Achtung Baby | U2
release date: 1991 record label: Island
track listing: 1) Zoo Station
2) Even Better than the Real Thing
3) One
4) Until the End of the World
5) Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?
6) So Cruel
7) The Fly
8) Mysterious Ways
9) Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World
10) Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
11) Acrobat
12) Love is Blindness
“You know, there’s a lot of things,
If I could, I’d rearrange…”
I’m an introvert. I live a great deal of my life inside my own head. I am constantly thinking – weighing the decisions I have made and processing my interactions with others. At times, I can be so engrossed in my thoughts that I lose sight of the real world. This is especially interesting when I’m driving. I can’t say how many times I have arrived at my destination with no idea of what route I took to get there. To be honest, life would probably be much easier if my brain had an off-switch. It does not, so I often find myself distracted by my thoughts. From time to time, these thoughts have been known to drag me into an existential wilderness, the place where unanswerable questions take root. This happened again, just the other day.
In about a month my world will change drastically. Last year, I left a very active life as a high school teacher to care for my aging grandparents. The difference between these two lifestyles is like the difference between night and day. As a teacher I was eternally busy planning lessons, attending school functions and, on the weekends, using the excuse of trying to maintain some semblance of a social life as the reason for avoiding grading my students’ work. As a caretaker, I have been forced to stay, night and day, with my grandparents. Life is slower here, much more isolated, and every day is, essentially, the same. Being unable to leave my grandparents unattended, my so-called social life withered months ago. If anything, my time as a caretaker has pushed me even deeper into my own head. But all this will change in little over three weeks. My one-year commitment to my grandparents fulfilled, I will transition into another job working with students, this time with the youth ministry at my church. I am equal parts excited, nervous and overwhelmed.
Driving across town a few days ago, these future changes were running around my head when I tripped over a question I didn’t see coming: can I change? My life is soon to be filled with external changes – a new job, a new house, a new set of responsibilities – but even with these knocking on my door, I feel like the same person. I suffer with the same insecurities, struggle with the same fears and see, within myself, the same faults that have been there for years. A thousand times I have dreamed of moving far from this familiar town, leaving my problems and frustrations behind. Unfortunately, the one thing I’ll never be able to outrun is my self. My faults are destined to follow me no matter where on this earth I may go. All the while, this question unblinkingly stared at me – are humans able to change, or are we destined to forever suffer from the same flaws that have always held us down. Borrowing a metaphor from the Apostle Paul, are we able to pull the thorn from our flesh, or will it dig deeper and deeper into our skin until we leave this earth?
There are many aspects of my personality that I would consider faults, some which fall entirely on me, and some which I have little control over. But, if I had to name the one “thorn” that has pierced my flesh since childhood, it would be my speech. In elementary school, around the third grade, I began to develop a stutter. By fifth grade, this burgeoning speech impediment was in full-bloom. School, and especially reading class, was a nightmare. I remember avoiding eye-contact with the teacher in hopes of avoiding being asked to read aloud. Of course, that plan never worked. She would call my name and the words would die in my throat. My tongue tied itself in knots. I would repeat sounds, and get hung up on words. It was brutal, not only for myself, but for anyone having to listen to me. Of course the kids teased me, but far worse was the pain of being unable to express myself. I was an intelligent child, but my thoughts, dreams and ideas remained largely in my own head because my mouth would not cooperate in sharing them. Speech impediments create a degree of loneliness that is, even now, hard to express.
As I grew, and progressed through school, my stammer eased. It was, however, never fully conquered – it remains something I struggle with daily. In elementary school, my stutter manifested itself through the repeating of sounds. Over the years, I have learned to deal with this by remembering which words to avoid. Nowadays, this impediment results less in repeated sounds and more in terms of ineffective communication: tripping over words, unnecessary pauses and simple vocabulary. I am jealous of that majority of the population which has no trouble in expressing themselves – a thought travels from their mind to their mouth seamlessly. For me, it is not that simple.
For years I have struggled with my ability to speak. At times, it weighs on me heavily. Can a boy who couldn’t string together a coherent sentence be re-created as an adult that can express himself? That is the type of dramatic change I long for. Of course, humanity’s biggest hope to be re-created is in Christ, who makes each believer into a “new creation.” But what about the Christian who finds himself at a crossroads, unhappy with himself – can he be changed, or does he have to live the life that has been handed to him? I once heard that the bravest thing man can do is hope. Recently, two works of art relit the fires of hope in my soul, reminding me, as Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, that the one who “began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.”
