Looking for the Baby Jesus Under the Trash

Ladies and gentlemen, here it is. My favorite U2 album.

No, really.

Okay, I know it sounds preposterous. After all, I'm the guy who likes an inordinate number of happy, well-adjusted Christian rock bands. So why, instead of any of a wide variety of faith-affirming albums from the famous Irish foursome, would I choose this techno-fied work of blasphemy as their crowning achievement?

Well, for one thing, it's not all techno. And another thing - it's not blasphemy. At least not to these ears. Born out of an era during which U2 appeared to be questioning everything they stood for, Pop is a document of the sort of experience you have to go through in order to really understand it.

Let's back up a little bit. After all, this misunderstood album came after nearly 10 years of earnest stadium-rock greatness from U2 during the 1980's, and those years established the band as poster boys for a lot of political and spiritual issues in the lives of their fans. It had to have been a bit confusing for fans when the group switched gears and developed a darker persona in the early 90's with the release of Achtung Baby. But a lot of them still seemed to "get it". The religious overtones were still there if you looked harder, but the overall focus had turned less political and more internal. Then came Zooropa, which struck a lot of people as U2 being just plain weird. So it's understandable that when Pop came along, bookending the band's electronica-inspired trilogy of albums, a lot of fans finally ran out of patience. Maybe they had been able to deal with U2 being weird and even a little cynical, but what on Earth was this? Why release an album about petty things like disco dancing and the Playboy mansion and, most troubling of all, repeated statements that God was powerless? Had the 3 members of the band who claimed to be Christians renounced their faith? If not, weren't they taking their alter egos a little too far? Or had fame and the desire to be more "alternative" simply gotten to their heads?

The correct answer seems to me to be none of the above. It's true that I once thought Pop was U2's bad album, full of uninspired electronic noodling, offensive anti-Christian propaganda, and overall weak lyrics. Imagine my surprise when I actually sat down and listened to the thing, and found instead that these were the desperate writings of a man drowning in the glitzy world created by his rock star status, his own desire to control the world around Him or at least be convinced that the God he knew in his more innocent days was still in control of it. I've never been a rock star, but man, I've been there. And because of many of those "valley" experiences, those times of just wanting to scream at God in frustration, this album sometimes makes me feel like Bono and I could have been brothers.

Of course, it would be a disservice to credit the whole thing to Bono. It was the entire band's decision to move in this new artistic direction, and it's amazing to hear how The Edge, Larry Mullen, Jr. and Adam Clayton work together despite the fish-out-of-water scenario to truly own this morphed version of U2's sound. It's not all techno wizardry - in fact, it'd be erroneous to label anything but this album's first three tracks as "techno" - but much of it is an interesting trip into territory you probably never thought U2 would attempt. Not even after Zooropa. As the album unfolds, bluesy and funky sounds meet angst-filled protest rock and cold, harsh industrial noise, all of it creating a disparate collage of songs that seem hit-and-miss at first, but they eventually congeal together in a world where one desperate man is drowning in the superficiality of pop culture and wondering where the heck Jesus went in the midst of it all. I would label it brilliant - but that would imply that the band made it all up.

Discothèque
It's not a trick, you can't learn it
It's the way you don't pay, that's okay
'Cause you can't earn it...
The "swirly" sound that opens this song is sort of the 90's equivalent of the classic U2 fade-in that began classic songs such as "Where the Streets Have No Name". Depending on who you talk to, this one's either a classic or total rubbish. On the surface, it appears to be a heavily processed song about disco dancing, with The Edge's addictive riff riding over a jaunty dance beat and Bono's slightly distorted vocals. I'll admit that this was the main hook for me, as I'm a big fan of dance songs with a rock attitude, especially when there's a deeper meaning hidden behind seemingly inane lyrics. What is that deeper meaning, exactly? It's hard to say. As the words swirl around and I find my feet tapping to the beat, I get the vague idea that it's about substituting vain pleasure for real love, searching for fulfillment in dancing, show business, rock music, whatever. As much flak as the band might have gotten for the lyric "You know you're chewing bubblegum/You know what that is, but you still want some/You just can't get enough of that lovey dovey stuff", I have to say that it's an apt description of a person whose happiness is found in something so innocuous and fleeting. Bono seems to channel the very voice of God, meekly cutting through all the noise in an attempt to reach the distracted searcher, reminding him that "You're looking for the one/But you know you're somewhere else instead/I want to be the song/The song that you hear in your head." I love the breakdown at the end with the frivolous "BOOM-CHA!"s, and I was extremely annoyed when that part got edited out on the shabby redux of this song that was released on The Best of 1990-2000. After all, this is my favorite U2 song, and I don't take kindly to anyone tampering with it.

