Tryin' to throw your arms around the world (5)

Another Time, Another Place

If affirmation and contradiction are the conceptual foundations of U2’s spirituality, community and Christianity are its biographical roots.

U2 are a group that emerged out of community. The four members met at Mount Temple, a non-denominational, co-educational comprehensive school in Dublin. Mount Temple aimed through education to cut across the traditional barriers within Irish society in a way that was genuinely radical when it opened in 1972. The personal backgrounds of the band members reflected the mix of communities across which Mount Temple was aiming to communicate. Mount Temple stands as a symbol of the reconciling and educative strands in U2’s spirituality.

There were also other communities influencing the formation and development of the band members and their spirituality. Lypton Village was a gang of Dublin teenagers with a shared love of surreal humour, dadaism and boundary breaking through shock tactics. It was in this group that Bono and The Edge gained the names they have used ever since. Lypton Village is a symbol of U2’s interest in contradiction, dramatic performance and subversion. Then there was Shalom, a Charismatic house church, of which Bono, Edge and Mullen were members. Here there was an emphasis on exuberant worship and the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, including speaking in tongues. In U2’s past, Shalom symbolises the passion and improvisatory elements of U2’s spirituality.

The impact of these communities was such that almost from day one many of the elements of U2’s spirituality that we have been exploring were there in embryo. In a 1979 interview, given before they had signed a recording contract, Bono spoke about spirituality, improvisation, passion, humour, dramatic characterisation, failure and contradiction. In many respects, he could just as easily have been speaking in 1993 about ZooTV. That U2 could be speaking in these terms so early in their career demonstrates the impact of the communities of which they were a part in their formative period.

However, the most influential community has been the bond between the band itself. Where they have experienced conflict and tension within the band, this has generally been as a result of one or more members not sharing a particular community allegiance.

Throughout, their sense of community as a group has enabled them to work through the various tensions that have arisen at different stages within their career:

"It’s a bit like joining the priesthood or the Mob. The only way you get out is when you die or when someone whacks you.”

These four communities – the barrier straddling education of Mount Temple, the barrier breaking dadaism of Lypton Village, the passion and spontaneity of Shalom’s Christianity and the personal and committed friendships within the band - then stand as symbols of recurring elements within U2 that inform their spirituality.

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U2 - Twilight.