Album Review: Songs of Surrender // U2

“Is it getting better? Or do you feel the same?” How to forget the iconic and endlessly romantic opening of one of U2’s greatest hits, ‘One’. A sentiment of rebirth, of a fresh start, of redemption, starts off Songs of Surrender, or SOS, the band’s new (or old) album. 

Paul Hewson, Bono’s, voice is strained, almost a whisper, with his 60-odd years and nearly as many in the biggest Dublin-based band to date. “Love is a temple, love is a higher law”, what sounds like a gospel choir accompanies the frontman’s narration, alongside a tormented yet peaceful piano in the background.

The original grandiose guitar intro of ‘Where the Streets Have no Name’ is replaced by a stripped-back synth and somehow different lyrics, one of the focal points of SOS. In Bono’s own words, said to David Letterman in their Disney+ original documentary, the lyrics written throughout the past 40 years were never truly finished until now, and the band felt that they needed to strip away the artifice to find the true meaning behind them. They needed to find out whether there was any form of truth in their thoughts. And what better way than to go back to the start?

“Is there any merit to these songs if you take away the firepower of a rock band like U2?” Bono asks, in an earnest and vulnerable way. The album, made of 16 songs for the basic CD version and 40 for the deluxe, divided into sections of 10, each for a member of the band, contains some controversies. Such as the truly agonising version of ‘Get Out of Your Own Way’, where it sounds like Bono can’t catch his breath quick enough and the out-of-context ‘I Will Follow’, which went from being a song of revolution to a perfect shower karaoke track, but also some truly magical moments. The delicate and warm rendition of the inspiring ‘City of Blinding Lights’ and the thumping but still lovesick ‘Miracle Drug’, full of harmonies by The Edge and almost exotic drums in the background, are two of the main examples. 

But this is not a music review. There is no point in reviewing music that has existed for 40 years, the originals are right there, go listen to them. This is a reflection of how even the most egotistical and self-absorbed artists sometimes need to take a hard look at themselves in the mirror and strip naked in order to find themselves again.

U2 started as a high school band that liked to play “excruciatingly badly”, as Edge puts it, in their garage on Saturday afternoons. Now they are one of the biggest rock bands in the history of the world. Some pieces must have gotten lost in the way. “You can have it all if you give it all away”, and here it is. The biggest realisation on SOS. The epiphany that a song about the Irish Troubles, “Bad”, today needs to be a song of peace. No need for anger anymore, now it is time for redemption. ‘Bad’ is also one of the most pivotal lyrical changes, as the lyrics go from a “you” perspective to an “I” introspection, “If I twist and turn away, if I tear myself in two again…”, almost signalling that the band’s tormented relationship with their Ireland has come to a peaceful halt. “This is a song of surrender”, reminiscent of “a time of innocence again”.

The invisible string that connects the top of this album to the bottom is the notion that these songs, like the rest of U2’s discography, do not need embellishments or fireworks to work. They only need a melody, a voice to sing them, and a lot, and I say a lot, of soul. 

‘Sometimes You Can’t Make it on Your Own’, ‘With or Without You’, ‘Stay (Faraway, So Close)’ and ‘All I Want is You’ all feature Bono’s warmest and deepest vocals, which feel like a lover whispering in your ear, a father reading a bed story to his child, a man that holds his closest friends’ hands along the way. 

We all are aware of the criticism U2 has undergone throughout their career, but with the release of SOS, they have proven once more that they exist just as well despite what the outside world says. Is this their best album? Absolutely not. Was it needed? Sure. The band needed a moment of peace and a break from the hectic rockstar career, and picking up an acoustic guitar and a microphone seemed to be the best way to do so. 

U2, a Lockheed war jet, can become a symbol of unity, a revelation, a spiritual awakening. Songs of Surrender, by choosing tracks like ‘Peace on Earth’ and the last ‘“40”’, one of the highest moments of the entire record, left a message: you too, like U2, can change the world. Just go back to the beginning since, most of the time, that’s where the answer is.

Words by Silvia Pellegrino

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