8. U2: The Unexpected Joys of Achtung Baby!

Have you ever felt out of place? Join your host Elaina as she explores the prolifically talented band U2 in the early ’90s! She can relate to the feeling of not fitting in, whether it's navigating junior high social dynamics in shop class or today’s dating disasters. Drawing parallels between the struggles of U2 during the creation of their 1991 album Achtung, Baby!, Franz Kafka’s novel “Metamorphosis,” and personal adversities, Elaina talks about the power of resilience and the belief that something good will come out of difficult times. She weaves together themes of vulnerability, perseverance, and the enduring impact of ’90s music, offering you a poignant reminder that amidst life's challenges, there's always hope and understanding to be found. By reflecting on the creative journey of U2, we see the importance of staying true to yourself, embracing vulnerability, and finding solace in connection, whether it's through music, personal relationships, or faith. 

Thank you for listening, and don't forget to shine bright!

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a 5-Star review as it helps my podcast grow and reach more people. Find me on Instagram @Your90sAreShowing and say hi!

About the host: Elaina Satti is a lover of the '90s living in Rhode Island, USA, the smallest state with the biggest heart, and she is in fact a divorced single parent living her best "now what?" exploring the journey of "what's next" – with coffee.

Transcript

This is Elaina, welcome to “Your '90s Are Showing” podcast. You're here for it. I'm here for it. We're going to talk a little bit about being lost in translation. What does it mean? What does it mean in the '90s? What does it mean today?

And have we explored the awesomeness that is Achtung, Baby? That's right. It's U2’s seminal work, the beginning of the '90s. We're going to celebrate the early '90s. The music that made you, the music that made me, you know what I was going through? Yes, I do have a CD collection. That's right. Downstairs in my basement. It's organized on a CD shelf by emotion, sheer emotion. I don't go in for any alphabetical order nonsense. I have categorized my CDs. And yes, it's showing my age by the emotional resonance. They're grouped, not in any kind of order that would make sense to anyone else. But my CDs are grouped by how they make me feel.

That's just how I roll here on the “Your '90s Are Showing” podcast. But I also have a CD collection in my car, everyone used to and now this portable CD case goes with me everywhere I go. So I popped the first CD that I could find into my CD player. Yes, it is quite a relic. You know, it's a relic to have CDs that you carry around with you. And it was called Welcome to the Road mix. Yes, it's a CD mix that I burned myself and I'm extremely proud of it. I burned it when I was living in LA and I think one of my friends Dave burned it. You know that whole Napster controversy anyway. I was burning music compilations of '90s music, okay. I was a DJ way back when. And this compilation has gone with me everywhere from LA to Norton, MA to here in Rhode Island. And there's great stuff on it. What I want to tell you is that I was feeling a little down, a little down and out. But I wasn't in Beverly Hills. I wasn't even Beverly Hills adjacent. I was down and out in a small New England town.

And the only thing that could heal that part of me at that moment was '90s music and let me tell you, when I put on Welcome to the Road. The first song that came on was Queensryche, “Jet City Woman.” And immediately I was in a great mood. Does that ever happen to you? The tunes are flowing, the windows are down. It's no longer freezing out. And Queensryche is bringing it home. “Jet City Woman,” I loved it because I am a jet city woman. I used to live in LA and I loved flights because they were a great excuse to listen to music and read books and not have to worry about anything else. There was no Wi Fi in the '90s when you're on a flight. You listen to music you wrote and you read as God intended it and no one else could reach you. That was an ungodly thought you could just space out and do your own thing.

The next song that came on though, was a real doozy. I mentioned I was a little down and out and I needed some '90s music to bring it home. The next song was Tesla “What You Give,” and I really almost swerved in someone else's lane. I apologize to that other person going around the traffic circle, because that song took me back. And what I remember about the boys from Tesla and yes, I saw Tesla live at the House of Blues in West Hollywood in 2000. It was an amazing show. And I remember I took my friend from Syracuse University and I wore purple pants. for the occasion. I was styling. I wonder if they remember the girl with the purple pants way back in 2000

Tesla has this ability, like the hair bands of the early '90s, they did not play around. They were not playing, they were going to tell a girl how they felt they were not afraid to go there. And to show emotion. I mean remember Extreme’s “More Than Words,” which is a clear contender for a “Your '90s Are Showing” Prom of Slow Jams, with the strumming guitars and the maestro-like range. I believe his name is Nuno Bettencourt, please check me if I'm wrong. Nuno or Nino, please help me out here. I know there are great Extreme fans in the audience. His guitar playing was nothing short of a miracle and that song, but those songs remember it was Firehouse, I believe, “Love of a Lifetime.” These songs really let somebody know how the other person felt.

