U2

I've seen and heard a lot of U2 lately, from campaign season to the historic inaugural, to a week's worth of performances on Dave Letterman last week with songs from their latest album. The music of U2 makes up one of the most revered of my life's treasured anthems. I have always connected with the signature sound of U2 with the heavily processed, echoed guitars, combined with the post-punk rhythm section and Bono's iconic voice.

On my way to Raleigh last week I was tuned in to a radio station out of Greensboro that was playing two U2 songs per hour - one old and one new - so I got to hear several since I had the radio station for much of the drive. It occurred to me that U2 was/is probably my generation's *Beatles*. The songs I heard took me back to being 15 years old in 9th-10th grade with Sunday Bloody Sunday and New Year's Day although that's from the albums War(1983) and October (1981)which only goes to show how timeless the music is, and Unforgettable Fire and Pride [in the name of love] (1984), on up through high school and college with Where The Streets Have No Name and other Joshua Tree (1987)and Rattle and Hum (1988)classics.

Recently when I was cleaning out a bookcase filled with books and CDs and old cassettes, I came across an old U2 recording that my old friend Mark Haas made for me - circa 1987 - by recording War and Unforgettable Fire from albums onto a cassette. I know the recording is full of pops and crackles - which only makes it better. I popped it into a box, rather than tossing it out with a bunch of other old stuff I'd accumulated. To throw away a U2 cassette, I thought, is practically blasphemy - no matter what the quality.