It's not everywhere in fashion these days, Americanism. Not very big in Europe, truth be told. No less on Ivy League college campuses. But it all depends on your definition of Americanism. Me, I'm in love with this country called America. I'm a huge fan of America, I'm one of those annoying fans, you know the ones that read the CD notes and follow you into bathrooms and ask you all kinds of annoying questions about why you didn't live up to that... I'm that kind of fan. I read the Declaration of Independence and I've read the Constitution of the United States, and they are some liner notes, dude. As I said yesterday I made my pilgrimage to Independence Hall, and I love America because America is not just a country, it's an idea.'''
Irish singer-songwriter and rock musician, member of U2
Paul David Hewson, KBE, OL (born 10 May 1960) is an Irish musician and social activist, who after being nicknamed Bono Vox, became famous as the lead singer of the Irish rock band, U2 using the stage name Bono.
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Birth Name:
Paul David Hewson
Alternative Names:
Paul Hewson
•
Bono Vox
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So now — cut to 1980. Irish rock group, who've been through the fire of a certain kind of revival, a Christian-type revival, go to America. Turn on the TV the night you arrive, and there's all these people talking from the Scriptures. But they're quite obviously raving lunatics. Suddenly you go, what's this? And you change the channel. There's another one. You change the channel, and there's another secondhand-car salesman. You think, oh, my God. But their words sound so similar . . . to the words out of our mouths. So what happens? You learn to shut up. You say, whoa, what's this going on? You go oddly still and quiet. If you talk like this around here, people will think you're one of those. And you realize that these are the traders — as in t-r-a-d-e-r-s — in the temple.
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In the ancient-wisdom literature known as the book of Ecclesiastes, written several hundred years BC, there is a wanderer I borrowed from, a sojourner who discovers that sex, drugs, money, fame … are apparently not the promised land. Instead, says the writer — maybe Solomon — these are the vanities of vanities. The best thing in life, he discovers, is to enjoy your work. To do what you love. The promised land will always be somewhere else. I think I can grasp this.
You torture me. I try to control you. We fall out. We don’t speak, and then we go through difficult years. You come out of those years, and then we meet up in your twenties, and then we get close again.” That’s how it often goes, I explain. On the other hand I will add, “We could just, say, skip all that.” And all of them went, “Yeah, let’s skip that.” And they did. Although, of course, if you talk to their mother, who didn’t go off on the road like their father, she might tell you a different story about how the girls might have missed out on me being there to torture and how I might have missed out on that too.
Belief and confusion are not mutually exclusive; I believe that belief gives you the direction in the confusion. But you don't see the full picture. That's the point. That's what faith is. You can't see it. It comes back to instinct. Faith is just up the street. Faith and instinct, you can't just rely on them. You have to beat them up. You have to pummel them to make sure they can withstand it, to make sure they can be trusted.