About a week ago, Janie and I went to the discount theater to see The King’s Speech. Unless you have been living under a rock, you’ve at least heard of this film. It won numerous Oscars this year, including Picture of the Year. It tells the true story of King George VI of England. His entire life, George suffered from a stammer. He choked on words to such a degree that he was useless to give royal speeches or declarations. George had no hope of overcoming his impediment, instead using it as a reason to stay out the public eye. As the younger of two brothers, he was not in line for the throne and so would have only minimal responsibilities requiring public speech. After his father’s death, though, things changed very quickly for the Prince. George’s brother, the new King of England, chose to abdicate the throne so that he could marry an American woman who had been twice divorced. This left, George, the stuttering Prince, as the newly crowned King of England, the weight of leading and addressing his country falling fully on his unsuspecting shoulders. The need for a strong monarchy had never been greater. Germany, under the leadership of their new dictator Adolph Hitler, was threatening world war, and the new King could not even coherently speak to his subjects. Tragedy and disappointment seemed to be threatening a full-scale invasion.
In 1987, U2 released The Joshua Tree, an album that changed the face of rock-and-roll. Containing the songs Where the Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, and With or Without You, its easy to understand why Rollingstone Magazine named The Joshua Tree the 26th most important album of all time. It was unlike anything else being made at that time. Instead of the perpetual over-the-top, “look-at-me-attitude” of rock and roll, U2’s music was characterized by simplicity and minimalism: atmospheric guitar licks by the Edge underscored by the steady bass and drum progression of Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr, and over this sonic experience, the lyrics of front man, Bono, soared. U2’s songs tended to focus on making statements about the world around them, calling for justice and espousing a deep sense of Christian spirituality. The Joshua Tree emerged as a breath of fresh air, forever changing the direction of rock and roll music, and setting the band upon an impossibly high pedestal. From that height, it must have been hard for the band to see the desert they were headed for.
Upon the release of their next album, popular opinion turned against the Irish rockers. Rattle and Hum was produced as an exploration into the history of American music, a subject which the band had been interested in for some time. Reviewers, though, had few positive things to say about it. The harshest of listeners accused the band of being self-righteous for trying to “rescue” American music or for thinking that they deserved to record alongside such great musicians as B.B. King. Two years earlier, U2 had been billed as the saviors of rock and roll; now, they were described as pretentious, conceited and pompous. Listeners were no longer interested in the band’s vision of the world. A strong sense of unity, something which had always described U2, began to erode under the pressure. Infighting and arguments over the direction of the band became more common place. It seemed the world wanted nothing more than to give these holier-than-thou Irish rockers a push from their pedestal. The foundation seemed to be crumbling right underneath these four boys from Dublin.
But, even in the darkest night, hope remained.
His back against the wall, King George did not accept that his story had to end in heartbreak. Swallowing his pride, the king of England accepted help from an unconventional speech therapist. Through months of intense training, he began to gain the upper hand on his stammer. It was never fully cured, but with his therapist by his side, the stuttering-king learned to address his subjects. The film ends with the two of them together, the king facing a radio microphone, as he delivers a speech condemning the actions of Hitler, declaring war on Germany and asking the nation to stand strong beside him. Never in his wildest dreams had King George see himself delivering such an address, and yet, with the help of a dear friend, he found the power to change.
Staring down the end of their dreams, U2 holed themselves up in a recording studio in Berlin, Germany, on the eve of the destruction of the Berlin Wall, and began working on the album which would become Achtung Baby. The band put everything they had become comfortable with on the chopping block: the airy-guitar playing, the thumping bass and drum, and the confident lyrics. They looked to tear down the wall that had become their music, looking through the rubble to see if anything existed on the other side. It was time for them to totally reinvent themselves and their music. In fact, one band member described Achtung Baby as “the sound of four guys chopping down the Joshua Tree.”
