Reasons I'm thankful for Bono on his 61st birthday (in no particular order). A thread. #HappyBirthdayBono
1. He introduced me to the idea of being born again and again
And again, and again and again and again
Again
#HappyBirthdayBono
And again, and again and again and again
Again
#HappyBirthdayBono
2. He is unafraid to look back on his teenage years and see how they shaped the trajectory of his life. #HappyBirthdayBono
3. He and his friends started out on what they have all continued to do to this present day without any of them knowing what they were doing. #HappyBirthdayBono
4. In fact, a significant percentage of songs they've written have the underlying message "I don't know what I'm doing," which communicates to anyone wishing to pursue creativity: "If you don't know what to write about, write about that." #HappyBirthdayBono
5. He and his bandmates chose early on that they'd share songwriting credit equally, knowing that fights over this made other bands disintegrate. It's a good reminder to me to value everyone's contribution to any given endeavor. #HappyBirthdayBono
6. U2 performed on television when they barely knew what they were doing. That reminds me not to be afraid to do ambitious things. #HappyBirthdayBono
7. Bono isn't afraid to argue with his younger self. "I'm on the other side of the barricade now." #HappyBirthdayBono
8. You can't find four people more different from each other than the four guys in U2. Don't rid the room of argument. #HappyBirthdayBono
10. I'm inspired by U2's decision to keep their base of operations in Dublin--it's a good reminder to honor and find the good in the places I know best. #HappyBirthdayBono
11. I love that Dublin is also a launching pad for songwriting inspiration, with Bono taking us all back to Cedarwood Road. What might I discover if I chose to make a creative work about the street where I grew up? #HappyBirthdayBono
12. Bono's fearlessness in exploring his emotional space at any age is a good reminder that I can do the same. Any of us can do the same. #HappyBirthdayBono
13. I don't want to oversell the naivete of U2's early years...there was still craft involved. Bono took mime lessons, for instance, to learn about gesture and how to communicate through movement. #HappyBirthdayBono
14. There's a defiant vulnerability in what Bono chooses to communicate. He took the tragedy of his mother's death and made it into a lifetime of music. #HappyBirthdayBono
15. His way of talking about, and also not talking about, the role of faith in his life, an experiential sense of God and a "mates" type of relationship with Jesus, brings for me the big questions of existence down to earth. #HappyBirthdayBono
16. If I were to chat about this with Bono, I imagine we'd argue over whether religion is when God leaves the room, but I can see where he's coming from. #HappyBirthdayBono
17. I get the sense that in U2's early days, what motivated radio DJs and tour promoters to rally behind the band was how Bono et all spoke of their world-conquering ambitions as an effort that included everyone. I love that "We're all in this together" vibe. #HappyBirthdayBono
18. U2's early concerts were battles that pitted their ambitions against their limitations. That's what makes them so riveting to this day; they know what they can't do, but they just go for it anyway. #HappyBirthdayBono
20. I'm sorry Bono can't play guitar anymore, but I appreciate his attempts to play guitar when he could, even while knowing he's in a band with The Edge. #HappyBirthdayBono
21. It's the restlessness of the search for a musical vocabulary that gets me--as soon as a style is settled into, it is either built upon or taken into a new direction. #HappyBirthdayBono
22. There's also the commitment to going anywhere and everywhere to connect to an audience, whether that's cities across the world or jumping into the crowd itself. #HappyBirthdayBono
24. And who else would, after an album full of blunt force and blistering rock, turn to Brian Eno and diffuse atmospherics as a followup? #HappyBirthdayBono
26. It's the in-between seasons that are particularly intriguing to me, like the time The Joshua Tree was being written: the collection of influences and scraps of images from Flannery O'Connor to literal and metaphorical deserts. #HappyBirthdayBono
27. U2 reflected America back to itself in all its tragedy and possibility. I still fall back in love with this maddening country every time "Where the Streets Have No Name" fills the speakers. #HappyBirthdayBono
28. Think of all the doors that opened for U2 once they hit superstardom--and which ones they chose to walk through: collaborating with artists like B.B. King and Bob Dylan, learning from those who came before. #HappyBirthdayBono
29. Imagine the trust you have to have in yourself and in your audience to go away and dream it all up again when you could just coast along on your reputation instead. #HappyBirthdayBono
30. It's next-level artistic fearlessness to draw inspiration from Judas Iscariot. But the best way to serve the age is to betray it. #HappyBirthdayBono
31. I put my brother's copy of Achtung Baby on my stereo and listened to it again and again, wanting to find out what my friend Shawn saw in U2. "The Fly" and its otherworldly falsetto caught me. That's where my own journey with the band began. #HappyBirthdayBono
32. Bono started out with a heart-on-the-sleeve earnestness and morphed into The Fly, delivering lines like "Every artist is a cannibal/Every poet is a thief/All kill their inspiration/And sing about their grief." But the irony was just another way to be real. #HappyBirthdayBono
33. Not that I've experienced it firsthand, but it seems celebrity can be intoxicating, infuriating, and even dangerous. I appreciate that Bono revels in his stardom but sidesteps messiah-ship, knowing they want their money back if you're alive at 33. #HappyBirthdayBono
34. Authors and artists I have learned more about, at least partly due to their connection to U2, include William Gibson, Salman Rushdie, Brendan Kennelly, David Wojnarowicz, and William S. Burroughs. I have benefited from their curiosity. #HappyBirthdayBono
