Eric Shivvers By:Eric Shivvers
As I open this venture with U2tourfans, I would like to thank Andres for reaching out and letting me become part of the family. I think that’s part of U2-fandom culture. A band and a bond bring us together. We are interesting. We are diverse. We have passion. We are U2 fans.
I think we look at U2 as heroes. They make music and change the world. They are the bullhorn of our consciousness. But even our heroes need heroes and two nights ago, U2 paid tribute to one who is an American icon, Bob Dylan. Dylan’s an American treasure who is profound in his lyrical style.
What we hear in his song The Times They are A-Changin’ had direct influence on U2. Listen to Sunday Bloody Sunday, you will find the soul of the Irish battle cry’s not that far from the musical craftsman from Minneapolis. In fact, it is almost a response from across the pond.
Love Rescue Me, which U2 performed the other night in Salt Lake City in honor of Dylan’s 70th birthday, is that haunting song found on Rattle and Hum and co-written with Dylan.
It’s one of my favorites and quite possibly the simplest tune the band has ever written musically. The song barely has three chords, which makes the lyric take front and center stage. Much like Dylan’s songs, one can strip away Edge’s arpeggio style and you have a story. This one is Bono’s ode to his pious self. The love he seeks out in the song is religion as the wordsmith in the verse exposes Bono’s earthly self.
U2 are fans of music and they expose us, the legion of followers, to those who influenced them. If one person read this and went to iTunes to listen to snippets of Dylan classics, then writing Love Rescue Me was the right thing to do, regardless of Rattle and Hum’s backlash in the press. In fact, I can be honest and say I drift away from U2, listening to bands they turned me onto.
Like older brothers, or sisters, who influenced their younger siblings with what they were listening to on their record player, U2 did that to me as I am an only child. I never had that sibling bond behind the bedroom door. I had friends who steered me one way or the other but it was U2 who sort of showed me the musical way and for that, I am eternally grateful.