Where their previous albums had been clean, minimalist and polished, Achtung Baby was heavily industrial, influenced by electronic music, and, for the most part, was to recorded to sound sloppier. Zoo Station starts the album with heavy distortion, industrial synthesizer sounds and modified vocals from Bono, elements unheard of on their previous albums. Near the end of the track, Bono repeats “its alright, its alright, its alright, its alright,” as if he is trying to convince the listener (or perhaps even himself) that these changes will be positive. As the listener continues to travel through this uncharted territory, it becomes obvious that Bono was, in fact, correct. Unlike their previous albums, Achtung Baby explores questions without necessarily having to arrive at an answer. The lyrics touch on relationships, materialism, soul searching spirituality and community. After introducing the listener to a re-invented U2 with Zoo Station, Even Better than the Real Thing looks deeply into materialism, hoping to find meaning there. One of U2’s most important songs follows – One – which paints a picture of forgiveness and the reunification of broken people. Until the End of the World is an imagined conversation between Christ and his betrayer, Judas Iscariot.
Bono described the first single released from the album, The Fly, as “a crank call from Hell… from someone who enjoys it there.” Another one of U2’s biggest hits, Mysterious Ways, follows, before the albums ends with three of my personal favorites:
Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World, Love is Blindness and Acrobat, the latter containing a great piece of advice: “don’t let the bastards grind you down.” And that is exactly what U2. While many established groups struggled to find their footing during the rise of alternative music in the early 90’s, U2 remade themselves and, in the process, created a masterpiece. In fact, in 2003, Rollingstone magazine placed Achtung Baby at number 62 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
If nothing else, in these two seemingly disparate stories, the central theme is hope. From a stuttering king, I find hope that, although I may never fully defeat a speech impediment, it does not have to define my life. I can become a man who expresses himself, even teaching and leading others with his words. And from a reinvented rock band, I see that dramatic change is possible. It may be not easy, it may not be pretty, but it is possible, and at times, it is quite necessary. And although I know that full re-creation will not be achieved until the return of the Creator, I understand that every day is a chance to be remade in the image of our Savior – and that gives me enough hope to face tomorrow.
Who knew that a dead monarch and an album that was released when I was in first grade could move my soul in such a way? The Lord truly works “in mysterious ways.”
release date: 1991 record label: Island
track listing: 1) Zoo Station
2) Even Better than the Real Thing
3) One
4) Until the End of the World
5) Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?
6) So Cruel
7) The Fly
8) Mysterious Ways
9) Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World
10) Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
11) Acrobat
12) Love is Blindness
“You know, there’s a lot of things,
If I could, I’d rearrange…”
I’m an introvert. I live a great deal of my life inside my own head. I am constantly thinking – weighing the decisions I have made and processing my interactions with others. At times, I can be so engrossed in my thoughts that I lose sight of the real world. This is especially interesting when I’m driving. I can’t say how many times I have arrived at my destination with no idea of what route I took to get there. To be honest, life would probably be much easier if my brain had an off-switch. It does not, so I often find myself distracted by my thoughts. From time to time, these thoughts have been known to drag me into an existential wilderness, the place where unanswerable questions take root. This happened again, just the other day.
In about a month my world will change drastically. Last year, I left a very active life as a high school teacher to care for my aging grandparents. The difference between these two lifestyles is like the difference between night and day. As a teacher I was eternally busy planning lessons, attending school functions and, on the weekends, using the excuse of trying to maintain some semblance of a social life as the reason for avoiding grading my students’ work. As a caretaker, I have been forced to stay, night and day, with my grandparents. Life is slower here, much more isolated, and every day is, essentially, the same. Being unable to leave my grandparents unattended, my so-called social life withered months ago. If anything, my time as a caretaker has pushed me even deeper into my own head. But all this will change in little over three weeks. My one-year commitment to my grandparents fulfilled, I will transition into another job working with students, this time with the youth ministry at my church. I am equal parts excited, nervous and overwhelmed.
Driving across town a few days ago, these future changes were running around my head when I tripped over a question I didn’t see coming: can I change? My life is soon to be filled with external changes – a new job, a new house, a new set of responsibilities – but even with these knocking on my door, I feel like the same person. I suffer with the same insecurities, struggle with the same fears and see, within myself, the same faults that have been there for years. A thousand times I have dreamed of moving far from this familiar town, leaving my problems and frustrations behind. Unfortunately, the one thing I’ll never be able to outrun is my self. My faults are destined to follow me no matter where on this earth I may go. All the while, this question unblinkingly stared at me – are humans able to change, or are we destined to forever suffer from the same flaws that have always held us down. Borrowing a metaphor from the Apostle Paul, are we able to pull the thorn from our flesh, or will it dig deeper and deeper into our skin until we leave this earth?
