Like A Song: The Fly—By Kelly
Like A Song: The Fly
Kelly Eddington, September 2007
I have a confession to make: I don't know all of U2's songs, including "Like A Song." I can't even hum it. There are places in the band's back catalog that I weirdly do not wish to explore, and I'm not sure why. Balancing out my inexplicable apathy for "A Celebration," "Rejoice," "Indian Summer Sky," and about a dozen more is my near-pathological adoration for other songs: if I had to, I would gladly sacrifice every U2 album from the 1980s (and this decade too), if it meant saving "The Fly." And I don't mean that I would merely destroy my own U2 CDs. I would obliterate those albums from my memory and everyone else's forever, as if they never existed. This is how much I love "The Fly."
"Don't tell me that's Bono," spat my girlfriend Melinda, who sort of liked but also sort of hated U2. We were watching MTV during the fall of 1991, and this was how I was introduced to my favorite U2 song. My television's two-inch speaker did not allow me to hear the music the way I would have liked, but I could tell that it didn't sound like U2. It was meaner and distorted with this strange high part that drifted in and out.
What was most alarming and delightful to me was the band's new image. Joy to the world, they had finally tossed out the old man pants and general Tom Joad aesthetic. The video was a blur of dark colors, flashes of skin, sunglasses, and shininess. Tight, sexy, black leather shininess... "What, are they trying to be INXS now?" Melinda shrugged as the song finished.
But I wanted to see it again.
"The Fly" became an instant favorite of mine. I listened to it until it became a musical talisman. I even used Edge's spectacular guitar solo as a learning tool that taught kindergarteners about the language of abstract art. Along with other musical snippets, I played that portion of the song for my little students and asked them to draw what they heard. I was utterly charmed when the Hendrix-caliber solo sprinted down its mad, spiraling path and sent the children into a scribbling frenzy.
While I adored "The Fly," I never truly understood it until a couple of years later, when I began to live it. I met a man and began an ultimately doomed, long-distance relationship with him. Being with this man was a bad choice for me, but I didn't realize it at the time. Well, maybe a voice inside my head thought so, but I decided to ignore that voice.
I was a woman with a secret. On Friday nights I slipped out of my Ms. Eddington uniform and into something black and uncomfortable. Then I drove my beautiful car, the automotive equivalent of Bono's sunglasses, for three hours to see him.
"The Fly" was my soundtrack and my co-conspirator. Under the influence of the song, my car became a spaceship that glided over roads so smooth they seemed carpeted. I drove into the sunset and watched that giant star fall from the sky. I grinned in anticipation as I sped down the interstate that skirted an amber-lit prison. More than any other song, "The Fly" made me visualize a concoction of lines, shapes, colors, and art that I loved. Larry and Adam were Brancusi's Bird in Space, Edge was Willem de Kooning's Excavation, and Bono was Michelangelo's Dying Slave...
...and he was the voice of my beloved, whispering his wicked slogans in my ear, cooing like an angel, and calling me chiiiiiild.
I was falling in love with the snake that gave me the apple. The knowledge he downloaded into my brain was sweet and tart, and I wanted more. I didn't care about the garden at all when I heard that sprawling, aggressive, and utterly male guitar solo.
As darkly romantic as the relationship was, it eventually ran out of change. The sun emerged from behind the moon, and I, a cannibal, sang about my grief for two years. When I listen to "The Fly" these days, it's with a bittersweet nostalgia for the woman I once was...and a strange, enduring affection for the song that seduced me and sent me down the wrong road.