i did not

i i did not i did too i i remember

i i i've only seen you two

live one time and that was at the

uh dallas cowboys stadium the one that

we have right now

that we called jerry world here a

friend of mine called me and said hey

i've got two u2 tickets uh

my wife can't go do you want to come see

you too

i'm like i've never seen him live but

yeah i want to come

you know i i'd love to see him live and

saw him live muse open forum and

we're not gonna go down that rabbit hole

but i'm sorry muse

sucked it was horrible we actually went

outside because it was so terrible

to see them live and i was

watching it and hearing the older songs

the joshua tree

songs and everything i truly enjoyed

that but

even in that show they were putting up

the

political posts and the political videos

and and trying to explain

where they came from uh

still a good show but

then you start to disconnect a little

bit from them

yeah you do yeah i mean i lost the

politics past act on baby like i said it

had a heavy

german influence craft work influence

that you know i could understand the

sound and like the song one i mean

perfect freaking song so let me ask you

this

uh your your son is

young and when he gets to the point to

where

you would say xander i want you to hear

you two what song

do you play for him to introduce him to

the band you two

this would be a funny answer because if

you weren't answering it if you weren't

asking that about my son

it'd be a different matter but i think

october from the album october just

because

it's purely a piano based song

okay it's religious

it's kind of slow but it kind of tells

you

how they felt at that time i mean it was

in between

uh you know boy in war which you had a

very kind of

again like nine out of ten songs being

religious and then he had war where

a couple of religious songs but the rest

were political

i think the october album that thing

before they actually broke through

if you wanted somebody to actually

examine the lyrics

or what that song was about i think you

could have got

early youtube from that now later on i

will go to the unforgettable fire album

and the a sort of homecoming the opening

track on it

just because it's so long when it's like

five minutes 28 seconds

which again when we went back to the rem

losing my religion thing it's like

record labels do not want you recording

songs which lasts too long

right and and we've also talked about

smashing pumpkins and i

thought about the melancholy and the

infinite sadness album

and honestly my favorite song on that

whole record is the opening track yeah

where it's

just well they call it melancholy and

the infinite sadness

and it's just music and you sit there

now yeah it's

great well we we've we've agreed if

beethoven was still alive

he would cry that he didn't write

that opening track true i mean he

absolutely would but i think with

you two i think it came out of a point

where nobody in the united states heard

of

maybe the first three albums for the

most part

in england united kingdom we heard a

couple of albums were successful and

then

they went kind of commercial but more

aimed towards america

you know with joshua tree and rattle and

harm

then it reversed and they went more

european

but then i guess it lost

direction in terms of how most of us

who heard the band from early on

communicated with them you know i mean

the message they were sending

it wasn't you know necessarily

relational but

you know you don't really have that many

bands who go across the 15-year

thing i mean you just really don't i

mean

now correct your math there you said 15

years

i mean we're talking about a band that's

still relevant

today well i don't know if they are

relevant i know

oh that okay good argument yeah so

so one one is just talking the

unforgettable fire to act on baby

no no fair enough so so one thing uh

i divulged but i didn't ask you have you

seen youtube live

yeah i've seen this three times okay

yeah tell tell us about when you saw

youtube

all right i saw him the uh end of the

war

tour and this is when sunday bloody

sunday

became like pretty popular okay in

approximately what year are we talking

about uh

middle of 1984 wasn't so big was that a

big venue because they still really

weren't that

right so yeah so we're talking about

over in england yeah yeah

yeah are you talking about i think it's

like birmingham any sea

yeah but are you talking about like

little tiny music club

are you talking about it was still like

about 15 20

000 okay okay so so so

not quite a big giant stadium show

but not a little 500 music club

and then and then i saw him at wembley

stadium with like about 128 000 people

just before like

well during the joshua tree thing and

just before

rattling hum thing i guess and so yeah i

saw them

okay in the masses then i mean you know

but they already had a good

i guess number of songs which were

anthemic

enough to get you know a crowd of that

size to get excited

sure it was hard i mean now the last

time i saw them

was let me think maybe 92 the end of the

tongue baby tour were you in the u.s by

now or no

you still were still back in england at

that point no they came to

somewhere in the northeast yeah but once

again big show

yeah it's a big here's a big show and

this was um

actually they just when we went to see

them they'd release that

xeropa and they'd actually announce as

europa tour

so we were right on the tail end of some

of the stuff they were playing with the

edge like

singing lemon and all this stuff and

they'd kind of gone off in this weird

electronic like i said

cough craft work jean-michel jar

kind of direction and it it shifted a

lot and then they kind of went

