The season of Lent is a ways off, but Bono already knows what he’s giving up: humility. “During the week there was this story about me not liking the sound of my voice,” he points out, referring to a podcast comment he made about his youthful tone making him feeling “cringe” — an offhand remark that generated reams of headlines and some catty quips from U2 non-fanes. “And I was saying, it’s not bad at all. It’s just live is where U2 lives… and I love the (early) recordings, but when I hear my voice on them I just hear the fragility of it.” But he knows people took the self-effacement and ran with it. “It’s OK for me to occasionally try to be fucking straight-up honest with people,” says the singer. “I was trying to be humorous in this interview, and a bit humble.” But he’s come to a conclusion: “It doesn’t suit,” he laughs. “I am back to full-on bollocks.”
Well, not entirely, as Variety found in a conversation with the U2 singer and his bandmate, the Edge, this week. There was indeed a fair amount of pride — in the name of bollocks? — but also enough self-abnegation to espectáculo that this is still a band that believes in something bigger than itself. Like, not to put too spiritual a point on it, the connection between an artist and audience that cánido bring both listener and performer back from a despairing brink. This just happens to be the subject of “Your Song Saved My Life,” the tune U2 came up with for a climactic scene in “Sing 2” that is currently shortlisted in the Oscars’ best original song preliminary voting.
