Today's RAD Song:

We're gonna take a bit of roundabout path to this one, but as the Edge so eloquently stated in Rattle and Hum, "it's a journey," so just stay with me here...

My introduction to music came through my parents. Most of us are introduced to music by an older sibling or other authority figure of some sort; I was the oldest child - so it's natural I came to music through what my parents had laying around the house. At the time that I was about five or six years old my mother happened to be an aerobics instructor, and I can vividly recall her playing snippets of 80's pop music in the living room while developing one routine or another for her class (it was in fact the 80's at the time, so give her a break).

In hindsight, this must have been where I developed my deep appreciation for the simple three chord pop song. My earliest recollection of music is a who's who of 80's greatest misses compilations - Men At Work, Toto, Pat Benatar, Rick Springfield, Human League, etc. From the infectious staccato beat of Stacey Q's only memorable single, Two of Hearts, to the driving back alley swagger of The Stray Cats' Stray Cat Strut, I can recall feeling in absolute awe of what was possible with a just a tiny grain of talent and a Gretsch 6120 (that's an electric guitar - Brian Setzer's favourite) or a TR-77 drum machine (whichever the case may be).

OK, flash forward about eight or ten years - and I had just recently been introduced to the likes of Jane's Addiction and U2 through a high school sweetheart (I must have still been caught up in the whole Bon Jovi, Skid Row fiasco - what can I say...). Anyway, I had asked my mom one day to please, please, please, pick up a copy of U2's latest, Zooropa, for me on one of her outings to the suburban mall. Sure enough I popped it in and - holy sh*t - what the hell is this?

Now, please... I wish I could say I discovered Bowie on my own prior to 1995 and granted, I had been exposed to some pretty intriguing stuff as an adolescent - '91 was a big year, with Nevermind and Badmotorfinger being really genre altering albums (though I admittedly didn't get into those 'till the mid-90's). Zooropa however - at the time - really blew the top off of what I thought rock music was supposed to be about - what I was hearing on this album was just a supped up throwback to what I first heard as a kid in the 80's!

And thus, a valuable lesson was learned: after the Beatles and Stones did it all, what was really left to be created musically (this is an argument for another day - music evolution did not in fact end with the Beatles and Stones - it just sounds that way). Music is simply a recycled, reinterpreted, and redefined prodcut - just like pop cans. This does not, however make it any less meaningful or revolutionary, it just suggests some need for context.

And so, contextually speaking - and in a very fitting, full-circle way - we come to today's RAD song... It is perhaps not the most memorable off the Zooropa album, but it is a beautifully written, wonderful mesh of the old and new U2 - the masters of the simple three chord pop song:

Stay (Faraway, So Close) by U2


Epilogue:

I was reminded of this song as I was watching Spectacle: Elvis Costello With... while eating dinner this evening. Now there is a master! Bono and the Edge were guests on the season finale, and if you've not treated yourself to an episode or two of this show - shame on you (check it out at: http://www.spectacleelviscostello.com/index.php).

One of my favourite Elvis Costello tunes for your listening pleasure: