Music is the Best!

Billboards Number One Hits is fun to look up on Google. I realized that some of the songs I thought I knew, I knew at a younger age. Rod Stewart's “Maggie May” was on the hit list just before Halloween when I was seven! For some reason I thought that came out later...guess not.

So this got me started to popping CD's into my player, the one's I haven't played in a long time. As I was doing this, I had forgotten that I have nearly every single CD produced by U2 as they were issued back then. I don't order my CD's, they lie in stacks on top of my speakers, the amp, the floor, the..wherever there is room.

Zooropa, Actung Baby and Unforgettable Fire I haven't really played in a while. I then started playing The Joshua Tree and the memories flooded back. 1987 wasn't a bad year for me memory-wise. This might be a boring snippet from then, but I was wall papering and painting the interior of this house while The Joshua Tree set to “shuffle” for about four hours. I didn't get bored of it. Ah, I miss my then Sony CD player, it was a great machine. It can't compare to the quality of the NAD one I have now, but for some reason the Sony seemed more fun.

The first time I ever heard of U2 was from, ready? MTV. I was wasting time with my friend J. when I saw concert footage of these young Irish punks on a stage. The crawl under the footage said “Sunday, Bloody Sunday.” “Bloody Sunday” I knew of well. Hell, I should. My then alive pro-IRA Irish grandmother told me about that incident. “The damn-ned Brit Prots shot 26 people that day!” You see, even at a young age my grandmother was trying to pollute my mind against the British. I was interested who this band was. Were they a pro IRA band? The song was being played in some Irish soccer stadium so I figured, perhaps they are?

No, they weren't eventually. They were just another group of young men hoping to hit it big with music they enjoyed.

I'm no musician, that job was my brother's. He once said this of music. “If it's still being played decades from when it was released, it has durability...it was well crafted.” You don't hear Tone Loc's “Funky Cold Medina” being played much but you still hear U2, the Beatles, Springsteen and the Who to this day. As I write this, I am listening to the live version of “Sweet Jane” by the Velvet Underground, and that's old.

So this morning was filled with U2.