And when I was listening to “What You Give,” the lyrics just hit me. They were transparent. There was nothing of subterfuge, right? Is that how you say the word? There was nothing fake. There was nothing false that no one was putting on an act. It was one heart to another showing that vulnerability.

“Who is the one that makes you happy? Who's the one always on your mind? And who is the reason you're living for? Who is the reason for your smile?” And at this point, I am singing at the top of my lungs. I have my ear pods, buds and whatever they're called, I am going ham on the dishes, right? Gen Z is going ham hard as a mother. Yes, I know all of the slang.

And I expect any second my daughter will come in like a little record scratch to sound and her say, Mom, why are you going ham on the dishes? So cringe, no cap.

But I couldn't help it. Because the boys of Tesla were taking it home circa 1991. And of course, “It's not what you got. It's what you give. It ain't the life you choose. It's the life you live. Only what you give.” It's an incredible song.

And I realized that has a lot in common with that album, Achting Baby by U2, maybe I do like to say it that way. It was ubiquitous in the early '90s. It was released on November 18 1991. The boys of U2 were trying to find their way. They had the smash success of Joshua Tree but Rattle and Hum album which was released in the late 1980s, critics called it bombastic; people didn't understand that they were collaborating with BB King, didn't understand their overall vision. I mean, I love the album. The song “Desire,” who could mess with that?

There's so much that’s great about that album, but they were feeling a little stymied. They were feeling like they didn't know what direction to go. They were feeling like they were lost in translation to their fans, to their audience and even themselves. They were even contemplating breaking up.

I remember in seventh grade, we're talking very early '90s. I was lost in translation, literally. Okay, I wanted to study Italian. And in seventh grade, my junior high went from seventh to ninth. You weren't able to take Italian in seventh grade, you had to wait until ninth grade.

So I was out of luck. And what I didn't want to happen is I didn't want to take Spanish or French or God forbid German and mess up my brain for learning Italian. I mean, some amazing people can learn two languages at once, but not me. I wanted to keep my mind fresh and unsullied for this one language that I loved as long as I could remember because I knew I wanted to go to Italy and yes, dear listener, I did go to Italy and I lived there for six months. Florence, travelled around Rome. This is a different podcast for another time. It was one of my bucket list dreams and I achieved it in Italy.

So what was my alternative? I had to take the collection of classes known as shop. Now let me just tell you, I work at a college. It's very hands-on we're talking cybersecurity, nursing, surgical tech, automotive, video game design, you name it, it's hands-on learning. These people are kinesthetic learners to the max and I have so much respect for them because I, dear listener, do not have that gift. I'm not quite sure I could find my way out of a forest. If I want to hike. I'm not great with a wrench.

I did have to navigate the streets of LA with a Mapquest map. Remember when you had to print those out?

Long story short, I'm not great with all those things. But I decided to take those groups of classes because it's the only thing I could do if I wasn't going to take a language. So I remember in seventh grade walking into Home Economics, remember those classes where you could actually learn those hands on skills. And the first was Home Economics because it combined cooking and sewing. Now this is a true relic right? Schools have completely eradicated this except for maybe some of their technical programs. But I found it to be so disconcerting. I'm not saying anything that I'm a certain way, but I happened to be in honors classes. So my head was kind of in the clouds. And as a writer. I didn't do a lot of things with my hands. My daughters are great. My daughters are creative. And one of my daughters loves art. And they love music. And they're really talented like that, but me not as much as I mentioned. So I remember in the home ec, we had to watch

some kind of documentary on Karen Carpenter, played by what is it the woman who's the lead on “Family Ties” TV show back in the day, it was really devastating. And she was just displaying her anorexia bulimia. And I guess it was supposed to be some kind of deterrent like an after school movie, but really all the girls were taking notes as to how they can be anorexic and bulimic, too. It kind of backfired. 