Do You Feel Loved
You got my head filled with songs
You got my shoelaces undone...
A lesser known, but equally danceable song follows next, building like all good dance songs do - first the drums and keyboard/synth tones, then the jacked-up electronic guitar noise, and finally a good dose of booty bass to anchor the tune. The content here is definitely "PG-13" in the same sort of subtle way that "Babyface" was - you'd miss it if you were just listening to the beat. Bono is basically giving a girl an invitation to tear his clothes off and engage him in a rather sadistic tryst where pleasure is found in inflicting pain. I cringed at first at the lines "With my fingers as you want them/With my nails under your hide/With my teeth at your back/And my tongue to tell you the sweetest lies". The chorus asks the simple question of whether this makes the person feel loved, and though that question goes unanswered, the implied response is "Yes, but I know it shouldn't". The sad truth is that for so many people in this world, sex - even violent sex - is substituted for love. Once again, vain pleasure is being sought to cover some sort of an unidentified wound, only doing more damage to both parties involved. "It looks like the sun, but it feels like the rain."

Mofo
Mother, you left and made me someone
Now I'm still a child, but no one tells me no...
The album's most aggressive - and obnoxiously electronic - song shows up next, as the guys kick it up another notch and take the music almost completely outside of U2's usual territory. The Edge's guitar screeches and squeals over a cold but furious bed of drum and bass, and Bono's vocals sound alternately dry and desperate. He throws caution to the wind and gets intensely personal on this track, no longer caring if he throws out a line or two that would strike the casual fan as nonsense. You might infer from the atrocious title and his repeated falsetto cries of "MothEEEERRRRR!!!" that one of those my-parents-screwed-me-up-for-life-and-I'm-ticked-off sort of songs (especially when he tosses out the line "mother sucking rock-and-roll", making you think for a split second that he's going to drop the f-bomb), but you have to remember that Bono's mother passed away when he was a teenager, so he's essentially crying out to a parent who couldn't be around during some of his most crucial years. The song is like personal therapy as he realizes that he's spent so much time "looking for to fill that God-shaped hole", and despite all of the riches and fame that have been awarded to him and his band, he's still desperately searching his soul, "Looking for the baby Jesus under the trash". That line aptly describes the entire Pop album - it was written off as an inexcusable, excessive romp in hedonism and blasphemy by a lot of Christians, but those who looked carefully found the scared carefully hidden amongst the profane. Even if none of that matters to you, I can safely say that the music on this track will blow you away if you like aggressive electronic rock - it gives Prodigy and some of those bands a run for their money, proving that U2 can dabble in just about any genre and make it believable.

If God Will Send His Angels
God's got His phone off the hook, babe
Would He even pick up if He could?
A bit of a strange shift in mood happens when the tumultuous "Mofo" fades out and this tracks opens with its barely audible guitar noodling. There's a slow, hollow, and slightly bluesy feel to this song, which fits with Bono's lyrics. He seems to be addressing a fellow cynic in this song, someone who once had faith but is now waiting around, seemingly in vain, for God to just do something. The song seems subtle but dangerous when you really listening to it, suggesting that "God's got His phone off the hook, baby/Would He even pick up if He could?" But his description of the lawlessness and chaos that seems to be running the world around him is something that many disillusioned Christian can identify with as they look up the heavens with tear-stained faces and ask "Why, God?" It's also something a few of the prophets in the Bible would have identified with as they watched Israel get wiped out time and time again. Yet amidst Bono's apparent hopelessness, there lies an important question, "If God will send His angels, and if God will send a sign... would everything be alright?" A funny thing happens when Christians get depressed - they seem to think that a sudden sign from God - a really obvious one, of course, would instantly brighten their spirits and fix everything. And history has shown that it doesn't work that way - often, when God has turned the tables and given His people victory - be it in battle, in politics, or in finances - they have turned around and told God they no longer needed Him. Because of that, there's an aching beauty to this depressing world which Bono wryly describes as "the stuff of country songs" - it's a place where the devotion of God's children is put to the test. And initially, almost any follower of God is going to be tempted to turn very bitter and cold when something like this happens, when Jesus seems to have skipped town and been replaced by the commercialized holiday known as Christmas.

