Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story

by Bono

“No man need be a mediocrity if he accepts himself as God made him” is how the poet Patrick Kavanagh put it.

“Unteachable” was one teacher’s reaction. “Too smart for the school curriculum” was another, and likely truer, analysis. Adam was going to be serious about art and life but certainly not school. School was for fun. Rare is a man so at home in his own body, equally celebrating or mocking all bodily functions, and particularly delighted with his own penis. Invited or not, you were never surprised to find him giving it some air. Talking to him with your girlfriend, it would dawn on you mid-conversation that Adam was nonchalantly relieving himself on the grass. If his legendary naked run through the corridors of Mount Temple was partly designed—successfully—to get him expelled, it was also about the sheer joy.

We met all kinds of unexpected strangers who encouraged us to find the answer to a simple prayer: In a broken world how could this band play any role? Strangers or angels, we seemed to meet the right person at the right time, new players clearing their throats and preparing their lines like…

never want to risk, it’s also to do with a mood I’m drawn to. The duality I require

Only June Carter Cash could tame the man. But for all his deep faith and conviction, he could never be the pious type, and maybe that’s why so many are drawn to him. If gospel music has a joy that in some hands comes off as sentimental, a sweetness that can turn saccharine, with Johnny Cash you always felt the angels were just around the corner from the devils. He’d made his choice to pitch his tent “at the gates of Sheol.” Johnny didn’t sing to the damned; he sang with the damned, and sometimes you sensed he might prefer their company.