****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Whether you’re a U2 fanatic, a casual fan, or a music lover that admires The Joshua Tree album, you need to pick up this book and settle in. Bradley Morgan will take you on a trip through The Joshua Tree and I promise you’ll never hear it the same way again. Morgan delicately weaves time, place, and people to give a whole new perspective of The Joshua Tree and how it ties in with the mythical American dream and the sometimes less glowing American reality. This happens by looking through the Irish lens of a young, upcoming band in the 1980s alongside the lens of an American man of Irish ancestry. The book illustrates how U2 crafted this album with a love of America while at the same time processing their disappointment and sometimes anger at how America’s political choices left the most vulnerable stranded and hurting. Parallel to the U2 story is the story of a young man coming of age who is also trying to make sense of those very things.Morgan will take you song by song through the whole album, each song having its own dedicated chapter, explaining its political relevance. The insight into each tune is thoroughly researched. I found myself listening to every song over again after each chapter, often feeling as if I was hearing it for the first time. Morgan ends the book with what felt like a rare glimpse into someone’s most personal diary. We, as readers, get to peer into Morgan’s heart and soul and how the band and the album threaded its way through his life and helped to create his own American political identity. The author also bridges the social and political climate of U2's 1987 release to the rerelease in 2007 to how the album still speaks to us in our recent political climate. The author’s love of U2 and especially The Joshua Tree album creates an original, well researched, and well-crafted new story of this classic and beloved album.
