Latest news with #SongsofInnocence
Irish Post
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Post
Memoir and music collide as Bono faces mortality and finds renewed purpose
NEVER before in the history of humankind has one small man so largely self-promoted his life. That's the theory, anyway, as U2's frontman Bono prepares to unleash yet another chapter of his life at the end of this month. 'I was born with my fists up. Surrender does not come easy to me. This is my story. I'm stuck with it.' So says the man who manages to mix self-deprecation with self-aggrandisement all too well. We will see examples of this in the forthcoming Apple TV+ original documentary Bono: Stories of Surrender, which debuts on the streaming platform on Friday, May 30th. In fairness, Paul Hewson's flagrant self-promotion has some depth to it. We can safely guess that this virtually solo proactivity began with the brace of U2's most personal and confessional albums: Songs of Innocence (2014) and Songs of Experience (2017). Bono Stories of Surrender airs on Apple TV+ this month The first album revisits the band members' early days in Ireland of the 1970s, referencing childhood memories, personal loves and losses, all the while tipping a hat to their first musical inspirations of glam rock, David Bowie, and various pop, rock, and punk groups. Bono once described the album as the most personal the band had written. Subsequently, in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he said the album was about trying to figure out 'why we wanted to be in a band, the relationships around the band, our friendships, our lovers, our family. The whole album is first journeys - first journeys geographically, spiritually, sexually…' Songs of Experience, meanwhile, was even more personal to Bono. In December 2016, as the album was being worked on, he had a near-death experience. At the time, what occurred wasn't identified, but the Edge referred to it as a 'brush with mortality.' Bono later revealed in his 2022 memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, that he had undergone open-heart surgery, an eight-hour operation. After some time recuperating, a fully recovered Bono decided to rework lyrics on some of the album's new songs. He subsequently admitted that death was already going to be a theme on the album, as he thought the subject had been infrequently addressed in rock music, and felt it was logically fitting for an album with the title of Songs of Experience. Inevitably, the incident influenced the general theme and atmosphere of the album. It made him realise, he said, that not 'surrendering to melancholy is the most important thing if you are going to fight your way out of whatever corner you are in.' Cue Covid-19, and the time available to dig deep not only into what happened to him a few years previously but also to finally drill down into his life story. Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story was the result of such drilling. To say it surprised people is an understatement. To say it most surprised people whose antipathy towards Bono bordered on irrationality was an even greater understatement. How did he change minds, then? A review of the memoir in the New Statesman gets it right. 'The only thing anyone else really has to say about U2 is that they don't like Bono, the band's frontman, because he is smug and evangelical. Bono addresses this charge early in his memoir: there is no criticism anyone could make of him that is worse than the criticism he gives himself, up there on stage, every night. On stage, he has a devil on his shoulder, he says. But while he may have a devil, he also has faith and God on his side. Thus insulated, Bono can begin his story.' Similarly, Irish writer Colm Tóibín's review in the Irish Times outlines why some people are irked by Bono: he gets carried away. ('This is what I do,' explains the singer. 'This is the me you wouldn't want to be in a band with.') Tóibín gets to the heart of the subject when he writes that what makes the memoir so intriguing is that the singer's overarching melancholy 'is overwhelmed by a desperate, frenzied desire to use life more richly since it has proved to be so fragile. Sadness is replaced here by an extraordinary and breathless zeal for friendship, but also for love.' Which is all well and good, but what does the documentary Bono: Stories of Surrender tell us? In tandem with the publication of his memoir in the closing months of 2022, something odd occurred in the world of U2. Announcing theatre shows with the title of Stories of Surrender: An Evening of Words, Music and Some Mischief, Bono announced that these shows would be the first time he would sing U2 songs without the other three band members. There was no problem with this, he soothingly remarked, perhaps keen to downplay (if not completely sabotage) any thoughts of discord within the band. The 'solo' tour dates were few and far between, but as the shows were to be held in theatres (the capacity of which ranged from anywhere between 1,000-3,000), the demand for tickets was stratospheric. Curiosity, however, was also central to the demand. In the end, the wait in the online ticket queue was worth it. Reviews of the show were unanimously positive. 