How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb - discussion guide

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Track Listing

1. Vertigo
2. Miracle Drug
3. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
4. Love And Peace Or Else
5. City Of Blinding Lights
6. All Because Of You
7. A Man And A Woman
8. Crumbs From Your Table
9. One Step Closer
10. Original Of The Species
11. Yahweh
12. Fast Cars (UK edition)

Summary

'People expect a big political record from us right now - it's our most personal. Actually, I didn't have a choice - I just found I was writing these very personal songs about family, about friendship, about love ... that's just what came out.' In his interview with Alasdair Campbell (Channel 5, 2004), Bono talks about how the album could have been called, How to Dismantle An Atomic Bob - referring to his late father; elsewhere he says that he is the bomb. Nonetheless, 'A bomb went off when my old man died and I had no idea how to deal with it' (Q Magazine, November 2004). However you choose to interpret the title, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb explodes with feeling - from the grief of Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own and One Step Closer to the celebration of existence that carries All Because Of You.

On the DVD that accompanies a special edition of the album, Bono describes How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb as a culmination of their previous work: 'This is actually our first album . . . it's taken us twenty years, or whatever it is . . . And Vertigo is the first single from our first album. And oddly enough, in that spirit, there's a quote from our very first single.' The tracks frequently echo with the refrains of past songs; some have commented that this is the 'most U2-sounding U2 album since The Joshua Tree' (Q, Nov 2004).

Vertigo describes the feeling you have when you're living on the edge, 'when you get up to the top of something and there's only one way to go.' Bono says that the setting could be a club; the feelings evoked are of fear and paranoia: 'You're supposed to be having the time of your life, but you want to kill yourself.' In this place, 'the music is just not the music you want to hear, the people are not the people you want to be with.' But there is still a glimpse of hope as:

I'm asking for the cheque
The girl with crimson nails
Has Jesus round her neck.

Bono explains, 'You just see somebody, she's got a cross round her neck, and you kind of focus on it because you can't focus on anything else, and you find a little, tiny, fragment of salvation there' (www.u2.com). At the other end of the tracklist the paranoia continues:

My cell is ringing
No ID
I need to know who's calling
. . .
I got CCTV, pornography, CNBC
I got the nightly news
To get to know the enemy

There is also a remedy:

All I want is a picture of you
All I want is to be right next to you (Fast Cars).

The tensions set up throughout the album are familiar to U2 fans. Bono continues to wrestle with the ironies and complexities of being a rock star with a conscience:

It's everything I wish I didn't know
But you give me something I can feel' (Vertigo)

Most songs seem to function on several levels, and could be about a relationship with God, family or lover. In Love And Peace Or Else, the war on poverty meshes with a fight between lovers. Bono's call is to join in the search for peace. The message is the same: to surrender - whether it is your possessions or your heart:

Lay your love on the track
We're gonna break the monster's back.

Background

How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is chart-topping Irish band U2's eleventh studio album. With a change of producer half way through, to long-term collaborator Steve Lillywhite, it took eighteen months to complete. During this time the band were also keen to support Bono in his 'other job' campaigning around the world for DATA (Debt, Aids, Trade, in Africa), a charity that he co-founded in 2002.

A special edition of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb featured a 42-page booklet with poetry, sketches and paintings by all four members of the band. One half deals with themes of fear and paranoia, the other focuses on hope, love and joy.

In conjunction with U2, Apple have launched a customised iPod that comes preloaded with the new album (for the whole story, see www.forbes.com).

Questions for discussion

1. How big a U2 fan are you? Which is your favourite track from this album and why? How does it compare to any other favourites in their back catalogue?

2. Vertigo includes the lines:

A feeling is so much stronger than
A thought
Your eyes are wide
And though your soul
It can't be bought
Your mind can wander.

In your life, do thoughts or feelings take precedence? How do they shape your spirituality? How do they shape your actions?

3. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own includes the lines:

    

And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you when I don't pick up the phone
Sometimes you can't make it on your own.

How do you relate to this expression of the relationship between father and son?

4. On Love And Peace Or Else, Bono sings:

As you enter this life
I pray you depart
With a wrinkled face
And a brand new heart

What do you think Bono is saying in this song? Where else are these sentiments expressed on the album?

5. City Of Blinding Lights:

Neon heart, dayglo eyes
A city lit by fireflies
They're advertising in the skies
For people like us

Bono says, 'It's a New York song. About going there for the first time' (Q, Nov 2004). What 'wisdom' does Bono impart in this song?

6. 'I know these fast cars / Will do me no good' (Fast Cars). How has technology changed our lives for the better? And for the worse?

7. 'Music may not change the world but it can certainly change the temperature . . . I was fourteen when I listened to John Lennon. I really felt that the world was much more malleable, really, than anyone else was telling me - that you could give it a good kicking and that it might change shape; that things do not have to be the way they are' (Bono, interview with Alasdair Campbell, Channel 5, 2004). Do you agree with Bono? How would you like to change the world?

8. 'Celebrity is currency, and I want to spend mine well' (Bono, interview with Alasdair Campbell, Channel 5, 2004). Why do some celebrities have a voice that people will listen to?

9. 'I don't have a choice about being a musician or a singer. I'd like to think I'd know when to quit, but we have an incredible band right now, and when we walk out on stage the four of us, there's chemistry between us which is just undeniable' (Bono, interview with Alasdair Campbell, Channel 5, 2004). What kind of responsibilities do artists have today?

10. On the death of his father Bono says, 'If I'm honest, I've been running away from it for the past two years ... Eventually you have to turn and face yourself' (Q, Nov 2004). How does our society deal with death and grief?

11. In which lyrics do you hear Bono singing about God and faith?

12. 'I am Bono and I'm sick of him. I really am. But there are a lot of Bonos. Some annoy me more than others. Like Van Morrison said, I'll be great when I'm finished.' Do you see your 'self' as many 'selves'? If you were a songwriter, what part of your life would you sing about?

13. Miracle Drug 'started off being about the Irish writer Christopher Nolan [born with cerebral palsy], who was at our school. But in a more oblique way it's probably as much about Aids and the drugs developed to arrest it' (Q, Nov 2004). What miracle would you ask God for? Why?

14. 'You speak of signs and wonders / I need something other' (Crumbs From Your Table). 'I went to speak to Christian fundamentalist groups in America to convince them to give money to fight Aids in Africa. It was like getting blood from a stone. I told them about a hospice in Uganda where so many were dying they had to sleep three to a bed. Sister Ann, who I mention in the song, works at that hospice. Her office is a sewer' (Bono, Q, Nov 2004). What contradictions does this song raise?

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