Staring at the Sun
It's been a long hot summer, let's get undercover
Don't try too hard to think, don't think at all...
This song was the "ballad" hit off of this album, and while I enjoy its combination of electronic effects and acoustic guitar, I have to admit it's one of my least favorites on the album. Not to discredit the message of the song any - it's an important piece of the album - but Bono falls victim to a few lyrical duds here, such as devoting a good chunk of the second verse to having an insect in your ear and scratching it, trying to make it go away. Perhaps that scratching, and the song's overall weary, when-is-this-retched-heat-going-to-end mood refers once again to that insatiable desire we're all trying to fill, and so I can still see where it fits in, but I have to call out the awkward lyrics when I hear 'em. I love the song's main analogy of staring at the sun - something that we were taught would totally wreck our vision as kids - as a defiant way of tuning oneself out to the pain in the world around us. I'm not sure whether it's meant to be a good thing or a bad thing - either Bono is "happy to go blind" because he doesn't want to see the lies that the world has to offer anyway, or he's indicting Christians who refuse to admit when they go through difficult and depressing times, choosing instead to use God as a pacifier and pretend nothing should be wrong. Either way, there's something bothersome about Bono's sedated tone here - it's as if he wants you to shake him out of his trance.

Last Night on Earth
She's not waiting on a Savior to come
She's at a bus stop with the news of the world and the sun...
This song might come as a bit of a relief to older U2 fans, as it's more of a straight-ahead rocker than the opening techno trilogy, though it's not without its computerized components. I love how The Edge's guitar riff makes for a false start as the song wanders off into synths, and then Larry's drums and Bono's spoken word finally get the song going. Once again, a girl is the central character of the song, and I have to wonder if she's meant to be a central character of the album. Whatever the case, this girl seems to have some sort of a newfound hope - she's living her life as if there were no tomorrow. I thought at first that Bono was describing one of those religious zealots who stand out on street corners and hand out tracts, but that doesn't quite sound right, because the song seems to be more of a genuine admiration than a cynical criticism. Perhaps he just admires her because she's real about who she is and what she believes rather than sitting around, hopelessly waiting for Jesus to come sweep her away (which is what Bono has basically been doing for a few songs now). But that's my interpretation of a song that I have yet to completely understand. (Interesting side note - I used to get this one confused with "Until the End of the World" from Achtung Baby a lot, even though they're about different things. It's probably the closest thing to that album that you'll find here.)

Gone
You change your name, but that's okay, it's necessary
And what you leave behind, you don't miss anyway...
Another one of my favorite U2 songs kicks off the second half of the album, with squealing, siren-like guitar noise and a mid-tempo beat - it's an effective marriage of the band's electronic tinkering with Bono's more "soulful" side, and because of that, a little more hope is allowed to shine through. Indeed, the lyrics show a bit more clarity as Bono assesses what he's become, telling himself things like "You get to feel so guilty, got so much for so little" and "What you thought was freedom was just greed". He's realized that all the money and fame in the world would be worthless if he spent it selfishly on himself. Perhaps this is the reawakening of the young idealistic Bono who championed so many political causes in his youth and does so even today - he knows that to him who much is given, much is expected. There just comes a time when U2 - or any rock stars - have to be able to set aside their "suit of lights" and escape all of the fans and media moguls hounding them and reconnect with that which is truly most important. Perhaps the only way for Bono to do this is to be "up with the sun", to make his escape while everyone else is asleep so that he can regain some sense of sanity. I know I always think of this song when a sleepless night results in me being up at like 6 AM - there's something peaceful and almost holy about those early hours, and it probably serves as a signal that those of us who busy ourselves with earthly pursuits and never take time to slow down and rest, pray, whatever, are totally missing the point.