'One of rock's biggest voices laid himself bare', said Variety, and 'unquestionable professionalism' noted The Times. The Irish Times, meanwhile, viewed Dublin's 3Olympia Theatre show as a 'musical photo album, the singer flicking through memories of his life with songs. It gives him the chance to flex his talents as a singer, a storyteller, a mimic, a comic and, ultimately, the tenor his father said he never was. This is 'my quarter-of-a-band' show, he says. But what a quarter.' You can expect the Apple TV+ documentary to deliver a view of the show (actually, two shows, both filmed at New York's famed Beacon Theatre) that not many in the stalls witnessed. Directed in sharp, stylish monochrome by Andrew Dominik, the documentary had its world premiere at this year's Cannes Film Festival and received suitably enthusiastic reviews. Previously unseen footage from the Beacon shows presents a very confessional Bono in a way you might have previously been unaware of, while numerous U2 songs are performed in a subtle, stripped-down and textured manner that places them in entirely new light (and shade). The Irish musicians on stage (cellist Kate Ellis, multi-instrumentalist Gemma Doherty, and jack-of-all-music-trades Jacknife Lee) reshape the songs that will more than likely influence forthcoming U2 material. The visual aspects, meanwhile, are softened versions of the usual blitz of U2's arena/Sphere shows, with supremely eye-catching lighting design that never makes you turn your head away. Is the film yet another self-promotion device, another look-at-me tool? Of course it is, but even the most toughened anti-U2/Bono detractor will surely admit there is a sincere heart beating throughout it that neuters the obvious hard sell. 'The Story of a Showman' is how the trailer for the documentary starts. It now looks likely that until Bono hangs up his boots, or until his boots are hung up for him, the story of this particular showman will continue. A revised edition of Stories of Surrender is published on May 27. The documentary of the same name premieres on Apple TV+ on May 30. See More: Apple TV+, Bono, Bono: Stories Of Surrender
Irish Daily Mirror
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
'Kneecap Gaza row is met with Songs of Silence by Irish rock's loudest voice'
From her early days managing her rocker husband Ozzy, Sharon Osborne has made her name by riding on the coat tails of other people's talents. Simon Cowell made her a judge on his reality TV shows where her niche was 'calling it as she saw it' on wannabes with stars in their eyes. She once labelled Susan Boyle a 'hairy arsehole'. Her favourite response to bad press was to send bags of faeces to journalists. But she's managed to locate a new basement level to her mudslinging barrel. She is campaigning to stop a group of working-class musicians earning a living by demanding their work visas for the US be revoked. Sharon was outraged that Belfast rappers Kneecap used their appearance at California's Coachella music festival to call out the Israeli government's genocide in Gaza. It compromised the 'moral and spiritual integrity' of the festival apparently. Right Ted. Unlike, say, the moral and spiritual integrity of deporting two million people so you can build beach-front casinos on their children's graves. Kneecap's brand of 'Children of the Good Friday Agreement' angst may not be everyone's cup of tea. They have clarified they do not support Hamas and Hizbollah, and been forced to apologise for comments seen as provoking violence against Tory MPs. But when it comes to Gaza they are part of an honourable Irish artistic tradition of speaking out in defence of human rights. Most Irish bands I've seen play live recently, from the chart-topping Fontaines DC to the legendary Pogues, have expressed similar support for a free Palestine. We all remember Sinead O'Connor driving her own career off a cliff in the US. And of course there Bono felt the wrath of Sharon's tongue himself when she slammed him and the band back in 2014. For a similar thought crime of speaking up for human rights you ask? Well, no. It was for the atrocity of dropping their album 'Songs of Innocence' uninvited into the inbox of half a billion iTunes users. "You are business moguls not musicians. You are just a bunch of middle age political groupies. Whose political a** are we going to pull you out of today?' Sharon raged against the machine. So under all the circumstances you might expect Bono to find common cause with Kneecap and maybe even come to their defence. In an article to celebrate receiving the US Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden in January he proudly wrote how 'at age 18, we in U2 had our first proper go at activism at an anti-apartheid concert at Trinity College Dublin.' But I'm going to stick my neck out here and suggest the frontman won't use his new status as a holder of the America's highest civilian honour to lobby for Kneecap's right to free speech in the USA. When it comes to the 21st century heir to the apartheid regime he first rocked against, Bono has opted instead for Songs of Silence. He has limited his comments to changing the words of U2's pride during a performance at the Las Vegas sphere to: 'Early morning, October 7, the sun is rising in the desert sky… Stars of David, they took your life but they could not take your pride.' Or to meaningless platitudes like 'it's shocking to see what the children of Abraham are doing to each other. Suffering of Palestinian children after we saw the suffering of the Israeli children. It's almost too much.' Almost. In an obscure article to celebrate his medal he did refer to the 'obscene levelling of civilian life' in Gaza, declaring: 'Freedom must come for the Israeli hostages, whose kidnapping by Hamas ignited this latest cataclysm. Freedom must come for the Palestinian people.' When U2 were kings Bono would have shouted it from the rooftop stages. He recalled manager Paul McGuinness once asking with exasperation: 'What is it this time, Bono? Rock Against Bad Things?' Well why not? We now live in an age of very bad things. The baddest is happening daily in Gaza. Maybe it's time Bono rediscovered his activist pride and started shouting about it with a voice that would carry more weight in America than a little-known rap trio from west Belfast.
