In the Name of Love

No Man Has Greater Love Than This...

I’m a terrible listener. My wife can attest. I avoid audiobooks because I simply don’t remember them. I need to see the words on the page to trigger my memory. However, I’ve discovered a loophole in my brain. I can listen to books about music and remember them, especially when those audiobooks contain music clips.

So as I continue on in my Plato Project of reading all of Plato’s dialogues, I’m sneaking in bits and pieces of Surrender by Bono while I drive, mow the yard, and do the dishes. The audiobook is read by Bono himself. It contains 40 chapters with each chapter named after a U2 song.

Yesterday, while driving, I was listening to chapter 27 about the song Pride (In the Name of Love). Bono recounts a story at the end of that chapter that caused me to choke up. I want to share the story with you.

Let’s travel back to the early 1980s while U2 was on their Joshua Tree Tour. This was before Martin Luther King Day became a national holiday. There was a campaign to honor MLK Jr. and U2 was taking part in that effort. Arizona was one state refusing to champion a Martin Luther King Day holiday and Bono was vocal in his displeasure. When the tour reached Arizona, the FBI notified U2’s security team about death threats to Bono should he sing verse 3 of Pride during the concert. That verse goes like this:

Early morning,
April 4,
shot rings out in the Memphis sky.
Free at last,
they took your life.
They could not take your pride.

The death threat was specific: if Bono started singing that verse, he would be killed before he finished it. That did not deter U2 from performing the song that evening. As Bono came to the 3rd verse, he closed his eyes and said he “sort of half kneeled.” He finished the verse and said the following:

“…it was only when I opened my eyes that I realized I couldn’t see the crowd. Adam Clayton was blocking the view, standing right in front of me. He’d stood in front of me for the length of the verse.”

Adam Clayton, U2’s bassist, stood in front of Bono for the entirety of verse 3. He was willing to lay down his life for his friend. In the name of love.

Bono Singing / Adam Clayton Right