36. Around 1996, I discovered the online world. I stumbled on a U2 fan Internet mailing list called WIRE. I wasn't even sure I'd call myself a U2 fan, but these were some of the smartest, most gracious, most welcoming folks. This band helped me find my tribe. #HappyBirthdayBono
37. 1997. POP. Explorations of complex, sometimes dark subjects in Day-Glo packaging. And PopMart, my first U2 show. And a show in Sarajevo. My mom showed me an article in our local paper reporting on how train service resumed to/from Sarajevo for the show. #HappyBirthdayBono
38. Sometimes you're helping to promote peace in Northern Ireland, sometimes you're parading an elephant down a city street. (The right to be ridiculous, and all that.) #HappyBirthdayBono
39. I love Bono's eloquence when he's celebrating others: Bob Marley and Bruce Springsteen (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions), Frank Sinatra (Grammy Legend). He has never stopped being a fan. #HappyBirthdayBono
40. (Sing this with me.) (Also Bono got me back into praying the rosary, no joke.) #HappyBirthdayBono
41. It was not an easy thing for me to listen to any music after the 9/11 attack. But a U2 fan online said, "Have you listened to All That You Can't Leave Behind?" and suddenly all the songs meant so much more. #HappyBirthdayBono
42. Bono threw himself into the work of promoting first Jubilee 2000, and then DATA, and the ONE Campaign. How better to reach the biggest possible audience than to pay a visit to Her Majesty, Queen Oprah? #HappyBirthdayBono
43. Even in the midst of all his do-good-ery, he found time to get in trouble with the Federal Communications Commission for using a naughty word on live television. #HappyBirthdayBono
44. The smile of a man who has just been informally adopted by Coretta Scott King. #HappyBirthdayBono
45. The age I am now. I've tracked changes in my life through changes in Bono's life, like he's an older brother. At 27 I thought, "This is when U2 released The Joshua Tree." at 31, it was Achtung Baby. It's not a competition, but a reminder of what's possible. #HappyBirthdayBono
46. Speaking of what's possible, I look at politics differently after watching how Bono has advocated to end extreme poverty. He didn't start out as an expert, but he did what he could to educate himself, and just kept going back to Congress again and again. #HappyBirthdayBono
47. Bono has said that he knows his celebrity is currency, and he wants to spend it well. I don't have celebrity, but I have my own voice, and I can use it on behalf of what I am passionate about, knowing we're all in this together. #HappyBirthdayBono
48. The ONE Campaign has provided a space to engage in advocacy with folks all over the globe. I was especially glad to find out how ONE has connected with young activists from African countries, some of whom have gone on to political careers themselves. #HappyBirthdayBono
49. Oh, and all along U2 continued to release albums and go on tour, closing out the first decade of the 21st century with No Line on the Horizon, which is ambitious and sprawling and messy and gorgeous, as is anything worthwhile. #HappyBirthdayBono
50. It's no fun to write about health issues in this thread, but I appreciate that Bono (through his back surgery in 2010 and his later bike injury) learned to treat his body as more than just an inconvenience. #HappyBirthdayBono
51. When I was first getting into U2, ZooTV came to Busch Stadium in St. Louis, but I didn't go. I later said $30 was too much for a concert ticket (sour grapes). Twenty-ish years later the Claw landed in Busch Stadium. I saw U2 360 for about $30. #HappyBirthdayBono
52. I love that there are no rules for what Bono is doing as the frontman for a postpunk rock band, or the world's loudest folk band, or whatever it is that U2 are. It's not about living fast/dying young, becoming a nostalgia act, or imploding spectacularly. #HappyBirthdayBono
53. I feel that the lesson I've most learned from being a U2 observer for many, many years is that all of life can be a creative endeavor. Rooftop to the basement. #HappyBirthdayBono
54. The sudden arrival of Songs of Innocence was a joyous surprise. I didn't have an iPhone; I didn't even have computer-compatible speakers. I bought speakers and downloaded iTunes on my desktop for the occasion. The Troubles is a mysterious jewel of a song. #HappyBirthdayBono
55. In 2015, I got tickets to see Innocence and Experience in Belfast. The November 13th attacks in Paris took place just before. All the shows that followed demonstrated how love is stronger than fear, and that U2 is a band of defiant joy. #HappyBirthdayBono
56. 2016 was a seismic year. If you're gonna call an album Songs of Experience, it makes sense to put songwriting on hold to let all the new experiences be transmuted into gold by art's alchemy. #HappyBirthdayBono
57. In 2017, I heard my favorite U2 song live for the very first time: "One Tree Hill." I took a spur-of-the-moment road trip to Indianapolis to see JT2017 with dear friends. And I played Songs of Experience nonstop after its release. Best U2 year ever? Maybe! #HappyBirthdayBono
58. Joshua Tree had gotten all the glory in '17, so (in the midst of e+i) the @U2Conference headed to Belfast in '18 to commemorate POP. It was the 3rd such gathering of academics and fans. U2 have given us plenty to talk about, argue over, and raise toasts to. #HappyBirthdayBono
59. As the 2nd decade of the 21st century drew to a close, U2 continued to break new ground, performing their first-ever shows in South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines and India. And at show in Japan, Bono announced the pending launch of U2XRadio. #HappyBirthdayBono
60. Then came 2020, another seismic year. The #U2Fam was my lifeline during lockdown, thanks to #U2getherAtHome, weekly virtual (and live-tweeted) concerts. And we had a virtual U2 Conference focused on American soul--just in time for the election. #HappyBirthdayBono
61. Through it all, Bono's been a catalyst and a lodestar. He has prayed to be made useful. Because he shines the spotlight that's aimed at him back on us, I've learned to look around with greater attentiveness.
I'm grateful for that the most. #HappyBirthdayBono
I'm grateful for that the most. #HappyBirthdayBono
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