very i don't know to me kind of middle

of the road i mean that's

maybe a knock on them maybe not but

everything i liked about them from the

beginning

i kind of stopped liking because it

wasn't

it wasn't about having controversial

lyrics it was just

the sound was just very generic

it didn't stand they switched there were

no riffs you

couldn't hear the edius guitar you know

and i think

you know there are some bands now again

you go back to you too

sorry not you too coldplay actually you

know i

loved the first three four albums and i

saw them

tons of times in concert but

they got to producing albums whereas

this

i i don't know if this really

communicates to me anymore and i think

that's okay i think you can have this

handshake with a band

sure and it's like okay we had our time

just like you've got previous

ex-boyfriend ex-girlfriend whatever

that you can be like look we had our

time it worked for us

but now your suit something else i'm

something else and i think that might be

where like bands like you two and cold

player kind of all that

yeah well what you're saying it you know

we're partying here as friends

yeah and and there's absolutely nothing

wrong with that yeah

unfortunately in uh you know we

we've tried to focus this episode of the

podcast on

on youtube and a certain album and of

course

you know naturally because the way we

are we we splinter off and now we've

kind of covered a lot of youtube's

career here

uh sometimes

you just gotta look at it and you gotta

say

we had a good time yeah and

it's okay that we're gonna part ways

because you're gonna go left

i'm gonna go right you're gonna go

north i'm gonna go south there's

nothing wrong with that it doesn't mean

you don't like him anymore but

maybe you just don't want to listen to

them

as much maybe you you don't want to

follow them as much but you still

appreciate the fact that they

made a big contribution

into the music industry and that's the

way i look at you too

i dismissed myself from them a long time

ago

but i tell you what if i'm

flipping through radio stations or maybe

i should

actually quantify this because when

i drive in the car i'm always driving my

wife is sitting there in the passenger

seat and she

constantly is just flipping through the

radio trying to

find a song which drives me

insane but once again we could do a

podcast on that but

let's let that go if she

is flipping through the radio stations

trying to find a song and i hear a

youtube song

from back in my day i'll say stop

let's let's listen to this do you think

you two should have stopped after rak

tung baby

no in in in god that's so

tough because it's a beautiful day with

a good song

i can't remember all that you can't

leave behind they have so much talent

and i know those guys especially bono

they have

so much to say i don't want them to stop

i i would rather hear a band like you

two

try to create music

because we know they're talented that's

beyond

argument they're talented i would rather

hear a band

like that put out a mediocre song that

has a

great message than somebody that has

zero message put out a song

and get people to just try to

buy into crap but do you listen to their

music over there

sorry lyrics over their music

would you say if you listen to the

average youtube song

i do i do but

would the normal person today actually

dig into the lyrics probably not so much

it's all about the melody that hey this

is

this is a good sounding song it sounds

good on my spotify playlist

you know i'm gonna ignore it it's gonna

be in the background i'm

i'm not gonna really listen to what

they're actually saying but

that's not necessarily a bad thing well

to me i mean like

i find it hard to connect with bands who

try to really polarize the political

thing where

you know if you don't agree with us we

don't need you as a fan and all that

stuff and

when you know trump became president in

2016

ut was supposed to be releasing an album

that year

and bono came out and said well maybe

now we need to re-re-record it

in light of trump becoming president to

me it's like

so so sorry what were you talking about

before

that has now changed because you have a

different prison

and that's i find when people are so

politically

driven that it gets rid of i mean

you know as we have in this election now

where we're at you're automatically

getting rid of

70 million people just simply because

you just can't be

open to an ideal of something you know

well artists are artists

and and we have to understand that

artists

are artists and they're going to

put their opinion they're going to

say hey here's what i want you to

believe

so can we not go back to depeche modes

people are people

people are people so why can't it be

that you and i should get along so

awfully i mean why

yeah does it have to be 40 years later

we just simply can't take that yeah

there's a lot of people probably

listening to this right now that

aren't even familiar with that song but

it's the same thing that the popular

culture the social media and everything

has

sullied people of

how they should believe and uh

you know here we are you and i both we

we want people to

listen to music look at art

read books that do whatever it is

and and formulate their own opinions

we're not sitting here trying to tell

you what to believe uh tell you what

your opinion should be

the the main message behind this is

you know figure it out for yourself but

enjoy

good art and whether it's

visual art whether it's music whether

it's movies whatever

that's what we're looking for so with

that said

thanks for tuning in to this episode of

the wolf in the shepherd

and we will definitely catch you on the

next one