Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story
Bono
I enjoyed this book so much but U2 is one of my favorite bands so I knew I would love it.
I didn’t, however, expect it to be a bit of a slog. It took almost four full months to make my way through Surrender. This is so uncommon for me as I typically devour at least four books a month!
It is a long book — almost 600 pages! Looking back though, I am grateful for the time I took to read, ponder, and enjoy this book. I find it’s sticking with me and that Bono’s words and stories and revelations are sneaking their way into conversations. I loved Bono’s style and every single one of his stories. He chronicles his life and success with such grace, candor, humor, introspection, and gratitude. What a talent — Bono’s, plus the added combined and individual talents of Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullins, Jr!
Bono organized the book around 40 songs — their lyrics, the people in his life at the time, the events of his life or world events that inspired or transpired during the writing and performing of these songs, and (or) his internal life through it all.
I’m sure it’s a book I’ll keep and go back to, even if only for part three — which seemed to come from more of a place of maturity and introspection than even the first two parts. It also focused more on Bono’s activism, advocacy, and leadership in world policies and events which was all so interesting to me. His interactions and negotiations with so many world leaders (Gorbachev, Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Paul Farmer, among others) boggles my mind!
Some of my favorite bits are quoted below, as Bono’s words will always be better than my own exposition of them!
“Anything strange or startling?” That’s how my da opens our conversations. (Bono, 2022, p. 375)
The change in someone else’s life will utterly transform yours, even though your life is not quite the point here. (Bono, 2022, p. 375)
The search for common ground starts with a search for higher ground. Even with your opponents. Especially with your opponents…
The simple but profound idea that you don’t have to agree on everything if the one thing you do agree on is important enough. (Bono, 2022, p. 393)
As I started visiting influential religious leaders, I reminded them of those 2,003 verses in the Bible relating to the poor and that, after personal redemption, concern for the poor is the dominant motif in the whole book. Not who is having sex with whom…
Love thy neighbor, I used to say, is not advice. It’s a command. Right? Whoever our neighbor is. Wherever. (Bono, 2022, p. 399)
Nelson Mandela. This giant of the twentieth century, silver-white crown, and smiling, his good humor lifting him head and shoulders above his times. If laughter is the evidence of freedom, then Mandiba, the clan name that he encouraged his friends to call him, was freer than the rest of us. A wellspring of joy that defied the weight he carried…
Whenever I got the chance to visit, he would turn the tables, with a lesson in grace…
“Like slavery and apartheid,” he said, “poverty is not natural. It is man-made, and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life”. (Bono, 2022, pp. 445, 447-448)
Fast-forward another eight Januarys (after President Obama was inaugurated). Like a flashback from some psychotropic drugs but worse because this is a flash-forward. Now the first steps are being taken to dismantle the Republic. For starters, it’s not an inauguration but a coronation, and the crown is orange, not gold. King Trump begins his reign of compulsive lives with a cropped image of the Mall, its boundaries surging with people, when actually it is barely three-quarters full…
The protagonist will never admit he is wrong and will double or treble down when challenged. And he controls the narrative. How does he do this? Because he was made for social media. Because the vitality that empowers the platform rewards shock and outrage, which is his linga franca…
Waking to the news of his election, I felt more nausea than shock, but like so many others I was already coming to understand that Trump is not the problem. He’s the symptom of the problem. (Bono, 2022, pp. 466 and 467)
Romantic love can enlarge a person or shrink them. Sometimes the most convincing act of love is to just let someone be who they are. Without you…
Neither of us would want to live outside each other’s love as expressed through this old-fashioned but still functional construct called marriage. (Bono, 2022, p. 502)
Bono mentions that my favorite three U2 albums are widely judged in their top three ever (The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, and All That You Can’t Leave Behind), so I guess I am not the discerning musical connoisseur that I think I am since I align with the masses on these. From start to finish, every single track, they really are their very best though!
So I’ll keep listening (and patiently waiting for another U2 album that strikes a similar chord for me) and enjoying this yoga flow that I’ve done over 50 times in the last two months. The flow is the reason; the music behind it is just the bonus!
If you’ve read Surrender and have any thoughts or comments about it, I’d love to hear them (good, or bad — no judgement here)!