U2! Down the Memory Lane on a Nostalgic Hazy Friday

UB40 didn’t make it, U2 does.  When I was a little boy, I often camped at the record stores, going through the catalogue organized by alphabets day after day, month after month.  There weren’t that many group artists under the letter “U”.  “Red Red Wine (1983)” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love (1993)” still put a smile to my face.  But I wish there are more from UB40.  Its association to U2 according to the secret dream world of mine on a nostalgic hazy Friday stops at the letter “U”.

You ask 100 people what music means to them and you may get 100 different answers – from the extreme of “music is my life” to “music is just the background”.  But what does music mean to me?

I think music is to inspire, to freeze a moment in life that hearing the same song is to reminisce and be drifted to that same place in time.  I remember one past relationship whenever I listen to “With or Without You”.  She loves the song, I love the simplicity.  It is a song I sing along with, play my guitar with, a kind of secret love affair so visually crafted – the thorns and the shore – and beyond which, “With or Without You” has planted the seed of inspiration to my music creation journey.

I started to collect Compact Discs two decades ago.  And “Achtung Baby (1991)” was amongst the very first set of discs in my collection.  It was the time when all of a sudden I have my own stereo system, have the means to blast my own music, the kind of empowerment that any young boy may find it overpoweringly exhilarating, sharing his music in the presence of his family members.  No, it was not the era of angst, nor the age of the nu-metal.  It was the day of “Money for Nothing” and the good old “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”.  It was a time when “Achtung Baby” was played during every meal and at the corner of my curious eyes, I tried to catch a glimpse of my father’s reaction.  None.  He was cool with “Achtung Baby”.  He didn’t express any liking to U2 like he did to Prince.  And there was no dislike either.  So vividly I remember the dinning table in my humble living room in Hong Kong, with my family around the table, and the stereo by the window on top of a study table that was handcrafted by my father, with my help.  I can almost smell my mother’s cooking.

Music Power House!  What a nostalgic chain name.  Back in the days of UK and Paris, I camped inside HMV, inside Tower Records.  In Singapore, back in the late nineties, we had Music Power House (MPH) – a beautifully renovated, comfortable, spacious store that sold music and more.   Our National Library at the old site is gone, so is MPH next to it, making way for a tunnel that all of a sudden, appeared from nowhere.  The rapid change of the Singapore landscape: one day we had an underpass, one day it was gone, one day we had a pedestrian flyover, one day it was gone (the connection between the Citilink Mall and SunTech Mall in case if you wonder).

I bought “Zooropa (1993)” that came with a shiny silver MPH sticker and U2’s music has accompanied me during some of those long, long hours of traveling in Singapore.  Some say the traffic system here is efficient but as someone who was born in Hong Kong, I have my reservation.  Back in the days of “Zoorapa”, I had a Discman.  It was the days before wireless phone has become popularized.  I doubt if anyone back then would imagine that we could listen to music from one of these devices.  Maybe one day, music can be streamed directly into our brains.  I like “Zoorapa”, I really do.  The bizarre experimental sound of “Numb” and “Babyface” just works for me.  Don’t beat the oddballs.  Mass appeal doesn’t determine artistic value.  It is the same oddball who thinks “Monster” is the most interesting R.E.M. album ever made.

Paris, in the late nineties, I was the only one from Singapore working with a French client in the land of romance.  English, is a precious ‘commodity’ in Paris.  The music, the television programs, the road signs, the food menus, the conversations around me, everything is in French.  My rare moment of getting in touch with something I can understand was the MTV program that I looked forward to, every working morning, inside a hotel room that I stayed for months.  It was this period of time when “Discothèque” from the “Pop (1997)” album was played and I would dance to the funky beats, amazed at the then 37 years old Bono.  His energy was infectious.  Disco music being brought back to life in the late nineties.  Paris, in the land of romance, watching Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. dancing in that silly disco beat every morning.  It was the anthem of my life.  I believe I could fly, I believe I could climb the Eiffel Tower (which I did, to the second level).

People don’t like “Zoorapa”, but I do.  People don’t like “Pop”, but I do.  And when U2 – in their own words – reapplied for the job to be the best band in the world in the beginning of this new millennium, I get disconnected with their last two efforts.  They have just released a new single “Get on Your Boots” from the upcoming album “No Line on the Horizon”.  It is meant to be a departure from their previous two albums.  If it is so, this oddball may love it.