Atomic City Thoughts—By PJ

Atomic City Bono, watercolor by Kelly Eddington, 2023. Loosely based on a reference photo by Madeline Carter.

Atomic City Thoughts

PJ DeGenaro

Come all you stars falling out of the sky

Come all you angels forgetting to fly

Come all who feel we’re not on our own

All UFOs come on your way home

— via U2Songs

The above four lines (with a nice callback to “The Fly”) open U2’s new single, “Atomic City.” It’s a relentlessly happy, pop-punky, upbeat song. That upbeatness is bound to annoy some people, but for crissakes, to make it into your 60s without becoming a cynical bastard has got to be some kind of miracle and perhaps worthy of an award. I’m sure Bono has a bad day now and then, but by God, he is not going to let it ruin our days, and for this and so much more, I thank him. And I am absolutely loving this song.

In Bono and The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, Irish musician Glen Hansard recalls seeing U2 in their earliest days, and uses a phrase that has stuck with me for months: He says that Bono was “strident with something pure.” We don’t normally assign anything positive to the word “strident,” but I have never heard a better summation of Bono, or of U2 as a whole. In a world of aging rock stars who write shitty songs about the inconvenience of having to stay home during a pandemic, we have a band that’s “strident with something pure.” 

It’s better.

P.S. Now with more Larry Mullen Jr.!

P.P.S. from Kelly: I agree with everything PJ has written, and I’d like to add that Bono’s exuberant “I’m free!” in the chorus made me smile. Tell that to everyone who’s shelled out for hotels, flights, and tickets to see you this fall, king. You’re actually pretty expensive, and PJ and I will stand gleefully at your feet in exactly one month.