6A — Monday, February 6, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Over the past two weeks, my 

brain has felt like it’s split in two: a 
frivolous half and an anxious half. 
I’m spending my days nervously 
refreshing 
Twitter, 
monitoring 

updates from the Oval Office and 
wondering which country the 
President has offended today, or 
which Americans’ rights are now in 

jeopardy.

At the same time, however, 

I can’t help but be occasionally 
preoccupied by the same random 
pleasures I’ve always enjoyed. 
What’s going to happen on season 
two of “The Good Place?” I wonder, 
guiltily. Will Michigan’s basketball 
team make the tournament? It’s like 
there’s an oasis of escapism right 
in the middle of my stressed-out 
mind.

One of the only artists that’s 

doing much to bridge this gap 
has actually been U2, a band I’ve 
looked at to try to make sense 
of what art can do and what it 
can mean right now, in such an 
unpredictable, threatening world. 
While U2 has been around for 
so long that it’s hard to imagine 
them as anything other than the 
legendary 
institution 
they’ve 

become, back in the ’80s, they 
were a young, hungry, disruptively 
fresh band with grand political 

ambitions. And, as Irishmen, they 
also had a lot of familiarity with 
living in a country divided to the 
point of violent extremes.

There’s an almost religious 

power in the first decade of U2’s 
work. Their albums are filled 
with songs of faith, hope, love and 
passion. They seek to speak out 
against injustice, to provide clarity 
to the unknown terrors of the 
world. The music is unwaveringly 
committed and direct. You can 
imagine millions of people around 
the world closing their eyes and 
feeling Bono’s words flow through 
them. Songs like the classic, searing 
indictment of “Sunday Bloody 
Sunday” or the beautiful elegy for 
Martin Luther King, Jr., “Pride,” 
can stir emotions and demand 
thought and action like few other 
songs.

But one can see why the band 

turned away from these types 
of protest anthems in the ’90s. 
There’s a great power in the ability 
to spread messages to millions 
of people, to have thousands of 
fans every night sing words you 
wrote. It must also be incredibly 
intimidating, and in the ’90s, U2 
seemed to retreat behind a curtain 
of post-modern irony, with Bono 
portraying characters on stage 
and the songs often carrying much 
more superficial meanings.

The only example of the old 

spiritual power from this era 
comes on Achtung Baby’s famous 
“One.” When people accuse Bono 
of having a “savior complex,” this 
is the song they’re thinking of, a 
slow ballad that maybe doesn’t 
get enough credit for Bono’s vocal 
performance and thoughtful lyrics. 
However, it represents a permanent 
shift in the band’s point of view. In 
“One,” Bono comes off as a larger-
than-life presence, a man looking 
down on humanity and evaluating 
all the lives he sees. U2 was playing 
the biggest concerts any band could 
by the time of Achtung’s release, 
and they had lost their everyman 

perspective. The members of U2 
were 
professionals, 
no 
longer 

passionate young men living in 
Dublin. Their view of the world 
came not from the streets anymore, 
but from the largest stages their 
employees could build.

When 
U2 
reversed 
course 

and put out 2000’s All That You 
Can’t Leave Behind, a no-frills 
rock album that attempted to 
win back the fans who had been 
put off by the self-indulgence and 
experimentation of their last few 
records, their attempts at anthems 
lacked the fiery conviction of their 
youth. Empty platitudes and vague 
choruses fill All That You Can’t 
Leave Behind’s runtime, as the 
songs try harder to evoke memories 
of the old U2 rather than say 
anything meaningful. Since that 
album, while they still retain their 
live power, the band has seemed 
lost on record, and at times it’s very 
unclear what’s motivating them 
to write new songs beyond market 
demand.

But this year, after fiercely 

resisting the label of “nostalgia 
act,” U2 has announced a tour 
celebrating the 30-year anniversary 
of 1987’s The Joshua Tree — 
probably the band’s most essential 
work — in which they’ll play the 
album in its entirety on a nightly 
basis.

It’s certainly an interesting time 

for U2 to come back to this record. 
Recorded in an era of revived 
conservatism, Joshua is an album 
that celebrates both the best and 
attacks the worst of America. It’s 
an ode to discovery, with songs 
like “Where the Streets Have No 
Name” conjuring feelings of endless 
freedom and “I Still Haven’t Found 
What I’m Looking For” conveying 
a restless need to find something 
greater than yourself. But it also 
doesn’t shy away from political 
realities. “Bullet the Blue Sky” is 
U2 at its rawest, with the Edge’s 
feedback-drenched guitar slashing 
through Adam Clayton’s lumbering 

bass as a furious Bono takes the 
Reagan administration to task for 
its Central American policy.

The Joshua Tree is the perfect 

album for this moment in history 
because it simultaneously explores 
two Americas. There’s the ideal 
conception of America as a place 
of freedom and endless possibility, 
but it’s tainted by the reality that 
sometimes the people who run 
this country are nothing more 
than greedy bastards. Joshua Tree 
doesn’t solve that conflict or even 
attempt to bridge the gap. It lets this 
vision of America stay split in two.

But does it matter now? Will 

this tour work? Will anyone who 
isn’t already converted care? If 
The Joshua Tree affects other 
Americans like it’s affecting me 
right now, then I think so. Right 
now is a time when millions of 
Americans feel lost in their own 
homes, with many losing faith in 
the humanity of their neighbors or 
wondering what “land of the free” 
even means anymore. Old pleasures 
feel hollow, and previous ideas of 
who we are don’t seem to make 
sense. We’ve been left questioning 
where we are, and what our 
purpose is.

The 
Joshua 
Tree 
doesn’t 

answer those questions, but no 
album has ever made me think 
more about my place in the 
world. It doesn’t shy away from 
portraying my home country the 
way it truly is, but it also presents 
inspiring American images worth 
aspiring to. To some, fantasizing 
about running through a place 
“where the streets have no name” 
might be pure escapism, but it’s a 
powerful call to build a real place 
that lives up to our ideals. When 
they recorded Joshua, U2 was 
still a band searching, unsure 
of their duty in a chaotic, unjust 
world. But amid corruption and 
conflict, they offered a helping 
hand towards unity and reminded 
us of the beauty in our home that 
was still worth pursuing.

The modern meaning of ‘The Joshua Tree’

LAUREN THEISEN
Daily Music Columnist

DAILY MUSIC COLUMN

Music Columnist Lauren Theisen explores U2’s relevance in today’s sociopolitical climate

