U2
War

THE REVIEW

Just as The Beatles' "Please Please Me" better represented the optimism of young people in the early '60s than any other record, and as "The Dark Side of the Moon" a decade later best represented the disillusionment of the '70s, "War" (1983) captured the sentiments of young people at the beginning of the '80s during the most unsettling days of the Cold War better than any other album. "War" speaks (primarily) about this and can thus be defined as an excellent period document.

However, a "landmark" record does not necessarily mean a musical masterpiece, and indeed "War" is not one; musically, "War" is a clear step back from the previous "October," positioning itself somewhat as the "The Joshua Tree" of their early period: a record with three excellent singles ("Sunday Bloody Sunday," "New Year’s Day," and "Surrender") followed by a series of excellent pop songs (melodic or hard) that manage to reach the listener. An "immediate" record, in the noblest sense of the term, and certainly an album that managed to enter the hearts of people of that era like few others. That is no small feat.

Perhaps "War" would have never appeared, and U2's story would have concluded in 1981. As believing Irishmen, three of them joined a (rather extremist) Christian group called Shalom, which led them to have some doubts about their choice of making music. For certain fanatical Christians, rock is the devil's music, and thus, childishly, even U2's thoughts became dichotomous: faith or rock. At one point, The Edge left the group, and Bono followed suit.

After a few months of more meditated reflection, the three retraced their steps, and in March 1982, released the new single "A Celebration," a simple and direct rock song that touches on the religious themes of "October" while simultaneously anticipating the fears of "War" with Bono singing: "I believe in the third world war, I believe in the atomic bomb, but they won’t crush me. I believe in the walls of Jericho, I believe they’re going to fall, I believe in the Church of Christ."

With this new single in stores, U2 locked themselves in the studio and between May and December 1982, produced the album that transformed them, from anonymity, into the world's biggest emerging group. To date, it has sold 11 million copies.

The album begins timelessly. Mullen's martial drum introduces a haunting electric violin to set the stage for Edge's memorable arpeggio. Bono’s voice takes care of the rest, while the violin and acoustic guitar (joining the electric one) almost underscore the sad anger enveloping the lyrics: "I can’t believe the news today, oh, I can’t close my eyes and make it go away." Bono is speaking about the infamous massacre on Sunday, January 30, 1972, in Derry (Northern Ireland) when British soldiers fired on a peaceful crowd protesting against the British occupation in Ireland. The singer goes on to describe in simple but effective words the effects of the carnage (thirteen dead and several injured), while Edge repeats the initial riff: "Broken bottles under children’s feet. Bodies strewn across the dead-end street. But I won’t heed the battle call. It puts my back up, puts my back