There are many aspects of my personality that I would consider faults, some which fall entirely on me, and some which I have little control over. But, if I had to name the one “thorn” that has pierced my flesh since childhood, it would be my speech. In elementary school, around the third grade, I began to develop a stutter. By fifth grade, this burgeoning speech impediment was in full-bloom. School, and especially reading class, was a nightmare. I remember avoiding eye-contact with the teacher in hopes of avoiding being asked to read aloud. Of course, that plan never worked. She would call my name and the words would die in my throat. My tongue tied itself in knots. I would repeat sounds, and get hung up on words. It was brutal, not only for myself, but for anyone having to listen to me. Of course the kids teased me, but far worse was the pain of being unable to express myself. I was an intelligent child, but my thoughts, dreams and ideas remained largely in my own head because my mouth would not cooperate in sharing them. Speech impediments create a degree of loneliness that is, even now, hard to express.
As I grew, and progressed through school, my stammer eased. It was, however, never fully conquered – it remains something I struggle with daily. In elementary school, my stutter manifested itself through the repeating of sounds. Over the years, I have learned to deal with this by remembering which words to avoid. Nowadays, this impediment results less in repeated sounds and more in terms of ineffective communication: tripping over words, unnecessary pauses and simple vocabulary. I am jealous of that majority of the population which has no trouble in expressing themselves – a thought travels from their mind to their mouth seamlessly. For me, it is not that simple.
For years I have struggled with my ability to speak. At times, it weighs on me heavily. Can a boy who couldn’t string together a coherent sentence be re-created as an adult that can express himself? That is the type of dramatic change I long for. Of course, humanity’s biggest hope to be re-created is in Christ, who makes each believer into a “new creation.” But what about the Christian who finds himself at a crossroads, unhappy with himself – can he be changed, or does he have to live the life that has been handed to him? I once heard that the bravest thing man can do is hope. Recently, two works of art relit the fires of hope in my soul, reminding me, as Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, that the one who “began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.”
About a week ago, Janie and I went to the discount theater to see The King’s Speech. Unless you have been living under a rock, you’ve at least heard of this film. It won numerous Oscars this year, including Picture of the Year. It tells the true story of King George VI of England. His entire life, George suffered from a stammer. He choked on words to such a degree that he was useless to give royal speeches or declarations. George had no hope of overcoming his impediment, instead using it as a reason to stay out the public eye. As the younger of two brothers, he was not in line for the throne and so would have only minimal responsibilities requiring public speech. After his father’s death, though, things changed very quickly for the Prince. George’s brother, the new King of England, chose to abdicate the throne so that he could marry an American woman who had been twice divorced. This left, George, the stuttering Prince, as the newly crowned King of England, the weight of leading and addressing his country falling fully on his unsuspecting shoulders. The need for a strong monarchy had never been greater. Germany, under the leadership of their new dictator Adolph Hitler, was threatening world war, and the new King could not even coherently speak to his subjects. Tragedy and disappointment seemed to be threatening a full-scale invasion.
In 1987, U2 released The Joshua Tree, an album that changed the face of rock-and-roll. Containing the songs Where the Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, and With or Without You, its easy to understand why Rollingstone Magazine named The Joshua Tree the 26th most important album of all time. It was unlike anything else being made at that time. Instead of the perpetual over-the-top, “look-at-me-attitude” of rock and roll, U2’s music was characterized by simplicity and minimalism: atmospheric guitar licks by the Edge underscored by the steady bass and drum progression of Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr, and over this sonic experience, the lyrics of front man, Bono, soared. U2’s songs tended to focus on making statements about the world around them, calling for justice and espousing a deep sense of Christian spirituality. The Joshua Tree emerged as a breath of fresh air, forever changing the direction of rock and roll music, and setting the band upon an impossibly high pedestal. From that height, it must have been hard for the band to see the desert they were headed for.