New York Times
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Where the Precious Things Are: Maurice Sendak's Art Collection to Be Auctioned
A pre-eminent writer and illustrator of children's books, Maurice Sendak, who died in 2012 at 83, was also a passionate art collector. The two pursuits were intertwined. 'I'm not a collector who collects just for collecting,' he said in 1984. 'Things have to refer back or give me some turn-on in my work.' On June 10, at Christie's in New York, the Maurice Sendak Foundation is auctioning a hefty sampling of the treasures he accumulated, and some of his own drawings, the auction house announced on Wednesday. (An online auction will run from May 29 to June 12.) The funds will go to maintain the foundation's house in Ridgefield, Conn., where he lived for more than 40 years, and the programs there. Still filled with Sendak's belongings and looking much the way it did during his lifetime, the house annually hosts four illustrators who are awarded four-week residencies to study his work. Sendak established the program two years before his death, a time when he was struggling with severe bouts of a lifelong recurrent depression. 'It really revitalized him,' says Lynn Caponera, executive director of the foundation, who knew Sendak from the time she was a young girl. 'He was beginning to feel not relevant. It helped him get back interested in publishing.' With Jonathan Weinberg, the curator and director of research at the foundation, who also was a child when he first met Sendak, Caponera selected works for the auction that she says were duplicated by other pieces or were too valuable and delicate to store and display in Ridgefield. 'Things of mine when I'm no longer in this world, I intend to leave in my will that they be auctioned off again,' Sendak said in an interview. 'I don't want to leave them to anybody because I had so much fun getting them. I'd like them all dispersed. They don't 'belong' to anybody. You don't 'own' those things. You just have possession of them during that brief period of time you're here.' Sendak began collecting in the late 1950s. After the huge commercial successes of 'Where the Wild Things Are,' published in 1963, and 'In the Night Kitchen,' in 1970, he could afford to purchase more expensive things. He also traded his original art for books and drawings held by Justin G. Schiller, the leading dealer in children's literature. It was thanks to Schiller that he obtained his two most valuable artworks: first printings of William Blake's hand-illustrated books, 'Songs of Innocence' and 'Songs of Experience,' each estimated to fetch between $1 million and $1.5 million at auction. Asked who was the greatest writer for children, Sendak once said, 'William Blake is my favorite — and of course, 'The Songs of Innocence' and 'The Songs of Experience' tell you all about this: what it is to be a child — not childish, but a child inside your adult self — and how much better a person you are for being such.' He kept his rare editions of the two books in the drop desk of his bedroom, which is in the original part of the house, dating to 1790. To the left of his bed, matted but unframed, hung a beautiful Blake watercolor illustrating Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' The drawing, which Christie's estimates will bring $400,000 to $600,000, depicts Titania and Oberon resting on two white lilies. 'For Maurice, having something the artist actually touched in his hands was something he really wanted,' Weinberg said. Because he savored having these valuable works nearby, Sendak ignored any quibbles about whether he was protecting them adequately. 'It's not air-conditioned,' Caponera said of his bedroom. 'It's not a safe place to keep them.' When he began collecting, Sendak couldn't afford Blake. Instead, he went after the work of Samuel Palmer, a younger Blake acolyte. Sendak owned three versions — one is being sold — of Palmer's moody Romantic etching, 'The Lonely Tower,' in which two youths gaze at a light shining in a hilltop tower against a star-studded nighttime sky and a crescent moon. It is heavily cross hatched in a Victorian style that Sendak adored, adopting it for the illustrations in 'Higglety, Pigglety, Pop! Or There Must be More to Life,' his 1967 chronicle of the imaginary adventures of his Sealyham terrier, which he said was his favorite of his books. An introvert who, Caponera says, 'didn't like leaving the house,' Sendak found continuing companionship with Eugene Glynn, a psychoanalyst who was his partner for 50 years, and from his beloved dogs. He was a great admirer of George Stubbs, the late-18th-century English painter who specialized in depictions of animals. According to Caponera, Sendak's favorite Stubbs was an etching of two endearing foxhounds. But the showstopper, acquired by Sendak in 2000, is an enamel-on-copper oval plate of a lion devouring a stag, which Stubbs made in collaboration with Josiah Wedgwood. 