Death, Relationships, Faith, Fame, and Surrender

1-5-4-8. That was the code to the master key lockbox at Cypress Creek Church in 2002. [Hopefully, they’ve changed it by now.] I was in our church band, and I and my friends needed to “rehearse.” Pastor Rob unwisely trusted me with the key. What Rob didn’t know in 2002 was that I had just gotten ahold of a DVD called Rattle & Hum, and we were about to test the limits of our church A/V equipment. This was my introduction to U2. I have liked them ever since. 

This is Not a Book Review

Let’s be clear; I know U2 is the cilantro of rock bands—objectively divisive. Some think cilantro is pretty good, some love it, and some have a visceral biological response. I get it. I have bands like that. Do I think R.E.M. sucks like Satan’s armpits? Yes. Do I genuinely think they are the worst commercially successful band of all time? Also yes. So, I get it. You either love U2, or else even the mere mention of their name tastes like soap in your mouth. I think Bono probably has something to do with that. 

This is not a book review. Let’s call it a reflection. Is that cop-out? Probably. Am I just trying to set the bar low so you’re not disappointed? Definitely. But I recently read “Surrender” by U2 frontman Bono, and I have some thoughts. Mostly, I want to show you some of what I found in and perhaps reflect on the experience I had reading this surprising book. Selfishly, I also hope some of you will read Bono’s book because I hate reading books alone. This review will be brief, rambling, and hopefully painless. 

Setting the Scene

“Surrender” is a big yellow and black book that released at the end of 2022. To be honest, I don’t usually read books like this. Autobiographies are often too vain and obviously ghostwritten for my taste. But on a weekend away with my wife, I saw this book displayed in a San Antonio bookstore and began to read these opening lines:

“I was born with an eccentric heart. In one of the chambers of my heart, where most people have three doors, I have two.”

The prose read like lyrics. I read on. A few pages in:

“Success is an outworking of dysfunction, an excuse for obsessive compulsive tendencies. Success is a reward for really, really hard work which may be obscuring some kind of neurosis. Success should come with a health warning—for the workaholic and for those around them.”

That is not only good writing, it is deep and honest reflection. I bought the book. I’m glad I did. 

Since we’ve established this is not a proper book review, that means there are no rules. So let’s begin with the conclusion. What kind of book is this? I’m not sure exactly. Rock music memoir? Celebrity biographical mythology? It doesn’t matter. The book is marketed as a memoir of Bono’s life told through the lens of forty U2 songs. But that’s not really what it is. Surrender is more of a contemplation of death, relationships, faith, and fame written by a pretty complicated person. The writing alone is worth the price of admission. Let me show you what I mean.

Death & Relationships

Bono was fourteen when his mother died. The early death of a mother is surprisingly a common plot in the story of several famous frontmen. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Bob Geldof, John Lydon, and so many successful singers lost their mothers at an early age. Here is how Bono tells the story of his own mother’s death:

“I’m fourteen on Monday, September 9, 1974. My father is carrying my mother in his arms through a crown that splits open like a white snooker ball hitting a triangle of color. He’s rushing to get her to the hospital. She has collapsed at the side of the grave as her own father is being lowered into the ground.” 

He tells the story in the first-person present tense. This is a brutal way to tell such a sad story. If you’ve experienced sudden and unexpected loss, you can feel the helplessness and confusion of the scene. He continues, but I’ll spare you the details. Later in the book, he also reflects on the long-term effects of growing up without a mother and the wound he still limps from. Loss often comes two by two. The death of his mother also an irreparable tear in his relationship with his father. If you listen closely to U2’s lyrics, this is obvious. [for a good example, look up the lyrics to “Sometimes You Can’t Make it on Your Own”]. Look at what he says about the long-term effects of his mother’s death and his father’s coldness: 

“Abandonment is probably the root of paranoia.”

It’s been weeks since I first read the book, but I keep thinking about that line. He continues: 

“Something in me understands that until we deal with our most traumatic traumas, there’s a part of us that stays at the age at which we encountered them.”

