Selected Excerpts From The Book

 "All You Need Is Love to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb"

Chapter 1

The Beatles Revolution

There has never been an equivalent to the Beatles and the 1960’s British Invasion, nor will there ever be. Such a phenomenon could not happen in today’s market. Teenagers are presently pushing music aside, as they have more money to spend on mobile phones and computer games. At the same time, these consumers readily access Internet downloads and music file sharing, taking millions away from the industry that the Beatles once dominated.

Each of the 1960s’ music messiahs from England swept up the youthful hopes of an entire generation of Americans, as well as millions of others around the world. The Beatles, in particular, used the media in a remarkable fashion, possessing and caressing, inciting and inviting consumers’ eyes and ears with pure talent, wit and humor. They continuously won foreign audiences with their quick wits on the radio, television, movies and in print. Perhaps the global fame of the States’ greatest bands in my lifetime, such as Nirvana, Jane’s Addiction and Pearl Jam, would not have existed on such a wide scale, if at all, if it were not for the British legends invading the American culture in the 1960s.

Chapter 2

U2: Four People, Four Individuals, Four Friends

U2’s frontman, Bono, used to open the band’s live performances by explaining that they are not another English band passing through. First of all, U2 is Irish, and second, they will be back. Inspired by the gallant gestures of the 1960s, U2 has sold over one hundred million records worldwide. The band has dominated the entertainment industry for a quarter-century by marketing the Beatles’ theme of love into albums, concerts, movies and books.

U2’s band members have never publicly mocked one another, like Lennon disrespected the Beatles throughout the ‘70s. Bono has remained a chivalrous leader throughout U2’s extensive history. In 1989, Bono told Ted Mico of Spin magazine, “We’ll keep releasing record after record until everyone’ll be sick of us.”
 

Chapter 3

God vs. God Part II

Bono is a fantastic writer. He wrote “God Part II,” recorded on 1988’s Rattle and Hum, as a direct response to Lennon’s “God.” Of course, “Part II” is extremely more poetic, using symbolism, quoting modern journalists and mocking himself. Bono’s lyrics are more general than Lennon’s, allowing listeners to draw their own representations from private experiences.

Bono states “Success is to give.” Activists around the world know this to be the case following Bono’s direct involvement with charitable organizations, such as Live Aid. Starting with the Toronto Peace Festival in 1969, John with Yoko did a series of rock concerts as their statement of Peace and Love, and to spotlight various social issues effectively. All proceeds from the concerts were given to the needy. In the summer of 1972, John Lennon gave a charity concert in Madison Square Garden as well. The show was successful in the improvement of living conditions for the mentally handicapped children around the globe.

Bono also claims to be spinning on a wheel, as opposed to John who merely sat back to watch the “wheels go round and round.” Rather than avoiding the public eye, Bono embraces the attention. A veteran in show business, he still collects Grammys, makes millions in record sales and sells out stadiums worldwide. The dream is not over for Bono, as he is still feeling the spotlight’s presence and walking tall. After all, Bono firmly believes that all you need is love to solve the world’s most prevalent tribulations.

Chapter 4

Records of a Generation

While Sgt. Pepper’s was invented to avoid performing live, Zoo TV was staged as the largest rock concert in touring history. From 1980 to 1987, U2 toured the States nonstop with spiritual and minimalistic performances. But for the next four years, U2 took their time recuperating after Rattle and Hum’s ‘Love Town’ tour. Zoo TV finally kicked off in Florida and sold out every show, thirty-two arenas, within the year. From the get-go, critics truly appreciated U2’s introspective material and claimed Achtung Baby as one of the classics of the Nineties. The industrial dance rhythms were a new twist for the band. U2 played for thousands of screaming fans each night while “maintaining a direct, personal, almost confessional relationship with the audience.” Achtung Baby was the No. 1 record worldwide, selling more than seven million copies around the globe before they even began their two year road trip.