Upon the release of their next album, popular opinion turned against the Irish rockers. Rattle and Hum was produced as an exploration into the history of American music, a subject which the band had been interested in for some time. Reviewers, though, had few positive things to say about it. The harshest of listeners accused the band of being self-righteous for trying to “rescue” American music or for thinking that they deserved to record alongside such great musicians as B.B. King. Two years earlier, U2 had been billed as the saviors of rock and roll; now, they were described as pretentious, conceited and pompous. Listeners were no longer interested in the band’s vision of the world. A strong sense of unity, something which had always described U2, began to erode under the pressure. Infighting and arguments over the direction of the band became more common place. It seemed the world wanted nothing more than to give these holier-than-thou Irish rockers a push from their pedestal. The foundation seemed to be crumbling right underneath these four boys from Dublin.
But, even in the darkest night, hope remained.
His back against the wall, King George did not accept that his story had to end in heartbreak. Swallowing his pride, the king of England accepted help from an unconventional speech therapist. Through months of intense training, he began to gain the upper hand on his stammer. It was never fully cured, but with his therapist by his side, the stuttering-king learned to address his subjects. The film ends with the two of them together, the king facing a radio microphone, as he delivers a speech condemning the actions of Hitler, declaring war on Germany and asking the nation to stand strong beside him. Never in his wildest dreams had King George see himself delivering such an address, and yet, with the help of a dear friend, he found the power to change.
Staring down the end of their dreams, U2 holed themselves up in a recording studio in Berlin, Germany, on the eve of the destruction of the Berlin Wall, and began working on the album which would become Achtung Baby. The band put everything they had become comfortable with on the chopping block: the airy-guitar playing, the thumping bass and drum, and the confident lyrics. They looked to tear down the wall that had become their music, looking through the rubble to see if anything existed on the other side. It was time for them to totally reinvent themselves and their music. In fact, one band member described Achtung Baby as “the sound of four guys chopping down the Joshua Tree.”
Where their previous albums had been clean, minimalist and polished, Achtung Baby was heavily industrial, influenced by electronic music, and, for the most part, was to recorded to sound sloppier. Zoo Station starts the album with heavy distortion, industrial synthesizer sounds and modified vocals from Bono, elements unheard of on their previous albums. Near the end of the track, Bono repeats “its alright, its alright, its alright, its alright,” as if he is trying to convince the listener (or perhaps even himself) that these changes will be positive. As the listener continues to travel through this uncharted territory, it becomes obvious that Bono was, in fact, correct. Unlike their previous albums, Achtung Baby explores questions without necessarily having to arrive at an answer. The lyrics touch on relationships, materialism, soul searching spirituality and community. After introducing the listener to a re-invented U2 with Zoo Station, Even Better than the Real Thing looks deeply into materialism, hoping to find meaning there. One of U2’s most important songs follows – One – which paints a picture of forgiveness and the reunification of broken people. Until the End of the World is an imagined conversation between Christ and his betrayer, Judas Iscariot.
Bono described the first single released from the album, The Fly, as “a crank call from Hell… from someone who enjoys it there.” Another one of U2’s biggest hits, Mysterious Ways, follows, before the albums ends with three of my personal favorites:
Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World, Love is Blindness and Acrobat, the latter containing a great piece of advice: “don’t let the bastards grind you down.” And that is exactly what U2. While many established groups struggled to find their footing during the rise of alternative music in the early 90’s, U2 remade themselves and, in the process, created a masterpiece. In fact, in 2003, Rollingstone magazine placed Achtung Baby at number 62 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
If nothing else, in these two seemingly disparate stories, the central theme is hope. From a stuttering king, I find hope that, although I may never fully defeat a speech impediment, it does not have to define my life. I can become a man who expresses himself, even teaching and leading others with his words. And from a reinvented rock band, I see that dramatic change is possible. It may be not easy, it may not be pretty, but it is possible, and at times, it is quite necessary. And although I know that full re-creation will not be achieved until the return of the Creator, I understand that every day is a chance to be remade in the image of our Savior – and that gives me enough hope to face tomorrow.
Who knew that a dead monarch and an album that was released when I was in first grade could move my soul in such a way? The Lord truly works “in mysterious ways.”
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