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A Great Rock Song. But Is it Catholic?

Posted at: 2009-01-02 17:04:00.0
Author: Mark Stricherz

Every January 1, I play U2’s “New Year’s Day.” Yeah, my song choice is predictable, especially for someone of my background – white Catholic, lower upper-middle class, product of the 1970s and 1980s (I even visited Ireland twice, in the early 1980s, and stayed with my Irish relatives). Yet the song is included on one of the band’s two greatest hits albums and listed on the band’s site as one of its most popular songs. I think I know why this is.

The song has a haunting, elusive, even mysterious quality to it.  Recently when a friend suffered a devastating professional rebuke, which had also dire social consequences, I blasted the song in tribute to him; for reasons I could not articulate, playing it seemed like the right thing to do. Now after researching and reflecting on the song, I know what that quality is: hope for communion.

Hope is a popular word nowadays, so it’s meaning in this song is worth fleshing out. The hope that infuses “New Year’s Day" is not the kind offered up by president-elect Barack Obama’s campaign’s, or any electoral campaign for that matter – a political hope of bringing about a more economically just and less militaristic society. Rather, it is metaphysical hope of overcoming social evil and creating a communion of love and brotherhood.

These are not idle words. The song was originally written as Bono’s ballad to his wife. It turned into something grander – a comment on the former Soviet Union’s repression of the Solidarity Movement in Poland. In an interview with rock critic Robert Hilburn, Bono said that he wrote the song from the perspective of Lech Walesa, the movement’s devoutly Catholic founder who was imprisoned by the Soviets for almost two years.

In an extended U.S. dance version of the song, a lyric refers to a “stone cold night on a cold stone floor.” Walesa and his fellow anti-Communist union members suffered the fate alluded to in the traditional version of the song – repression (“All is quiet on New Year’s Day”) and violence (“Under a blood red sky”). The song’s protagonist is not naively optimistic about his situation. “Nothing changes on New Year’s Day” is his refrain. Yet he’s also not in despair. Against the backdrop of a bloody military crackdown, the singer pines for communion:

A crowd has gathered in black and white
Arms entwined, the chosen few
The newspapers says, says
Say it’s true it’s true...
And we can break through
Though torn in two
We can be one

Later, the singer hopes to reunite with someone. To whom or what the singer is referring is not clear – God? His lover? His fellow revolutionaries? Yet unlike the previous stanza, this one is personal:

Maybe the time is right
Oh...maybe tonight...

I will be with you again
I will be with you again

The music heightens the contrast between hope and dour realism. The sound of loud piano keys open the song and return midway through the song, suggesting defiance and rebellion on the singer’s part; and the fact that the piano is played is important too, as the piano is arguably the most beautiful man-made instrument. When Bono sings “Nothing changes on New Year’s Day,” his tone is matter of fact, not bitter or cynical. In contrast to these expressions of beauty and soberness are those of menace and discord. A third of the way through the song, The Edge’s famous helicopter-guitar sound peals; and throughout the song are the sounds of Larry Mullen Jr.’s relentless drums and Adam Clayton’s dark bass.

“New Year’s Day” is a Catholic song in a broad sense. Three of U2’s four band members were raised Catholic in Ireland or, in Bono’s case, attended Mass frequently, in an era when even contraception was illegal, and were devout Christians. The song’s theme is the hope for communion. And its topic is the Solidarity movement and Lech Walesa, which were both supported heavily by Pope John Paul II and the Church in particular.

Yet I think the vagueness of the song’s lyrics disqualifies it from being labeled a Catholic song, in the way that say U2’s "Gloria" is. This might be my only disappointment in one of my favorite rock songs.

P.S. If “In All Things” readers know of great Catholic rock songs, other than "Gloria,"  I would love to hear them.

 

 

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1.  It so happens that just as the video finished I heard my son playing his iPod over his new Christmas speakers and I realized it was ''One'' by U2, a more overtly religious lyric but on the same lines (unity) as the new year's day song. Bono draped in the tricolor had to be saying something about division and healing.

It also happens that in 2009 I am more ready than ever for Catholic participation in our society and in art, rather than the ''siege mentality'' of some who fear the culture. Better to sing out joyfully, to inspire and persuade.
Posted By Catherine Green | 2009-01-02 22:43:41.0
2.  Actually, none of the members of U2 were raised Catholic, a couple attended a schools affiliated with the Church of Ireland (Anglican) or other Protestand denominations before meeting each other at an interdenominational school, and at least two were involved with an evangelical community before forming the band. The Mass referenced in the linked article about Bono was a Church of Ireland service (although reading it again, I think the article is saying that his father would attend Mass and afterward wait for his family outside the Church of Ireland parish).

Though Bono married his wife in a Church of Ireland ceremony, he has mentioned in interviews that he's raising his children Catholic.
Posted By Jason Welle | 2009-01-02 23:26:57.0
3.  My mistake--Larry Mullens was raised Catholic.
Posted By Jason Welle | 2009-01-02 23:50:10.0
4.  It can't be Catholic. First, it was in English, not Gregorian chant Latin. Then it didn't mention Mary, transubstantion, the rosary or the pope.

Back to the drawing board
Posted By Jim McCrea | 2009-01-03 18:12:53.0
5.  Just a point of clarification for informational purposes. The band are not predominently Catholic as only one of the members was actually raised Catholic. That was the drummer, Larry Mullen. The Edge is Protestant being of Welsch heritage although his family moved to Ireland when he was 1 year old. Adam, is actually English and was therefore Anglican if anything but was pretty much agnostic until recently. Bono is the product of a mixed Catholic and Protestant marraige, his mother being Protestant and his father Catholic. Although the Catholic church required that the children be raised Catholic Bono's father decided that the boys needed to be with their mother so he was actually raised predominently Protestant and attended Protestant schools.

Why does it matter if the song is ''Catholic'' and what is it about ''Gloria'' that makes you say it is specifically ''Catholic''?
Posted By rihannsu | 2009-01-03 20:19:12.0

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