Bruce Springsteen on the faith of U2 - 10 Apr 2005
It was an extraordinary speech on an extraordinary night. Bruce Springsteen
 Bruce performs with Bono |
was inducting U2 into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and in a moving, amusing and lyrical homily he made repeated references to the Christian spirituality of the band. In front of a glittering audience made up of many of the most powerful people in the music industry, The Boss - an Italian - found much common ground with the roots of his Irish prodiges. Here are a few extracts from his speech: |
"Every Irish-Italian front man knows, that before James Brown there was Jesus. So hold the McDonalds arches on the stage set boards – we are not ironists. We are creations of the heart, and of the earth and of the stations of the cross.
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"His is a voice shot through with self-doubt. It is this element of Bono’s talent, along with his beautiful lyric-writing, that gives the often-celestial music of U2 its fragility and its realness. It is the questioning, the constant questioning in Bono’s voice where the band stakes its claim to its humanity and declares its commonality with us:
"Here we are Lord, this mess, in your image." |
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"He delivers all of this with great drama and an occasional smirk that’s says ‘kiss me – I’m Irish’. He’s one of the great front men of the last 20 years. He’s also one of the only musicians who’s brought his personal faith and the ideals of his band into the real world in a way that is true to Rock’s earliest implications of freedom and connection with something better…"
Springsteen concludes like this: "In their music you hear their spirituality as home and as quest. How do you find God unless he’s in your heart? In your desire? In your feet? "
(Bruce Springsteen inducting U2 into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame - April 2005) | |