Miami
Her eyes all swimming pool blue, dumb bells on a diving board
Baby's always attracted to the things she's afraid of...
Now here's a track that U2 fans like to make fun of. I suppose I can't blame them, since it seems kind of random for the band to suddenly dedicate a song to describing a city that sounds like it's more ludicrous and superficial than Hollywood, but darn it, I like this song. The music and lyrics sound like the guys had just finished watching Pulp Fiction (horrible movie, by the way), and they're making like bad-a** pimps driving around town and checking out the babes. The music has a strange, purposefully tuneless industrial feel to it, with Adam fooling around on the bass, Larry drumming over a weird DJ-scratch sort of beat, and The Edge occasionally chiming in with a purposefully monochromatic riff. Adding to the blasé feel of the whole thing are the dry "ba-ba-ba"s that the guys chime in with every now and then. It gets even weirder when, in the middle of describing this "bling bling" lifestyle, Bono suddenly pops out with the ridiculous rhyme "Miami... my mammy". Man, he's living large, and he's still whining about his mom. Then he starts screaming and whimpering towards the end of the song - this guy's really lost it. I know it all sounds pretty stupid, but for some reason, I enjoy it and can see how it fits into the messed-up pop culture that the guys are trying to depict.

The Playboy Mansion
I never bought a lotto ticket, I never parked in anyone's space
The banks, they're like cathedrals, I guess casinos took their place...
Here U2 manages to further prove that they can pull any musical genre out of a hat and hijack it for there own purposes. The genre of choice here would be "porno soundtrack" - sorry, but given the title, the gently bumping beat, and the spaced-out keyboard vamp (or is that a guitar?) that opens the song, I can't describe it as anything else. Thankfully, Bono doesn't sing about pornography here, though what he signs about instead just sounds downright stupid compared to some of the timeless lyrics he's written in years past. I mean, do we really want to hear a song about Coke and Big Macs and O.J. Simpson? What does that have to do with anything? Well, you see, that's the whole point. These things are temporary and meaningless - even five years after the song was written, some of these references make the song sound horribly dated. But a consumer-driven culture wants you to believe that drinking brand-name soda and eating fast food and watching the news for the latest celebrity scandal updates are excellent uses of your time and money. They are the currency that gets you through "the gates of that mansion". I love how the band has the audacity to introduce a Gospel-like refrain near the end of the song, gleefully singing "Then will there be no time for sorrow, then will there be no time for shame..." as this purposefully profane hymn winds its way to a close. "Chance is a kind of religion where you're damned for playing hard luck." This is where the world places its faith.

If You Wear That Velvet Dress
It's okay, the struggle for things not to say
I never listened to you anyway
And I got my own hands to pray...
"The Playboy Mansion" bleeds very suddenly into another sexy song, this time slower and quieter than what we're used to hearing from U2. I was really irritated with this song at first due to the barely audible whispered lyrics at the beginning - one thing I've always hated about U2 is when they fade into a song so quietly that you can barely even hear what's going on. But given time, the song began to work it's magic on me, slithering into my consciousness like a faint aroma, and the whispered lyrics made more sense when I bothered to go and read them. "Velvet Dress" seems to describe the subtle nature of temptation, how it sneaks up and surrounds its hapless victim before the person fully realizes what's going on. Even though Bono's tone and the fragile musical backdrop (a fragile rhythm with gentle bits of acoustic and electric guitar sprinkled throughout) sound like they're trying to seduce you, the lyrics sound like they're coming from a man who is trying to resist temptation. "I've been good 'cause I know you don't want me to", he tells his temptress, as if he's not sure whether to resist her outright or just play hard to get and see how much effort she puts into trapping him. The chorus, which is simply the song's title repeated, seems to imply that the velvet dress is his weakness - if she puts that thing on and does her sexy little dance, then he's done for. I love the mood created by the music - Adam chimes in again and again with three bass notes, and that last one always sounds out of place, but in a good way. And I love the delicate guitar break in the middle, where a small piece of The Edge's solo gets trapped and looped over and over underneath the rest of it. All of these elements combine to make for a sleeper hit late in the album - albeit one that really had to grow on me.

