The last song Joey Ramone heard before he died in 2001 was “In a Little While” by U2. His brother, Mickey Leigh, told Mojo that Ramone went to “that place where songs go after they’re played.” Bono singing, In a little while, this hurt will hurt no more, held extra poignancy when the nurse said, “He’s gone now.”
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Reflecting on Ramone’s death, Bono said Joey Ramone turned a song about a hangover into something religious. The hangover part was a way for Bono to soften his philosophical meditation on existence. Attempting to understand the nature of existence, consciousness, and the purpose of life is a heavy lift for a pop song. In this place, comfort is usually found in escaping reality.
Rock bands are good at mythmaking. There’s the unspoken language of myth between a band and its fans. Listeners want outrageous or unbelievable stories about their heroes. The rags to riches cliché endures for good reason. People want to hear about the folk singer sleeping in their car or couch surfing before they “make it.”
Joseph Campbell has written volumes on mythology, and his most famous book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, influenced George Lucas’s invention of the Jedi. So, a rock ’n’ roll story about Joey Ramone and Bono is too perfect to ignore.
Regardless of how exaggerated the Ramone story may or may not be, “In a Little While” is a beautiful song from U2’s last great album, All That You Can’t Leave Behind.
I’ll Take You There
The Edge wraps Bono’s voice in a soul guitar part that’s part church and part Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. Bono noted in his memoir, Surrender, the “bluesy accompaniment will never get old because it never felt new.”
In a little while
I will blow by every breeze
Friday night running
To Sunday, on my knees
Living temporally, drunk on Friday, Bono seeks redemption on Sunday. Spiritual themes are constant in U2’s music, the default position for a band brought up in the church.
Bono’s wife, Alison, is referenced as the little girl with Spanish eyes. The future Ali Hewson was 12 years old when she met Bono, then known as Paul Hewson. She ignored him initially, but they bonded after his mother died in 1974. Two years later, Larry Mullen Jr. would post a note looking for musicians to form a band. Five students responded, and the first practice happened in Mullen’s kitchen. Ali Hewson was there before U2, and she was there before Bono was “Bono.”
That girl, that girl, she’s mine
And I’ve known her since
Since she was a little girl
With Spanish eyes
Oh, when I saw her
In a pram, they pushed her by
Ooh, my, how you’ve grown
Well, it’s been, it’s been a little while
Reforming a Rock Band
U2 reinvented themselves dramatically in the early ’90s. They experimented with electronic and dance music, creating a masterpiece, Achtung Baby. The tinkering continued with Zooropa before crashing fantastically with Pop. A band not known for subtly had outgrown their unsubtle ways. They needed a reset and did so with their reliable producers, Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. All That You Can’t Leave Behind was the sound of U2 learning to be a rock band again.
Pop hymns work when a band reaches for the stars while showing vulnerability when their hands flail through the clouds. The magic of U2 is in Mullen’s heartbeat rhythms, Adam Clayton’s bass sending blood to the icicle guitars of The Edge, who lifts Bono to a place where he can sermonize about the human condition. The farce of Bono’s hangover brings the biblical down to earth. It’s where the sky of The Joshua Tree meets the dirt.
It’s easy to eye-roll a band like U2, but when the impulse occurs, it’s worth listening to “Where the Streets Have No Name.” You cannot write a song like that without ambition. “With or Without You” isn’t recorded if the goal isn’t gospel.
There’s a story in Bono’s memoir where Mikhail Gorbachev arrives at the Hewson’s home. As the night grew late and the drink glasses emptied, the last leader of the Soviet Union told Bono and Ali his country was collapsing. Bono asked Gorbachev if he believed in God, and the general secretary answered, “No.” Bono is a man of faith. He told historian Jon Meacham his entire existence is “believing in the absurd.” It’s the reason he was bold enough to convince President George W. Bush to save millions of lives from the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. A boy from the outer suburbs of Dublin meeting with global leaders while fronting one of the biggest rock bands in history can’t be called anything but absurd.
Myths elevate the parables humans have used to learn life’s lessons. The Elevation Tour supported All That You Can’t Leave Behind on a heart-shaped stage, and the greatest punk rocker in history died listening to “In a Little While.” Sometimes, a little absurdity goes a long way.
(Photo by Chelsea Lauren/Getty Images for PSFF)
