This will not go where you think it will.

I love U2.  Now, I don’t love them in that untouchable they-can-do-no-wrong kind of way but their music has been my soundtrack through all parts of my life; through my twenties, from California to New York, and from Israel to Mongolia.  Like Rob Bell said in his book Velvet Elvis, I would mark the U2 concert I went to as one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen – now, I believe he went so far as to use the words ‘sacred’ or ‘religious’ but I won’t make that mistake.  On top of the amazing performance and incredible production you would expect, it is still a memory that gives me chills because I got to share it with two of my best friends and we got to watch the entire show from the hole in the middle of the stage so Bono and company were all 10 feet from us.  

When I’ve thought about why I like the band in the past I’ve mostly thought of their musical traits.  Their use of dynamics and atmospheric keyboards and guitars make their songs sweeping and epic; they ebb and flow like water swooping across hard sand.  They do what a lot of great bands do well in that each instrument is playing its own little riffs or melodies which makes a song more interesting to the ear.  Coinciding with that is, most simply, all of the pieces fit together in tidy layers; the drums lay the foundation that everyone builds on, the bass sits on top of that on the low end, and Edge’s guitar is generally playing high riffs, leaving this perfect sonic hole that Bono’s tenor fits neatly into.  Nothing conflicts and all of the parts work together.

It’s strange that I haven’t noticed something before because I am a really big ‘lyrics guy’.  Even when I was really young, when I would get a new cassette tape I would lock myself in my room, listen to the record from front to back, and read the lyrics and liner notes.  Like that kid in Almost Famous I knew all of the band members’ names and information most people don’t care about like where the record was recorded, who recorded it, and what label they were on.  But, while thinking again about U2 this week, here’s what I realized.  I have no idea exactly what their songs are about.  Sure, I know what they say publicly about social and political issues, but when it comes to their music I’m not so sure.  What I noticed was that their lyrics are vague and surface enough that almost any listener can input their own experiences into the songs.

When most people listen to Bono sing “Where the Streets Have No Name” they put their own issues that they want to escape from into the song or imagine the place that they want to get away to.  During “One”, we might imagine a person we’re having a conflict with.  Or, in “All I Want is You”, we put ourselves in the first person “I” position and a love interest in the “You” position.  What I’m saying is, most of the time with music we’re reading our own things into the music.  We become the star of the show, put ourselves in the center, and end up making the song about us.

Now, this is fine because U2 are artists.  They’re supposed to be creating things that evoke emotional, and therefore subjective, responses.

This thought came to me as it collided with another in my head that came from something that a theologian named D.A. Carson said in a lecture on the Emergent Church and Rob Bell in particular.  Carson said that he believed Bell is so popular because, rather than the attracting the unchurched, he generally attracts young people who grew up in the Christian Church.  He said that the strengths of Bell’s messages and popular books and Nooma videos are that they are so vague, people with a Christian background can read their own Christian beliefs into what Bell is saying.  Carson claims that were Bell to take his church to New York City, or another place that is predominantly non-Christian, he would have a much harder time with his message.  This is because he uses the correct language, but he does it in either a way that renders the words devoid of their original meaning, or he relies on the power of a word to carry him through.  He can describe a dinner with friends or a concert as sacred or holy, and most Christians don’t blink because he speaks our language but we don’t see that he uses the words in ways that weren’t intended in the Bible.  Or, as he did not too long ago, Bell can make the slogan of his church “Love wins” and everyone can read their own subjective opinions into what “love” is and what it means to “win”.  It’s sad but I’d say it’s probably certain that if you were walk into his church or talk to one of his devotees and ask them what the Gospel was, you’d get nearly as many opinions as the number of people you asked.  

Similarly, Barack Obama’s campaign has been almost overwhelmingly the same kind of empty rhetoric.  The words “hope” and “change” appear in nearly every newspaper story, every picture, and every quote or platitude from him or his staff that runs in print or online.  I think it’s fairly certain that if you were to ask a group of Obama supporters what that hope and change were, instead of getting what his plans for the country are, you’d get a round of speculation.

I understand there are probably some U2 fans who ‘know’ what Bono is talking about, Bell fans who could tell you what the Gospel is, and Obama supporters who know his policies inside and out, but because of their use language, by and large people are reading their own experiences, opinions, and expectations into their lyrics, theology, and political positions.

I would submit that this is why U2, Rob Bell, and Barack Obama are popular and attractive; not for their substance but for their malleability.  We like them because they are more about us than anything else.

Now here’s my problem in this blog; you can’t equate U2 with Rob Bell or Barack Obama.  Regardless of their activism U2 are artists and their job and aims with their music are to entertain.  However, Bell is a pastor and Obama is a politician.  Bell is responsible for peoples’ souls and will one day be answerable to the one and only God.  Obama is on the verge of manning the helm of the most influential nation on the planet during a very vulnerable time.

As much as the both of them may want to be rock stars they are not writing songs.