By Gordon Durich
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 11/13/22 – For a rockstar, U2’s Bono, aka Paul David Hewson is more than just a sum of his parts. Singer, songwriter, activist, author and husband, father and son. And loved from his native Dublin to Hollywood, California. Who could forget that the band once played on a rooftop a-la-Beatles in L.A in 1987.
His brilliant new book is called “Surrender” subtitled “40 Songs, One Story,” and takes the reader on a vast and fascinating ride from his roots to his contemporary “shenanigans.”
“I Can Change The World But I Can’t Change The World In Me” is the quote from Sydney Cricket Ground, January 1994 in the 563-page- plus tome. It also includes delightful and creative illustrations and pictures in the back section. Drawings by Bono, with creative design by Bono with Gavin Friday of Virgin Prunes.
The U2 front-man revealed that actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have produced a new documentary about the band’s involvement in Bosnia. Titled “Kiss the Future,” the film will cover U2’s performance in Sarajevo during the darkest days of the war there and the 1997 live concert after the war had ended.
“Ideas for songs became more important than the ability to execute those ideas. Having something to say mattered more than how you said it,” reflects the cerebral unofficial citizen of the world.
“Surrender 40 Songs, One Story” was actually written for his wife of 40 years, Alison “Ali” Hewson, Irish sustainable fashion businesswoman and activist in her own right.
I love how the book’s chapters are named after songs like “Two Hearts Beat As One” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” And the gallows humor (“Discomfort Food”) and the author’s brutal honesty. Witness “Christians and those who play the devil’s music do not have a great history,” Bono writes in the book, “Shalom, the house church community that meant so much to Larry, Edge, and me, was worried we were falling away from our faith.” He wittingly describes the book as a ME-moir, “which is really more of a WE-moir, if I think of all the people who helped me get from there to here.”
As I write this, Bono’s book tour hits the Orpheum, downtown L.A. tonight, Nov. 13. Wish I could be there.
“Surrendor” is published by Alfred A. Knopf and is a Borzoi Book. www.aaknopf.com.