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Theology and U2’s Music Videos

I was asked recently if I was aware of any research into theology and U2’s Music Videos. I’ve only got my home library, but a search revealed 3 chapters in 3 books that provided research into theological themes in 3 U2 music videos.

First, Steve Taylor, “Divine Moves: Pneumatology as Passionate Participation in U2’s “Mysterious Ways”” U2 and the Religious Impulse: Take Me Higher, edited by Scott Calhoun, Bloomsbury Press, 2018, 43-60, particularly pages 46-48 examines Mysterious Ways, first song, second, video, third, live performance with the belly dancer, fourth live performances during 360 tour. The theology of Sarah Coakley (drawing from The Holy Spirit: Classic and Contemporary Readings) is used to suggest “visual pneumatology” in relation to the live performances with the belly dancer, in contrast to what is argued to be “sonic pneumatology” offered by Paul Fiddes, (Seeing the World and Knowing God: Hebrew Wisdom and Christian Doctrine in a Late-Modern Context) in relation to the live performances during 360 tour.

Second, Kevin Dettmar, “Nothing succeeds like Failure,” Exploring U2: Is This Rock ‘n’ Roll?: Essays on the Music, Work, and Influence of U2 edited by Scott Calhoun, Scarecrow Press, 2011, 112-126 analyses Rattle and Hum. Rattle and Hum is a concert film, yet it is also an (extended) music video. Dettmar analyses one song, Desire, on page 117.

Third, Daniel Kline, “Playing the Tart,” Exploring U2: Is This Rock ‘n’ Roll?: Essays on the Music, Work, and Influence of U2 edited by Scott Calhoun, Scarecrow Press, 2011, 129-150, particularly pages 136-138, analyses U2’s promotional video for Until the End of the World. Kline is working with U2’s theology in relation to Judas. There is an intertextual engagement with Wim Wenders film of same name Until the End of the World.

Some interesting things as I have continued to ponder. First, the existence of much more research into U2’s live performance than U2’s video. In the three books I looked at – U2 and the Religious Impulse: Take Me Higher; U2 Above, Across, and Beyond: Interdisciplinary Assessments; Exploring U2: Is This Rock ‘n’ Roll?: Essays on the Music, Work, and Influence of U2 – there are at least 8 chapters on live performance. 8 compared to 3. Video is either an under-researched area of U2, or video is not seen as significant in U2’s meaning making as live performance.

Second, a thesis needing further testing. It feels like U2 are ambivalent toward the music video as a source of meaning-making. I would argue this based first on the way that U2 seem to give away interpretive control of what a song means. A case in point was the invitation for Anton Corbijn to release a film (Linear) of the entire No Line On The Horizon album. The Linear notes claimed the film was not a music video but an entirely new way to listen to the album. This suggests a deliberate embrace by U2 of multiple interpretations of a song. Second, the way that U2 songs are often recontextualized, performed in different ways in response to changing times (see especially my analysis of Bullet the Blue Sky in Exploring U2: Is This Rock ‘n’ Roll?: Essays on the Music, Work, and Influence of U2 edited by Scott Calhoun, 84-97). I think U2 are constantly reworking what their songs might mean, which makes them ambivalent about one music video to offer one interpretation. So while meanings can most certainly be gleaned from U2’s music videos, they are only as strong as the last live performance. In other words, I suggest there is a need to read U2 as not wanting a music video to provide a singular meaning.

Reflecting on this, U2’s lyric from The Fly, off the Achtung Baby album, seems appropriate.

“Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief;
All kill their inspiration and sing”

This sense of multiple meanings is at once both deeply ironic and purposefully contextual. U2 are affirming a relentless search for meaning. This aligns with Paul Riceour’s notion of texts having a surplus of meanings. It also affirms that God-talk is an ocean deep and wide and it is what happens in the moment that is the definitive, yet always provisional, word.