Intelligent Life On Planet Rock
Bono does it his way
Posted by Neil Walker on 12 January 2009 - 8:50pm.
Achtung Word Massive.
Bono walks into a pub. Writes New York Times column.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/opinion/11bono.html?_r=1
'Journalists Everywhere' unimpressed.
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mixed-media/2009/01/11/confidential...
Next week in Bono's column? (My) kids say the funniest things!
Have any rock stars ever been good at the writing caper?
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It's been said before
But he really is a massive prick, isn't he? "Fabulous, not fabulist. Honesty to hang your hat on.". Do fuck off.
And his band's new album comes in a credit crunch baiting £42 box set.
And why does he STILL feel the need...
...to wear stupid sunglasses. He's a 50 year old bloke fer feck's sake! Get a decent suit man!
Yes... Bob Dylan.
The first volume of memoirs, Chronicles, is absolutely superb and really well written.
I wrote a review of it on Amazon if anyone's interested...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A2GF1K8Z06IJU4/ref=cm_pdp_...
Seconded
Yes that's quite true actually. I was impressed by Chronicles too.
Not a sub-editor, then
It wasn't badly written, no, but it was almost unreadable for me because it was so badly copy-edited. I don't think they dared touch a comma, even if it was in the wrong place.
Call me stupid but
"Now I’m back in my own house in Dublin, uncorking some nice wine, ready for the vinegar it can turn to when families and friends overindulge, as I am about to."
How does nice wine turn into vinegar when you overindulge? Nice wine is nice wine and unless you drink to the excess that you feel ill, it is still nice wine and not vinegar. Even if this is the case you don't open some nice wine "ready for the vinegar it can turn to". I find this particularly strange when the nice wine chez Bono is unlikely to be Jacob's Creek.
Even if the above makes sense, isn't the "as I'm about to" slightly superfluous?
Mrs Amos
My old english teacher would go potty if we used the word nice. She claimed, and with hindsight she had a point, that there were many better, more descriptive words than nice.
Red pen for Mr Hewson.
Neil Tennant
Pop star - ✔
Writer - ✔
Case closed.
Robert Calverts "Hype" is
Robert Calvert's "Hype" is one of the best novels about rock music ever.
Ian Hunters "Diary.."
Andy Summers' "One Train Later"
Pete Townshend's "Horses Neck"
Sting's "Broken M...no scratch that.
I mean, statiscally, some of them must be good writers.
Ian Hunter
His book reads well and I'm pretty sure he wrote it all himself. I agree that Chronicles was superb. I'm too young to have read anything Chrissie Hynde or Bob Geldof wrote for the NME. Oh and Richard Hell's book was excellent I seem to recall.
A couple of swells
both David Ford and Tom McRae have shown the ability to string a few words together to form legible prose.
Indeed
McRae's recent "Religious Intolerance" blog entry is worthy of a link
http://mcraetheism.blogspot.com/2009/01/religious-intolerance.html
Bono in Spinal Tap Shock
"When you've loved and lost like Frank has....."
He really is a twat, isn't he?
I believe that young Leonard Cohen
writes a bit.
Wlly Vlautin, Nick Cave and, snigger, Sir Fencealot from Saxon (or whatever his name is from whichever metallic-something-about-doing-your-daughter-NWOBHM-beginning-with-S) have all written novels, but I have yet to read any. Willy Vlautin comes highly commended, tho', I should say, by my fellow Lichfielder Steve Turner.
Copey
I think Julian Cope can write pretty well. See 'Head On', 'Repossessed', plus some praised non-fiction.
Springsteen
His eulogy for Danny Federici put all the pro obit writers to shame.
Karine Polwart
She is seldom mentioned around here but she writes the most articulate and moving songs. Her blog at http://blogs.myspace.com/karinepolwart is similarly thought provoking and, I feel, beautifully written.
Jackie Leven writes
interestingly and obliquely, being nearly as profligate with prose as he is with songs. Try:
http://www.myspace.com/thejackieleven
(P.S. if tempted, do not listen to or download, for free, "Fareham Confidential" as it is possibly the worst and least typical of his vast repertoire)
I'm hoping you mean "prolific" retro...
..and I hope you don't live anywhere near the big man.
I did actually mean profligate
As in, quickly checks out Roget's,OK, well as in some of the synonyms, viz loose,wanton and wild. Such vocabularic strength that he hurls out words in a torrent of remarkable lucidity, barely touching the sides. I think the big fella could live with that description. Please, sir.
(Anyway, why should the detail of actual meaning stand in the way of a good sounding word?)
P.S. my mum used to live fairly nearby in Stubbington, if he still lives in rural hampshire. She actually was a Stornoway Girl, the name of one of his songs and of his sometime backing chorus.
"Glasses clinking clicking, clashing crashing in Gaelic revelry"
Christ, that is a badly written article isn't it? Actually I'm surprised Bono hasn't unleashed his autobiography yet, surely his ego demands it.
Rock star who can write:
Julian Cope - not only a brilliant and extremely funny writer in the two volumes of his autobiography "Head On" and "Repossessed" but also an academic of all things related to Stone Circles, ancient monuments and burial sites "The Modern Antiquarian" and "Megalithic European".
Also, his book on obscure Japanese psychedelic rock "Japrocksampler" is far more entertaining than the music itself.
Bruce
Thomas...'The Big Wheel'. That was good.
The Hunter book, as we all agree, is terrific.
Sufjan Stevens, so I'm told, is a 'literary' type- his songs would certainly seem to bear that out.
There's Lennon of course- probably among the first rock and rollers to be afforded honorary literary status even if his books were ( whisper it ) a bit slim both physically and metaphysically ).
Morrissey writes elegant prose and I'm sure Andy Partridge could scribble a blinder if he turned his massive mind to it.
Dylan's 'Tarantula' was awful though wasn't it? I mean...really...I know it was the sixties and everything but still....get a grip mate. It didn't even have a proper tarantula in it. ( Or a proper sentence come to that ).