Please
Your holy war, your northern star
Your sermon on the mount from the boot of your car...
It's interesting that the most blatantly political song on the album comes so close to the end. It's as if the introspection has ended and Bono's back in protest mode. I love the ominous keyboard tones as the song fades in, and Larry's syncopated beat, underpinned by a bass line from Adam that sounds like it's in a different key entirely for part of the song. The song opens with a gripping line - "So you never knew love until you crossed the line of grace" - which seems to reflect the masochistic theme of "Do You Feel Loved". But as the song unwinds and the pointed lyrics keep on coming, you start to get the inkling that this might be an indictment of some of Bono's fellow Irishmen - the Protestants and Catholics who are killing each other off in the name of the same God that Bono's been having difficulty trusting throughout the course of this album. At first I took his impassioned plea of "Please, get up off your knees" as a call for people to reject their faith - but that was during my college days when I bought the lie that U2 had completely abandoned their Christian roots. Now I realize that Bono is calling certain Christians out, lamenting how they manage to act good and holy while they hate and even kill their own brothers. He's telling them to stop striking their pious poses and get out there and actually love people. But nothing changes - "October... talk getting nowhere... November... December... Remember, we just started again." He's clearly frustrated with the political machine here, and he has every right to be.

Wake Up Dead Man
If there's an order in all of this disorder
Is it like a tape recorder?
Can we rewind it just once more?
Here it is - the mother of all dangerous U2 songs. The ultimate evidence that these guys are SINNERS, and good, faultless Christians shouldn't listen to them. The one where Bono says (dun dun DUN!) the f-word. (OK, done with the sarcasm now.) Now I'll admit, I'm not a big fan of the f-word myself, and I try to avoid using it, and obviously it's especially jarring to hear it used in the same breath as the name of Jesus (for the record, the line is "Jesus help me, I'm alone in this world, and a f***ed up world it is too"). Even to those who are not offended by the word, it means something, because it's not a word you'd normally use in a prayer! The effect is meant to be unsettling, and the song is actually strikingly similar to some of the more desperate passages found in the book of Psalms. Once again, Bono is dealing with the deep personal pain caused by the death of his mother, which has likely led him to some tough questions overall about the presence of evil and suffering in the world. The common reaction to such tumultuous events, even for a lot of Christians, is to blame God. Words like that tend to come out when a person's angry, and when you're talking to God Himself, if you've thought it, you might as well say it, because He's already heard it. Underneath what sounds like a mockery of God's power is really a vulnerable cry for help, cleverly clothed in 60's-style protest rock music, with haunting snippets of what sounds like a Gospel singer looped underneath. Everything around Bono appears to have turned to chaos, and that world seems to have won the victory over Jesus, his one source of sanity, who has been metaphorically crucified. And of course it's frightening to anyone who has dealt with such doubts, because there are very real implications when you start wondering if everything you've always believed was just a lie. This song is like Bono's own personal Good Friday, ending off the album in an abrupt and chilling manner, leaving the listener in nervous suspense.

That ending doesn't feel right, does it? It's not supposed to. The answer to all of this can of course be found on All that You Can't Leave Behind, which kicks off with a veritable Easter Sunday celebration, but to get there and to fully appreciate it, you've got to deal with that horrific Friday and the silent Saturday that follows. You've got to deal with the world taunting you as it has taunted U2, telling you that your Savior is dead and you might as well put your hope in money and fame and sex and rock & roll, because that's all you have left. And somewhere inside, you know it's not true, but you can't just ignore the hopelessness you feel. The night is always darkest before the dawn, they say.

Wow, I guess I had a lot to say about this album. It stirs up a lot of deep feelings in me, and I think it's the bravest exploration of faith and doubt in the modern era that I've ever heard. It's dangerous, it's audacious, and it's an entirely different world from most of U2's previous work. And it's unfortunate that cultural standards regarding what should and shouldn't be said in a song have affected many Christians' opinions of this album, because it resonates more powerfully within this Christian than even some of my favorite "Christian rock" bands. If you're one of those "offended" people, I would implore you to give the album a second (or even first) chance. If you're simply a U2 fan who was put off by the change in mood and style, then I say dust this album off and give it another go. If you just don't like electronica in your rock music... well, I can't help you there.

ALBUM WORTH:
Discothèque $2
Do You Feel Loved $1.50
Mofo $2
If God Will Send His Angels $2
Staring at the Sun $1
Last Night on Earth $1
Gone $2
Miami $1.50
The Playboy Mansion $1
If You Wear that Velvet Dress $1
Please $2
Wake Up Dead Man $1
TOTAL: $18

Band Members:
Bono: Vocals, guitar
The Edge: Guitar, keyboards, vocals
Adam Clayton: Bass
Larry Mullen, Jr.: Drums, percussion

Website: http://www.u2.com

Great Music to Play While: Listening as hope and peace try to rhyme.