Anyway, in Home Ec, I remember we had to make apple cobbler or apple crisp, one of the two. And I actually did a really great job at it. I actually still have the recipe, it was delicious. So I did that. And then we sewed these little ornaments full of potpourri. And I actually

still have these ornaments. So whenever I pull them out of the box, it's remarkable because they still smell like potpourri. There were all these culinary arts I did, I have these ornaments, I'll have to post a picture of them because I love them. And it showed that I could kind of conquer this, I could work with my hands. But the problem was being shy, being introverted, being out of my element. I wasn't with the kids that I knew before or the kids in my other honors classes. I didn't talk. So there was a rumor going around that I was stuck up. And this was a problem because there was a girl who was much taller than me. Her name was Erin. And she had bangs all the way up to the sky. And then other bangs that were underneath her eyes and she looked like she was in a video for a Poison song or something. And she looked like she was about 19. And she always looked like she wanted to punch me in the face. And that was a problem. Because I was really afraid of Erin. There was a rumor going around the class that because I was stuck up, she wanted to beat me up in front of her locker. So I avoided her locker as it was on the 2 B two floor. I avoided it like the plague. But the funny thing that happened as time went on in the class as I made my ornaments, and as I made my apple crisp and I learned the dangers of anorexia nervosa from the Karen Carpenter documentary…They began to kind of get to know me a little bit and realize, hey, this girl is just really shy and quiet. She's not so stuck up. So remember, a girl named Jessica took me to her house, invited me over. And I remember she just gave me a full size candy bar, which was great, because at that point, you know, my mom was very healthy. And we didn't have any junk at the house. And we barely had Cracklin Oat Bran as a cereal for breakfast while I was watching cartoons. So they slowly realized that the person that they thought I was, wasn't the person that I really was, lost in translation to them. And maybe they were to me, and Erin turned out to be kind of nice. She never beat me up like she threatened or as she looked like she might do. We didn't really talk but the threat was neutralized. And through Jessica, I kind of got in with the rest of the class. So maybe I didn't feel 100% at home, but I began to feel more comfortable. And the rest of the year I took drafting, now I have no drafting ability. But I did feel like a mini architect. Like George Costanza, in Seinfeld, his alter ego, he always pretends that he's an architect. And it was great, you know, and at that time, everyone was obsessed with Vanilla Ice, right? And it was young Mariah Carey. By the way, if loving her is wrong, I don't want to be right. Young MC, young Mariah Carey. Mariah Carey in the '90s in any form is what is right with the world. 

So we're in drafting and then I go to metalworking, and they actually make this heart and inside the heart I actually somehow I carved the words I love you Poppy, which is my amazing Armenian grandfather, and he displayed it proudly on his mantle until the day he died. Then I was in woodworking . I actually created a lovely vista of ducks in a pond with a soldering iron. Yes, they entrusted me with a soldering iron. I know I can't fix a single thing. I can't even put up Christmas lights on my Christmas tree. All of them go off at the same time. Like Christmas vacation. My daughter has to come in and fix them all. But I made this beautiful vista of ducks and my Italian grandmother kept it in her dining room until the day she died. Then I did screen printing. I don't have an artistic bone in my body. I'm decent. I have painted a couple of things that paint and sip nights that's only because it's basically paint by number. But I created a screen printing design of Andre Agassi doing an overhead serve. And it was this great in-motion t-shirt that I made for myself. I designed it, I screen printed it, I made it, I wore it. It was pretty impressive. I wish I still had a picture of this thing. I'm gonna look in the archives and see if I still do. That was probably the piece de resistance that was showing that you know what, you don't think you can work with your hands and I had some other fails by the way. I think I had to make some kind of balsa wood tower and these cars that had to race and everyone tolerated that I was even in the class, but I just kept holding on because I knew my brain was not going to have any other language in it than Italian. And it was all worth it when I finally got to ninth grade, and my brain soaked up the Italian language like a sponge. And I think that was one of the reasons why I was able to study it all through high school, from 9th to 12th grade, to study in college, and go to Florence, and thrive and flourish with the Italian language, because I went to shop class because I like to think that a little glimmer of my non existent artistic ability shone through because I challenged myself to do something different. And each time in each class, when I walked in, I was a little nervous. I didn't know the kids. I was a fish out of water, and it was lost in translation. 

