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Nationalism and Post-Nationalism in Rattle and Hum

2019; Philosophy Documentation Center; Volume: 23; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/nhr.2019.0002

1534-5815

Kevin Farrell,

Theater, Performance, and Music History

Nationalism and Post-Nationalism in Rattle and Hum Kevin P. Farrell Eleven songs into U2's first show at the Apollo Theater in 2018, the band returned to the stage for the inevitable, opening its encore with a performance of "Angel of Harlem." Having spent the set they had just concluded in eschewing its late 1980s material, focusing instead upon early cuts and songs from more recent albums, the band now turned to their 1988 album Rattle and Hum to pay tribute to the venue. "We couldn't have come all the way to the Apollo without bending one knee to the place," Bono said, by way of introduction, before the back curtain dropped to reveal the horn section of the Sun Ra Arkestra.1 They then played three songs, all from Rattle and Hum, that served as reminders of U2's fondness for, and dalliances with, African American music. "Angel of Harlem" was followed by the Bo Diddley-inspired "Desire" and "When Love Comes to Town," the band's collaboration with the late B.B. King. Taken together, this mini-set offered homage to the Apollo, to Harlem, and by extension, to the roots and traditions of black music. U2's 2018 performance of "Angel of Harlem" was no surprise, as the song had been a regular feature of various tours for nearly thirty years before U2 first played Harlem's most famous venue. The show itself, a Sirius XM event corresponding with, and later broadcast on, the limited engagement U2 Experience channel, had been promoted on satellite radio with clips of the song; presumably, most in the audience had been expecting to hear it ever since the show was announced. It would be easy to forget, then, how surprising "Angel of Harlem" and the rest of Rattle and Hum were when first released, as both the film and the album seem designed to pay tribute to musical roots that the band, at least prior to The Joshua Tree, did not have. According to Bono's account in U2 by U2 (2006), the origin for the group's abrupt musical shift was the singer's failed attempt to jam with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in 1985. When asked by Richards if he knew any blues songs, [End Page 50] Bono dismissed the entire genre as "laziness" for people who were "fresh out of original ideas." Appalled, Richards forced Bono to listen to John Lee Hooker and Robert Johnson. "It sounded like the end of the world," Bono would later remark, "more punk rock than anything I'd grown up on." Listening to these blues legends, he continues, "is when I realized that U2 had no tradition. . . . There were no roots to our music, no blues, no gospel, no country."2 This epiphany led Bono to write "Silver and Gold," a song first recorded with Richards and Ron Wood for the Sun City album in 1985. U2's subsequent search for roots in American music would define the band's direction—The Joshua Tree, Rattle and Hum, and the Lovetown tour with B.B. King—for the rest of the decade. Although U2's later output suggests that this interest was something of a phase, it seems noteworthy that these dalliances corresponded to both U2's commercial zenith and, at least prior to Pop, its critical nadir. The Joshua Tree received rave reviews, but Rattle and Hum drew mixed reactions and the occasional accusation of cultural appropriation. Several critics rebuked the band for their supposedly insincere appropriation of African American music and their hubris in, as Jon Pareles put it, attempting "to grab every mantle in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."3 Perhaps the most extreme criticism of Rattle and Hum comes from Harry Browne, the author of The Frontman (2013), a book best described as an anti-Bono polemic. For Browne, Bono's realization that U2 "had no roots" expresses "residual contempt for Irish traditional music . . . and for the rather rich tradition of Irish blues-playing."4 Browne's complaint flirts with musical tribalism, but it also echoes critical discussions of U2's "Irishness" that have followed the band throughout its career. The most pointed of...