THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE
Photo by Peter J. Cooper
It doesn’t take a lot of effort to make the case that the 80s were the greatest decade of modern music. The 70s is a very close second, but if you’re walking into restaurants, bars, clubs, shops or even grocery stores these days, you’re hearing 80s music playing in the background. And there’s a reason for this – everybody loves it. What the 70s took from the music of the 60s, the 80s took and then stylized it and made it camera-ready. Rock music was still rock but with big hair and sometimes make-up, punk rock became post-punk with songs that had real production value by musicians who could really play their instruments, and the British who invaded America in the 60s, launched a new wave attack that created some of the most memorable music that we’re still playing over and over again today. Then there was Ireland, which contributed with Van Morrison and Thin Lizzy. That is, until a foursome out of Dublin arrived on the scene in 1980 and gave the world what it was waiting for – music with raw emotion.
U2’s The Unforgettable Fire was a pivotal moment for the band in 1984. Coming off their albums Boy, October and War, they were primarily a post-punk rock band peppered with social commentary and idealism that had a seemingly Irish bent to it. Staring at a cross roads, they knew they had to find a new direction – one that would open them up to the world, and one that would open the world up to them. And with the help of producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, they found themselves recording in Slane Castle in Ireland, forging a mix of instrumental expansions and lyrical explorations that wove a tapestry of emotion, power and most importantly, an intimate connection to their massively expanding fanbase, which was both a good and a bad thing. Good because The Unforgettable Fire went everywhere musically I thought this band could go, validating my discovery of them from the moment I heard their Boy album. But bad because they were one album away from becoming mainstream, and as a rebellious teenager, I absolutely loathed mainstream. Throughout the album, song after song, you can hear the Edge hone the guitar echos that would come to identify the band’s signature sound. From the melodic A Sort of Homecoming, to the driving guitar power of Wire, to the introspective and emotional Bad - never again would a guitar sound strike us as both fierce and haunting at the same time. Fire also marks the last time Larry Mullen Jr.’s drums would be an important and impactful signature of U2’s music, dare I say as equal as the Edge’s guitar sound. From his early explosive drumming of Boy’s I Will Follow and October’s Gloria, to his militaristic beat in War’s Sunday Bloody Sunday, to Fire’s Indian Summer Sky, Mullen Jr.’s drums were more of a statement than just one-half of the rhythm section with Adam Clayton. To fully understand what I’m saying, just listen to Like A Song… from their War album. The post-Fire future of U2 would regrettably see a departure from Mullen Jr.’s dominating and powerful drumming that seemed to inspire a call to action instead of a tapping of our feet to the beat. To borrow a quote from Frost, nothing gold can stay - and inevitably U2 would continue to evolve into the band they are today. But we can still remember that undoubtedly something special happened with The Unforgettable Fire, and it was felt by everyone who loved the band. For me, it was a coming of age album at a moment when I was, well, coming of age. And it spoke to me more than any album U2 would ever produce.
The Unforgettable Fire is a constant in my music rotation in my office. Whether I’m sitting down to write or just knocking out office stuff, it creates an ambiance of calmness and introspection along with nostalgia, and it still offers me the same inspiration I felt when I was a kid. If you haven’t listened to it in a while, or if you’ve never listened to it before, I encourage you to play the album in its entirety, from the beginning to the end. You’ll be glad you did. PJC