But so much today is lost in translation. Sometimes we want to be as heartfelt as we think a Tesla song is, right. We want to tell the people in our lives, you're the one that makes me happy and who that person is or who those people are. There’s my daughters. Immediately it came to mind. Maybe with other people, it's not so easy to say, maybe what we want to say is lost in translation. 

And it puts me in mind of Achtung Baby because on a whim I was listening to you to the song “The Fly.” . It was when we used to listen to albums from the first cut to the last on the CD just letting it play. And you knew when the song one was coming on, right? It was an album that had “One,” “Mysterious Ways”… So many great hits on it. Oh, remember “Zoo Station.”

One of my favorites was “Even Better Than the Real Thing.” And in this album, which was conceived actually in Berlin, which was around the time of the reunification of Germany, the East and the West, the band actually went to a hotel, which was rundown. And the weather was gloomy, and it was atmospheric and they went to this kind of giant, cavernous ballroom type studio. And they started trying to record a new sound. They wanted something that was different. They were listening to eclectic music, rock and dance and electronica folk. They were trying to reach a new sound, a new pinnacle. They wanted to get away from some of the negative reviews that they had, they wanted to shake it off. But the problem was they were all fighting. And at one time, the Edge, the lead guitarist, I mean, who doesn't love the Edge, got into an altercation with Bondo and said, “Here, do you want my guitar? Here? Why don't you play it for me.” They got into a fight, and the band was even contemplating breaking up. But at that time, the Edge was playing notes that later became some of the refrains from the song “One.” And if you listen to that song, it's extremely powerful, because they modeled the reunification of Berlin, and the reunification of Germany after that song, but the only thing that I could think of was a relationship, whatever that might be.

“We're one but we're not the same. We get to carry each other.” And you knew when you were driving around in the ‘90s, and you heard those drumsticks beat against each other, you knew that you had to settle in for the next five minutes because you were gonna hear that song in its entirety. And that song was ubiquitous around 1991. The song “One” – basically all the songs on there struck me because of their desire to understand the world and other people. And I remember watching MTV at that time, and the video for “Even Better Than the Real Thing.” And the video for “The Fly.” Bono created a persona with these huge bug-like black glasses and he dyed his hair black. He wanted to sort of channel one of the bombastic rockers of the past. Like Jim Morrison, he had leather pants, you know one of those larger than life rockers. He was trying to channel a kind of an egomaniac Rockstar until he created this persona on stage and called it the Fly. 

But the only thing that I could think of when I was seeing this video again is Newsflash, “Your '90s Are Showing” book report which I like to call: My So-Called '90s Rook Report, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. And when I was seeing Bono the question hit

me, is this too Kafka-esque or not Kafka-esque enough? The book Metamorphosis is about a man named Gregor, who goes to sleep and wakes up in his own bed, but he has been changed into a disgusting vermin, a bug, and his family can no longer communicate with him. It's dystopian, it's strange, it's disturbing. His family becomes ashamed of him. And he is ashamed of himself. It explores the themes of isolation, of loneliness. But when I read that book, and that was in middle school and junior high, around that same time, I just kept thinking, What would it have been like, if Gregor could actually communicate with this family as a bug? What if they really could understand, and what if there was one member of his family that actually could understand what he was saying, like, Please don't hurt me, don't swap, swap me with a broom and kick me out of the house? If there was one person, even one that really understood him and his own family, or friends or people around him, maybe he could have been saved.

Who is that one person around us that really understands and knows us? And when U2 was recording that album, they actually decided to go back to Dublin, and record in a studio closer to where Bono and the Edge lived. And they began to churn out the songs.

And they began to realize how to bring their mojo back. And Brian Eno was one of the producers and one of the ones who took their their cuts and actually stripped them down

and contributed to one of the most successful songs, “Even Better Than the Real Thing.” But of course, who can forget “Mysterious Ways.” When you listen to that song it holds up. It's exactly like the first time that you heard it. 

