Cathal McCarron - Me And U2: Their Music, My Life

Dedicated to Anne McCarron

Me and U2
Copyright Cathal McCarron 2009 London, England
Published by Muse Books Limited

All rights reserved. This publication may not be copied of reproduced in whole or in part by any means or in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author.

Achtung Bono! Its a long way down!

I was in a large crowd blocking Regent Street in London on a cold Friday evening in March 2009. Rock and roll had stopped the rush hour traffic. U2 were playing their new single, Get On Your Boots, high above me on a balcony on the eighth floor of the BBC radio building. Bono, at a location named vertigo far removed from his audience in the street below, had climbed onto and was leaning out over the waist-high railing separating him from a fatal fall. Thankfully, he didnt trip through the wires, the line stayed on the horizon, it wasnt his last night on earth, he didnt fall down.

Id read online earlier that day that U2 were playing a free secret concert on the roof of the BBC. I had to be there. I live in London. Im a U2 fan.

Fortunately I only had a short bus journey across London to go and see U2. I hate long bus journeys. In August 2008 I was on holiday in Indonesia and faced the dismal prospect of a bumpy eight-hour slog across the island of Sulawesi. I needed something that would help the time pass faster. I had an iPod with me, and I decided to listen to the entire U2 back catalogue in chronological order. To many people this would make a long, boring bus journey even more torturous; for me it was something to relish. I listened to every album in sequence from Boy to Rattle And Hum. The bus journey passed swiftly and pleasurably. And even better, as the drive had been shorter than anticipated, I could continue my U2 marathon from Achtung Baby to How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb on the return journey.

U2 had provided me with a musical time-machine. During my epic U2-athon on the bus, I started to reminisce about each album, where I was in my life when it had been released, and all the concerts I had attended on the subsequent tour. I realised that Id been a U2 fan for twenty-five years. I also became aware of the many, many occasions that their music had given me profound inspiration, and had helped me cope with the toughest times in my life (including spiritual searching, and dealing with grief and heartbreak). And thus the initial idea for a book began to form. This book is an exploration of the numerous times and multitude of ways that U2 and their music have touched me. Its my unremarkable story through the prism of their remarkable music.

Ive never met Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton or Larry Mullen Jr. Ive seen them in person, sometimes up close, but they were always on a stage whilst I was always in a crowd. The title of this book is a presumptuous, and perhaps misleading, misnomer. Me and U2 may suggest that I have had some kind of relationship with U2. I have had a relationship with U2 in the same way that millions of people have had a relationship with U2, and millions more people have had relationships with Madonna or Manchester United: as a fan (and occasionally as a critic), drawing pleasure, inspiration and consolation from their art.

Ive been a U2 fan for most of my life with varying levels of intensity: from borderline obsession in my teenage years, to sporadic outbreaks of techno-induced apathy in my twenties. From hearing Sunday Bloody Sunday for the first time in 1983, and being captivated by Bono at Live Aid in 1985, from the joyous rush of my first concert at the Point Depot in Dublin in 1989, through the Zoo TV, Elevation and Vertigo tours, U2 have been a constant and conspicuous element of my life. I have bought U2 CDs and DVDs, albums and singles, books and T-shirts, concert tickets and condoms. I bought the goods because I like the group. U2 have touched my life on several levels. Whether youre a U2 fan or not, I hope you will enjoy reading about how my life has been enriched by their music and by the men who make it.

There was much chat concerning that following tune. Perhaps, perhaps excessive chat. That tune wasnt a rebellious tune. That tune was Sunday Bloody Sunday.

It was the first U2 song I ever heard. My eldest brother Peter bought Under A Blood Red Sky in 1983 when I was 10 years old, and I remember listening to it when he played it on the record player in our bedroom. Sunday Bloody Sunday was a very important song for us - it was about our hometown of Derry.

I was born into and grew up in a stereotypically large Irish Catholic family in Derry city in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 80s. I have four brothers and two sisters; Im the fifth of seven children. My parents had been married for seven years when I was born. Upon my providential arrival in April 1973, they then had their own gradated crche - five children under 5 years old: Peter (4), Ciara (3), Gavin (2), Conor (1) and me. There must have been an awful lot of awful nappy-changing and competitive, whatabout-ME! crying. Theres then an entirely understandable five year gap until my younger brother Darragh, and then another two years to my baby sister Aideen.

In 1979 we moved to a housing estate with the charming name of Foyle Springs, situated on the north-western edge of Derry, about two miles from the border with Donegal. It was a new, red brick estate with starter homes for mostly young, aspirational, upper working class families. The five McCarron boys all shared one bedroom in the new house. For the first few years, there were only two beds between us. Peter, Darragh and I shared one double bed; Gavin and Conor shared another. The room was a predictable, permanent mess. We were perpetually ankle-deep in clothes, shoes, toys, books, school bags and the other childhood detritus of five boys. I remember the excitement when we were each bought our very own chest of drawers to keep our own clothes in (although there was usually an open and free trade of the ownership on most garments, depending on which items fitted which brother the best). Fortunately, there were two windows in the bedroom; both were open all year round in a vain effort to release the fumes created by a gang of adolescent males.

People have often asked me what it was like to come from such a large family, and to share a bedroom with four brothers. I have usually replied that it was, well, normal. And it was normal. I had four brothers and two sisters and thats just the way the world was. It was obviously very social, as there was always someone to play (or fight) with. As a child I didnt think about our domestic sleeping arrangements. When I hit adolescence I hated it.

Christmases were great. I remember walking wide-eyed into our living room on Christmas mornings with my brothers and sisters and seeing a wondrous, Hamleys-esque array of toys spread out dream-like before us. I would have thanked Santa, except one major downside to having so many older siblings is that when they learn something scandalous about the world, then you inevitably find out too (although I was initially extremely confused about why my brothers were searching the house for toys during December, and occasionally finding them).

My father was a double-glazing salesman, covering counties Derry and Tyrone. I liked joining him on his trips out to drum up some sales by putting leaflets through peoples letterboxes. A few times I hid in his car by lying down behind the drivers seat just before he drove off to meet customers, and I only revealed my presence when I knew we were too far for him to turn back to deliver me home. He used to punish my naughtiness at sneaking on these trips by forcing me to eat some chocolate or crisps in the car as he tried to close a sale.