Before Jimi Hendrix turned metallic noise into art, Lennon accidentally created guitar feedback through an amplifier in October of 1964. The mistake was used as the introduction of “I Feel Fine,” becoming a pinnacle point in the evolution of rock and roll. The single was released in the winter and sat at Number One for three weeks. Similarly, the Beatles’ experimental sounds in the opening of “Eight Days A Week,” and its double-tracked vocals can be directly compared with U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Names.” The variation of the introductory chords took weeks of frustrating work in U2’s studio. The song contains a message of breaking away to anonymity, but never states the location that the lyrics are describing. “Where The Streets Have No Names” didn’t trek higher than Number Thirteen in America, but rode to Number Four on the other side of the Atlantic.

For the most part, each of the singles found on the Beatles’ 1 and The Best of U2 albums sold better in the U.K. than the U.S. 1 sold 3.6 million copies in its first week and more than twelve million in three weeks worldwide, becoming the fastest selling album of all time. The Beatles collection also hit Diamond certification, as it sold ten million copies in the States. It is the sixth Beatles album to reach such a plateau, breaking their former tie with Led Zeppelin. The songs making up the Beatles’ 1 and The Best of U2 spark memories of screaming teens for both Baby-Boomers and their children.

Chapter 6

Concerts of a Generation

While Sgt. Pepper’s was created to stop the madness of touring, the Beatles took America’s culture by storm with their first tour in the United States in the summer and fall of 1964. Every one of The Fab Four’s shows, including concerts throughout Europe, America, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia and New Zealand sold out in no time. The Beatles’ road trip established the concept of rock concerts in a stadium, playing to tens of thousands of delirious fans. Of course, each venue was considerably smaller than U2’s present-day stadium concerts. The biggest bands of the following two decades, including the Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd and the mighty Led Zeppelin followed the Beatles’ example and began to continually conquer massive outdoor arenas on global tours.

Since 1991’s Zoo TV, U2 have presented rock and roll as a spectacle in the cultures’ enormous stadiums around the globe, utilizing “a mass of technical, aesthetic and theatrical devices.” ⁹⁹ The goal of the festive shows was to add to the concert experience, as well as the meaning of the music. In March of 2001, a new U2 tour kicking off in South Florida. All That You Can’t Leave Behind’s Elevation Tour 2001, sponsored by MTV and VH1, consisted of multiple dates in thirty-three North American cities. This was the band’s first indoor tour performed in ten years. The intimate show was also the first in U2’s rich history to be physically smaller than its predecessor, earning the band a load of publicity

Sir Paul frequently took a brief encore on his 2004 concert trek, not allowing any fan to stop applauding or grab a refill when he’d reappear. Mr. McCartney customarily presented his fans with an acoustic rendition of “Yesterday,” and ordered the crowd to “get back to where” they once belonged. “Here’s a song we never performed in America soil,” Paul explained every night as he stole back “Helter Skelter” from U2. The band did not perform the single live on their 2004 venture. A second ridiculously quick break from the stage followed, and Paul always ended the evenings with the mop-top Beatles’ “Please, Please Me,” as well as 1969’s “Let It Be.” It came as an enormous surprise how much the early Fab Four numbers, such as the mop-top “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” were exhilarating to Paul’s younger fans who prefer the Beatles’ later material.

Chapter 7

Films of a Generation

The Fab Four are witty when being harassed because of their appearance at a New York press conference in 1964. On the opposite spectrum, U2 properly answers respectful questions with sincerity in their movie. Rattle And Hum also shows the four chatting before a gig, like John in his home studio with Phil Spector. However, the camera displays the band recording without disagreements or name calling to one another or the technicians, like the impatient John at home.

Imagine paints a favorable picture of John, but it does not deny spectators his more prominent faults in entertaining chronicle of one of rock's greatest icons. It is far from a perfect film, with a narrative structure that jumps around without transitions. The documentary does celebrate John’s world-changing art, humor, poignancy, and the astonishing soundtrack makes Imagine a necessity to any Beatles fan.