Excellent writing is often staged. The author paints a scene with vivid color, but none of it is real. I’ve done that before. But what about honest writing? What about the real thing? Have you ever read something that could only have been written by someone who has seen real horrors? Something by someone who has tasted grief. Someone who has held death in their hands. I think this is probably why so much of the best 20th-century writing came out of the first World War. [If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read Tolkien’s chapter in Two Towers called “The Passage of the Marshes,” …especially the last 4 or 5 pages.]

It is clear to me that Bono isn’t faking it when he writes like this:

“There are only a few routes to making a grandstanding stadium singer out of a small child. You can tell them they’re amazing … or you can just plain ignore them. That might be more effective.”

I could go on and on pasting in more quotes. But the larger point Bono chooses to explore in this strange book is the idea that humans have little or no influence on the two most important moments of our life—being born and dying. I don’t think we give that as much consideration as we should. I know I don’t. We are masters of our own fates until we aren’t. 

Faith & Fame

Somewhere around the time I first heard Bono shout “F*** THE REVOLUTION!” through our sanctuary speakers, I met a guy named Thomas. He had sleeve tattoos and hated everything mainstream. He definitely hated U2. But he said something I still think about. Thomas said he expected to see Bono next to King David on a celestial stage in heaven, leading the masses in worship. I hope he’s right. 

In chapter 5, he describes his early faith in similar terms to people I know who are still trying to reap the benefits of salvation in Jesus without really breaking from the world.

“I’d always be first up when there was an altar call, the “come to Jesus” moment. I still am. If I was in a café right now and someone said, “Stand up if you’re ready to give your life to Jesus,” I’d be the first to my feet. I took Jesus with me everywhere. I still do. I’ve never left Jesus out of the most banal or profane actions of my life.”  

That last sentence does some heavy lifting. Especially the “profane actions” part.

Like his book, Bono’s faith is hard to pin down. This article by Mike Cosper is orders of magnitude better than what you’re reading right now. You should read it. It sheds a brighter light on what Bono probably believes. Speaking to Cosper, he says: 

“I will tell you, deep down, there is an anchor,” he says. “I’m fixed to a rock, and that rock is Jesus.”

That certainly rings of someone who has walked with Jesus. Read Cosper’s interview and see what you think. Personally, I have always thought it would be really hard to be famous and love Jesus. Not impossible, just unlikely. Surrender certainly challenges that idea. In fact, the book feels strongest and most interesting when Bono engages his faith. Which, to be honest is woven throughout all 600 pages of the book. I still don’t know what to think. 

Final Rambling Reflection

Who is this book for? I’m not sure exactly. People like me, I guess. Bearded white guy in his 30s, prone to cynicism, taken with the person and work of Jesus, and someone who is genuinely curious about what other people make of Jesus. Highbrow English majors are too hard to please, so I’ll just let you all off the hook—you shouldn’t read this book, even though the writing is excellent. 

I recently introduced my wife to Tom Wait’s 1999 masterpiece “Mule Variations.” To be fair, I had control over the phone plugged into our car stereo. She was trapped. I played “Come On Up to the House” and “Big in Japan.” She wasn’t impressed. Tom’s gravel voice scares children. [Truthfully, it also scares most adults.] But I noticed something changed when “House Where Nobody Lives” started playing. She liked the piano. She liked the sudden soft change in Tom’s voice. She looked up the lyrics on her phone and read as we listened. The song got into her. It’s not so much that she slowly learned to appreciate the art. That happens sometimes. It’s more that she let her guard down, and the song snuck in. Surrender kind of did the same thing to me. 

Here’s the point: if you can turn off the part of your brain that wants to organize the world, you set yourself up to receive creation as a gift. A surfer doesn’t try to control the wave. She rides it and experiences the power of water in a way that only surfers are able. Like his faith, Bono’s book doesn’t fit very well into categories. To be fair to Bono, he isn’t very prescriptive with his life or music or anything.