And what I began to realize when I was reading about Achtung Baby was that it's also about the disillusionment that the Edge was feeling because his marriage was breaking up. Ironically, it was a celebration of life because Bono had had two children recently, and Bono has been married forever, we get that he's very happily married. But what was it like for one bandmate to be grieving a marriage, and one bandmate to be celebrating the birth of children? Well, it would sound a lot like Achtung Baby.

I want to read some of the lyrics of “The Fly.” And all I can do is picture one of the first times I saw the video  with Bondo in those big glasses. And the theme of Zoo TV or Zoo station, the tour that they were going on to support Achtung Baby, was sort of communication lost in translation; that Times Square effect when you're bombarded with all these messages. But you don't even know what they say because they're flying so fast and furious. And isn't that a metaphor for what's happening today? Today it would be from your phone. Even in the '90s that was pretty prescient of Bono to predict where life was heading today. There was no social media, there was no Instagram. We didn't have email yet; that was like a blink of an eye that was heading down the pipe. That did surface later.

Some of the lyrics from “The Fly” are: “Love, we shine like a burning star, we're falling from the sky,/ A man will beg, a man will crawl on the sheer face of love, like a fly on the wall. It's no secret at all.”

Isolation and being misunderstood, isn't that one of the most painful things in life? Like Gregor who turned into an actual insect in his bed. But in the end, I believe Achtung Baby is a joyful celebration of what communication can be in a relationship among friends, among family, even in a country.

It's a celebration, because Bono goes there, and in his own self-deprecating way, which he turns sort of the Troubadour idea on its head, and is poking fun at himself by wearing those glasses. He's one of the most real personas that we've ever seen. He's willing to go there. He's willing to strip himself bare on songs like “One” and he's willing to explore the feminine, right? He's willing to go to the places that are hard, presumably with his wife. Even in the first lyrics of the song “One,” he sings, “Is it getting better or do you feel the same? Would it make it easier on you? Now you've got someone to blame/ One love, you've got to share it, it leaves you baby if you don't care for it.” And Bono is the one who's chasing the feminine actually. He's driving towards it. He knows that what he has is even better than the real thing. And the Edge will during the fly. When I really listened to it, he had one of the most righteous guitar solos that I've ever heard, when I watched the video and then heard it, and kept obsessively listening to the album having even more respect for it than when I first bought the album. Because there's pain, there's raw vulnerability, there's self deprecation, there's emotion, there's trying so hard to reach across to communicate, when everything is lost in translation. It's the masculine trying to reach the feminine, it is one part of a war-torn country and a bruised country trying to reach across, it is the other parents reaching across to the children. It's sort of a bruised peace offering.

And if you're divorced, single parent now what, and you lived through the '90s, that resonates with you. Sometimes all you can do is appreciate vulnerability where it lies.

Appreciate true artistry, whether you're working with your hands, and you’re creative that way, whether you're writing, whether you're into music, whether you're into fixing up cars, whether you're into selling things on well, is there even eBay anymore? I don't know. Let's check into it. Whether you're into playing flag football, or what is it Disc Golf that some people play, I'm not sure whether you're really into working out, getting in your zone

whether you're in nature, whether you're at the beach, whatever brings you joy, and U2 shows that we can reinvent ourselves. We can separate ourselves from what people knew of us in the past. 

But what people didn't understand is what I think objectively is a beautiful album Rattle and Hum. Bono has said that going through the turmoil of Rattle and Hum and working with greats like BB King, and wrestling with songwriting,  with some of the black community and some of the great songwriters that they collaborated with, searching for that kind of Americana sound, prepared them for this kind of dance electronica celebration.

That still makes us stand up and listen. Today, I defy anyone to turn on “Mysterious Ways,” and not just start grooving to it. Just not start feeling happy about it. And that's the gift that the '90s gives us: whatever kind of day you've had, whatever ever kind of day I've had, whether we feel lost in translation, or whether we feel understood and seen.

There's a song for that.

There's something '90s for that. Now, for me, I know that it's a part of the Bible for that.

