As rock record covers go, this one certainly was edgy, unexpected.
No, my shock in that autumn of 1984 wasn't spurred by the photo of the dour-faced lads of U2 -- even though they looked like young, thuggish dock workers who had just gotten shafted out of their pay.
Rather, it was the back cover photo that was more stunning than a pic of Bono clutching a severed head and dancing with Satan.
What's a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. doing on the cover of this single, "Pride (In the Name of Love)"?
I had spent my high school years only 100 miles from where King had preached in Montgomery, Ala., where he had launched the civil rights movement. But I was puzzled.
What's this Irish rock band got to do with King?
The answer, I soon would discover, was simple: The song was about MLK. The civil rights leader was one of Bono's heroes.
That wasn't so readily apparent in the oblique, but lofty, lyrics: "One man come he to justify, one man to overthrow in the name of love, one more in the name of love."
In fact, other references -- "one man betrayed with a kiss," "one man washed on an empty beach" -- summoned images of Jesus, and of those sad photos of dead World War II soldiers lying on the shore of Normandy.
But astute historians and rock critics noted another lyric in the song: "April 4, shot rang out in the Memphis sky. Free at last, they took your life. They could not take your pride in the name of love."
In case listeners lacked knowledge of American civil rights history, the Irish rock band decided to drive home the lesson with a black-and-white photo of King on the single's cover, and a quote from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech: "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant."
As for those listeners who lacked knowledge of American civil rights history -- that was me at the time.
Never mind that I had spent my high school years during the mid-1970s in Dothan, Ala., not far from where Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat, and where King and others organized the bus boycott. Many times I had traveled mere miles from King's Montgomery home, which had been bombed in the '60s. I had crossed the bridge where the first Selma march ended in "Bloody Sunday."
But such history (it's American history, not just African-American history) was largely absent from my high school education. Growing up in the South, I had known only the headlines -- the Washington march, King's assassination -- and my grandparents' fear that some sort of race war was brewing.
U2's "Pride" was a wakeup call from four Irish lads to learn more about the history that was still playing out in my backyard -- a place where, during my tenure at the Dothan newspaper in the mid-1980s, one of my editors referred to King as a "troublemaker."
Throughout my journalism career covering pop music, I've often asked artists some variant of the question: "Can music really build bridges between cultures?" (See my interview of Marvin Hamlisch in this edition of Go 386.) I've heard various answers to that question.
As America prepares to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day Jan. 18 (his actual birthday is Jan. 15), I can say that one song can build bridges, can make a difference. Four Irish guys spurred me to take a journey down the streets of history that passed right by my front door.
No, my shock in that autumn of 1984 wasn't spurred by the photo of the dour-faced lads of U2 -- even though they looked like young, thuggish dock workers who had just gotten shafted out of their pay.
Rather, it was the back cover photo that was more stunning than a pic of Bono clutching a severed head and dancing with Satan.
What's a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. doing on the cover of this single, "Pride (In the Name of Love)"?
I had spent my high school years only 100 miles from where King had preached in Montgomery, Ala., where he had launched the civil rights movement. But I was puzzled.
What's this Irish rock band got to do with King?
The answer, I soon would discover, was simple: The song was about MLK. The civil rights leader was one of Bono's heroes.
That wasn't so readily apparent in the oblique, but lofty, lyrics: "One man come he to justify, one man to overthrow in the name of love, one more in the name of love."
In fact, other references -- "one man betrayed with a kiss," "one man washed on an empty beach" -- summoned images of Jesus, and of those sad photos of dead World War II soldiers lying on the shore of Normandy.
But astute historians and rock critics noted another lyric in the song: "April 4, shot rang out in the Memphis sky. Free at last, they took your life. They could not take your pride in the name of love."
In case listeners lacked knowledge of American civil rights history, the Irish rock band decided to drive home the lesson with a black-and-white photo of King on the single's cover, and a quote from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech: "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant."
As for those listeners who lacked knowledge of American civil rights history -- that was me at the time.
Never mind that I had spent my high school years during the mid-1970s in Dothan, Ala., not far from where Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat, and where King and others organized the bus boycott. Many times I had traveled mere miles from King's Montgomery home, which had been bombed in the '60s. I had crossed the bridge where the first Selma march ended in "Bloody Sunday."
But such history (it's American history, not just African-American history) was largely absent from my high school education. Growing up in the South, I had known only the headlines -- the Washington march, King's assassination -- and my grandparents' fear that some sort of race war was brewing.
U2's "Pride" was a wakeup call from four Irish lads to learn more about the history that was still playing out in my backyard -- a place where, during my tenure at the Dothan newspaper in the mid-1980s, one of my editors referred to King as a "troublemaker."
Throughout my journalism career covering pop music, I've often asked artists some variant of the question: "Can music really build bridges between cultures?" (See my interview of Marvin Hamlisch in this edition of Go 386.) I've heard various answers to that question.
As America prepares to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day Jan. 18 (his actual birthday is Jan. 15), I can say that one song can build bridges, can make a difference. Four Irish guys spurred me to take a journey down the streets of history that passed right by my front door.