John’s work was always very personal. Explaining his childhood to the camera, he talks about the tragic loss of his mother after a drunken police officer struck her with his car. In John’s ballad, “Mother,” he sings, “Mother, you had me but I never had you. I am not here for you. I am here for me and her (Yoko),” John expresses in front of the camera in Imagine. The idea behind the ex-Beatle’s blunt statement is repeated throughout the movie.

On the opposite spectrum, U2 sings about the world’s cultures. “Here we are, the Irish in America,” Bono says to a stadium of fans. “The Irish have been coming to America for years, going back to the great famine.” The singer goes on chatting to tens of thousands about Irish immigrants and terrorism leading into “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” The nonrebellious song is followed by “Pride (In The Name Of Love),” a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. “Bullet The Blue Sky” is a political number with a biblical reference; “In the locust wind comes a rattle and hum. Jacob wrestled the angel and the angel was overcome.” The song also contains the familiar expression, “rattle and hum.”

Chapter 8

Rock Star: The Cultural Icon

There is no argument that John helped make rock and roll acceptable in a handful of societies around the world. In the mid-1960s, the young man of Welsh and Irish decent became a spokesman for international masses. The Beatles rode on the post-war cultural change in Great Britain. John helped define the emerging youth of the mid-sixties his band’s type of music and its growing popularity that defied authority, easily symbolized by long hair. The working-class lad and his mates were embraced as they attracted all of millions of eyes and ears to their small town of Liverpool. The English community was delighted by its sudden global attention. John’s band began selling out shows in countries where no British acts have prospered, including Australia, Sweden, France, Ireland and America.

Picking up where the ex-Beatle left off, Bono has been the ultimate media icon seeking planetary unity. It always seemed that he was destined to be an international superstar as big as Lennon himself. During an interview in the early 1980s, Bono expressed, “I do feel that we are meant to be one of the great groups,” and he compared the band to the Beatles, the Stones and the Who.”

U2’s fearless leader has spent the twenty-first century trying desperately to improve the planet’s civilized ways of life. The man does everything possible to shed light on the crisis of AIDS and extreme poverty. According to Chuck Klosterman of Spin, “Bono is the most tangibly successful rock and roll activist of all time.” ¹²⁴ Not unlike John attempting to unite the 1960’s and 70’s civilizations to stop the Vietnam War, Bono truly believes that popular music can really change the universe. In March of 2005, U2 were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.

Bono hopes to inspire listeners to think for themselves and accomplish even their toughest feats. U2’s lead singer believes that there are social responsibilities that go hand-in-hand with being a moral celebrity. The Irish pop star has continually admitted he would not have a role to play if it were not for John and the Beatles. And being killed at such a young age was great for Lennon’s beloved image. He will always be remembered for being a great revolutionary in more than simply music, but in global cultures, as well as the planet’s politics.

Chapter 9

Rock Star: The Political Icon

The Beatles phenomenal influences across the universe transformed their generation from artistic to cultural affects, and onto political. Starting with the Toronto Peace Festival in 1969, John and Yoko performed a series of rock concerts as a statement of peace and love. After the Beatles broke up in 1970, John spent the decade working on his solo career and campaigning for world peace. He realized that his every move would be reported on by the press. As a result, the “smart Beatle” decided to utilize the media with a commercial promoting global harmony.

Throughout the 1980s, Bono was running Amnesty International, organizing fundamental and exhausting summits between superpowers for the improvement of basic human rights. He worked on “The Good Friday Agreement,” an arrangement intended to unite the world’s differing political opinions for the common goal of everlasting peace. The agreement aimed to halt sectarian and political violence, while establishing one power-sharing executive with both unionists and nationalists sitting together in cabinet. While on The Joshua Tree Tour in 1989, Ted Mico of Spin reported Bono’s career “must have been the nearest a rock star has ever come to being a U.S. Presidential candidate.”

For decades, Bono has been spinning in the revolution that the Beatles created, not watching it go round. It’s been over twenty-five years, entailing Live Aid in 1985, Amnesty International's Conspiracy of Hope tour in ‘86 and 2005’s Live 8, the high paying public is not sick of U2. As much as Bono enjoys his work campaigning as an activist, he accepts that his primary job is a rock star.