For me, I'm rereading the story of Joseph. And I can't help but think that Joseph and the Edge were a little bit similar. When the Edge had gone to the edge literally of himself, when he was playing that epic, righteous guitar solo on “The Fly,” and looking at Bono, who's celebrating the birth of his kids, and mourning the death of his marriage, which I think he had three kids at that time. I'm not quite sure where he is now in his life.

But Joseph had to realize every night afterwards, after he was thrown into a well

by his brothers who hated him, he had to realize that somewhere out there, his father,

Jacob was mourning him and thinking that he was dead. And his brothers hated him so much, they'd rather see him sold off into slavery than actually have him as part of their family.

What is it like to wrestle with that? What is it like to wrestle with knowing that you are so abandoned? That there was no way back? That was your own family.

So in the story of Joseph, he ends up as one of the servants then house managers for a powerful family leader. His name is Potiphar. And Joseph became his right-hand man. And Potiphar didn't have to think about anything because Joseph ran his whole household. The only problem was, Potiphar’s wife had eyes for Joseph, and was not getting PG. She was coming for him. And he said, “No, I would never do that. Your husband gave me dominion over everything. And what would it be like if I defied God, and took you from him? I couldn't do that.” 

So she cornered him, took his cloak, and he had to run away and flee. And then of course, she blamed Joseph, so Potiphar threw him in prison. So I wonder sometimes what Joseph was thinking, before he went to bed, Joseph became indispensable to the prison warden. So the man who ran the prison didn't have to worry about anything, because he knew that God was with Joseph and Joseph took care of everything. And the Bible says, The only thing that the manager of the prison had to worry about was what he was going to eat that day, just like that's all that Potiphar had to worry about. But what was Joseph worrying about? Was he worried that he really was forgotten?

How could he know that later on in the story, he would basically save all of Egypt and his own family from famine. He didn't know that part of the story. And you don't know your part of the story, either. You think that you're stuck in the part that you are, but you can't see how God worked in Joseph’s story to basically save many nations with his plan to keep grain in good times, because God showed him in a vision that was from basically Pharaoh’s dream, how to interpret dreams, so that they kept grain in a huge storehouse for when a famine would come. Because, yes, Joseph had the ability to predict dreams. God gave that to him.

But when he kept languishing in that prison, doing the same thing every day, doing the next right thing.

The Bible doesn't say that he despaired, but how could he not have? And how could the Edge not have despaired? Even when he was playing that amazing solo? Just like we can't see the end of our story, either. We can't see the ways that Joseph later on, ended up confronting secretly, and then forgiving his brothers, and they didn't know it was him, because he was basically second in command to Pharaoh. And they didn't realize that the little brother that they threw into a well would now save their lives, and was second in command to the leader of Egypt. How could they have known? How could Joseph have known his story? 

And at the end of the Joseph story, he tells his brothers, “What the enemy meant for evil, God meant for good.” And I can't help her think that there was something that the Edge was holding onto when he was pouring out his heart with that guitar. Something good is going to come out of this. When you're driving around the traffic circle, and you don't know what to think, something good is going to come out of this.

When you're driving your kids to soccer practice, when you're showing up at your job, when you're laughing with your friends.

When you're hiding what's really going on inside. When you're working so hard with your hands. You're trying to create your business, you're working on your creative endeavor on the side, something good is going to come of this. U2 didn't give up.

They didn't stop pushing forward, and continued to become a huge success. Rolling Stone called Achtung Baby basically a revelation. Magazine after magazine writer gave it critical acclaim. And there's nothing like listening to that album from start to finish.

But we don't see the cost. The band paid for that kind of excellence. We don't really see the costs that Joseph paid day after day when he didn't know the ending. And nobody sees the cost that you're paying either. When you remember the '90s and you're living today, and you're wondering what good is going to come of it. But I say don't give up.

You can't mess with brilliance. You can't mess with Achtung Baby and even if you feel lost in translation, there's always someone who understands. Maybe it's up to you to find them. Maybe that someone has been there the whole time.

Dear listener, it's been a privilege to be slightly relevant to your life. I hope I've been slightly relevant, anyway. This is Elaina with “Your '90s Are Showing.” As always, thanks for going down the waterslide with me. Until next time, don't forget to shine bright!