You give me something I can feel

A vertiginous trek through U2's 'How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb' 20 years on

The 20th anniversary reissue of U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb sent me on an emotional journey that far exceeds what a normal listener would experience from what is at best a middle-of-the-pack album in the band's catalog.

U2 meant a lot to me at one time. The Joshua Tree hit when I was in high school, and I bought it the day it was released. I had posters on my walls, bought all the singles, and generally aligned my teen-aged worldview with that of Bono (with a healthy dose of Michael Stipe in the mix as well). 

By 2004, that ardor had waned significantly. Pop nearly killed our relationship, and while the slight return to form on All That You Can't Leave Behind rekindled a bit of interest, it is possible that How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb could have come and gone largely unremarked.

But 2004 was not a typical year. By the time of this album's Nov. 22 release, our son, Will, had been in the neonatal intensive care unit at University of Iowa Hospitals for nearly a month. Born nearly four months premature, he was fighting for his life while hooked to a ventilator and facing daily invasive treatments. 

It was difficult to escape the first single from Atomic Bomb, "Vertigo," and I would hear it when driving to and from the hospital for daily visits. I bought the CD at some point, and when I got a new iPod in early December, it was one of the first things I loaded onto the device. I don't remember listening to much of the rest of the album, but that first track, along with "Leaving New York" from R.E.M.'s then-new Around the Sun, were on repeat some days as I sat in a plastic covered recliner in Will's small room in the NICU, not wanting to leave his side. When I wasn't there, Mary was, and sometimes the nurses wheeled in a spare recliner so we both could stay the night with him.

By late December, we had weathered several scares and more emotional highs and lows than anyone should face in a lifetime. It's the kind of experience that seems ideally suited to a U2 soundtrack: Soaring hooks to distract you, buoyant optimism to lift you, and nothing too deep to challenge you.

Listening to "Vertigo" for the first time in years, I am taken back to that time. I kept a blog during Will's months in the hospital to keep friends and family apprised of his condition. It was early days for blogs, and it picked up a bit of a following. I would receive comments from people from around the country who had stumbled on our story and followed along each twist and turn.

One night, two days after Christmas, I posted some thoughts about how improbable it was that my teen idol Bono was speaking to me again, this time through the lyrics to "Vertigo." I had started the day at 3 a.m. when we received a call from the hospital that we needed to come in immediately because Will was in trouble. The day ended close to midnight after hours of ups and downs in his condition, and this chorus in my headphones just overwhelmed me:

Hello, hello,
I'm in a place called vertigo.
It's everything I wish I didn't know
except you give me something I can feel.

As I wrote at the time:

It's a love song with little import beyond the obvious, but for this listener, who heard it repeatedly on a particularly tough day for Will recently, it succinctly stated what Will has meant to me. I wouldn't wish the feeling of a 3 a.m. phone call from the hospital saying 'we're having trouble with your son; you need to get down here' on anyone, but at the same time, strange though it may be to say, the entire experience of parenting Will for the past two months, that call included, has helped me to feel emotions I didn't know were possible. I know, I know, that's what being a parent is, and I'm sure every parent feels like this at one time or another. But it's new to me, and that's all that matters. Will has brought me the highest highs and the lowest lows, and all of it is part of being his Dad, part of opening myself up to joy like I've never known and heartbreak like I never knew I could stand.

Will's medical troubles ultimately were too much for his tiny body to fight, and we lost him about a month later. That was probably the last time I listened to the album — or any portion of it, as I'm not sure I ever made it to the end. I would hear "Vertigo" now and again, but it was as if the rest of the album had been sucked into a black hole along with so much for those three months at the hospital. 

So, 20 years later, what did I miss? How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is a solid album with a few Greatest Hits-worthy performances amid some middling fare. It's the band's 11th album, released 24 years into its career, and it very much exemplifies that sort of creative signpost. There is a twinkle of everything that made the band great, and a lot of what made it increasingly tedious.

The blessing and curse of Bono is that he seemingly cannot be shamed. There is no ridiculous statement, no treacly lyric, no absurd posture that he will shy from, and early in the band's career that served him well. Audacity favors the young. But as the band matured, that stance led to embarrassing moments. A 23 year old hoisting a white flag and strutting around the stage at Red Rocks? Iconic. A 49 year old singing "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"? A bit pathetic¹.

This album falls in the middle of that continuum, leaning slightly toward the iconic end if never getting close to reaching it. The somewhat incongruous, riff-heavy lead track aside, it is an album of mainly mid-tempo fare. You get a majestic single like "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" (which was definitely in rotation for me back in 2004), but also a bombastic misfire like "Love and Peace or Else." But even there, it's a matter of intent: It's a song you can see as much as hear, more the soundtrack for a segment in a massive arena concert than a song. 

U2 was slapped down for going too far in its experimentation — we all accepted it up through Zooropa and then collectively took a pass — and the resulting retrenchment meant there was only so much territory to mine. After the return of the classic sound on All That You Can't Leave Behind, albeit in a slightly defanged mode beyond the nostalgia-dipped single, "Beautiful Day," the only way forward was through iterations of what came before. On Atomic Bomb, that sometimes yields a relatively sublime tune like "City of Blinding Light" or the anthemic retread "All Because of You," and other times the result is the swing and a miss of "Original of the Species," which feels like the band followed the U2 recipe but forgot a couple of ingredients. 

The only surprise here is "A Man and a Woman," an acoustic tune driven by a wonderfully melodic Adam Clayton bassline. It's the kind of song that would have been a coveted B-side in the '80s, and it is a refreshing respite here. "One Step Closer," a sublime ballad toward the end of the album isn't necessarily a surprise, but Bono's willingness to dial back his performance and not overwhelm the song's consistent slow boil is in the least uncharacteristic.  

So, it's a good but not great U2 album — probably better than we had a right to expect at that point — and one that could have earned a bit more allegiance from these ears had I not been listening in a hospital room and unable to tolerate much more than big, dumb riffs and platitudes.

After this rediscovery, the deluxe edition's 11 extra tracks are a letdown. Lured by The Edge referring to the tracks as a “treasure trove,” I expected more. But all it proves is that their instincts were correct the first time. There is nothing here that should have cracked the original album's tracklist, and I can't imagine listening beyond my initial curiosity-driven pass.

To be honest, that's likely the fate of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in general. If it's playing somewhere, I'll listen. A couple of tracks might end up on a playlist at some point. But if there is an itch that U2 can scratch somewhere in my future, there are seven or eight records ahead of it. But for a couple of months, a small part of it was one of the most important things in my life, so even if I never listen again, I am glad it was there.

1. This didn’t come until the next album, No Line on the Horizon, but it is still worthy of derision.