'Maurice kept it in his bedroom on a five-and-dime stand on his dresser,' Caponera said. Christie's estimates its hammer price at between $100,00 and $150,000. Another figure in Sendak's artistic pantheon is Philipp Otto Runge, a German Romantic of the late 18th century. In 1982, Sendak bought a set of Runge engravings, 'The Four Times of Day,' in which naked children revel atop lily-like flowers that, strangely enough, are partly composed of embracing children. Delicately drawn and whimsically lyrical, 'The Four Times of Day' was displayed in the Weimar music room of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, after the artist presented the suite to him as a gift. When Sendak illustrated the cover of 'Caldecott & Company,' a book of his essays about artists he loved, he riffed on Runge's style. Weinberg also credits Runge as the inspiration for 'Outside Over There' (1981), the story of a girl who has to rescue her little sister from goblins — and 'in particular the way Maurice depicts the goblins as if they were giant babies.' Henry Fuseli, a Swiss-born painter with an eccentric erotic bent, lived much of his life in London, where he influenced Blake. Much later, he captivated Sendak. Among the works being auctioned is 'Callipyga,' an ink drawing of Mrs. Fuseli, seen from behind and baring her buttocks, as she stands by a dressing table supported by phallic columns. 'I think one of the things that appealed to Maurice about the late 18th and early 19th century was the way that artists like Fuseli were not uptight about the body,' Weinberg commented. 'Because Maurice is a children's book author, people forget that he was very much a product of the 1960s and the counterculture. Mickey is naked in 'In the Night Kitchen' at exactly the same time as the famous production of 'Hair' on Broadway and its famous nude climax. And it was also the year of Stonewall.' Indeed, the stylized rendition of Mickey's full-frontal nudity caused an uproar, with some librarians using a marker or paintbrush to cover him. 'Apparently, a little boy without his pajamas on was more terrifying to some people than any monster I ever invented,' Sendak remarked. An outlier in the Sendak collection, which tilts heavily toward the 19th century, is a Picasso etching from the 1934 'Suite Vollard,' of a blinded Minotaur guided by a young girl. As with many of the works Sendak collected, it is an image that encapsulates a narrative. And it had other resonances for the artist. A monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man, the Minotaur lived in a cave, and Sendak was fascinated by caves, which have not only a dimensional complexity but also a metaphorical suggestion of psychological exploration. (Sendak was in psychotherapy for much of his life.) Also, as Weinberg pointed out, one of the Wild Things is a horned bull-like creature. It is featured in the original artwork that Sendak made for a library poster, included in the auction. An opera lover and bibliophile, Sendak also had a taste for popular culture, particularly for Mickey Mouse, who entered the world in the same year as he did: 1928. With their big heads and little neckless bodies, his Wild Things can be seen as descendants of Mickey. Sendak only began seriously collecting Mickey figurines in the late '60s, while working on 'In the Night Kitchen,' whose protagonist shares Mickey's name. 'I needed things from my childhood, and the Mickey Mouse things were my favorite,' he explained. 'They helped me kind of taste that time and time again.' A jewel departing the collection is a rare German tinplate toy from the 1930s of Mickey and Minnie Mouse on a motorcycle, estimated to fetch between $30,000 and $50,000. The house is full of Mickey memorabilia, but not just any Mickeys. 'He only liked to collect Mickeys from 1928 to 1939,' Caponera said. 'He taught us at an early age that the only Mickeys to get are the ones with pie eyes. Later they became too mouselike and too realistic.' As Weinberg added, 'What this lesson in Mickey Mouse physiognomy taught was that it didn't matter in what category you put a work of art — high or low, illustrative or abstract, art for children or for grown-ups. What matters is quality.'
