Comparing U2's "Invisible" vs. "One"

Asking my students to use their ears, their brain and their heart

EDITOR’S NOTE: Hi, folks…took a little birthday break. Gave my loyal readers a chance rest their eyes, catch up, enjoy the weekend. With school starting all over the place. I remembered an important moment — and assignment — for my kids. Thanks, NOGO

The start of any school year, even for a veteran teacher, is a mixed bag. On the one hand, generally speaking you’re excited to start the year — if you’re not, you oughta stay home. At the same time, the things that sap your strength and enthusiasm — faculty meetings, lesson plans, going to the book room way the hell across campus in 100 degree weather, are a drag.

Setting up your classroom is usually fun. Maybe you found a new poster or decided to teach something new. And always in my room — you can ask my neighbors — I had music cooking.

I can still remember the morning when I was playing U2’s “new” single “Invisible”, a song I saw them perform on the chilly roof of 30 Rock on Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show” and it kicked in. The lyrics, that is. In a profound way.

“There’s only us,” Bono sings over a surging, insistent melody. “There is no them. There’s only you. And there’s only me. There is no them.”

U2's "One" and "Invisible" - Asking the kids which was more important!

I was standing on a chair at the time, putting up a picture of Muhammad Ali and I immediately climbed down and started the song again, marveling at how — to me at least — Bono found a way, lyrically to finally say what he had sung about on a previous album, “Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around The World.’

“There is NO THEM.” A simple phrase but with what weight! "No ‘Them’ — you know, those Communists, Marxists, Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives, MAGAs, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Caucasians…” No more categories!

“There’s only you. And there’s only me.” Wow. The idea of reducing a turbulent, divisive, ever-struggling world full of contentious issues, built-in conflicts and age-old gripes down to just this — you and me, you and the other person next to you — trying to survive and thrive in a world that isn’t particularly welcoming. We’re BOTH struggling, that song seemed to say. We have way more in common than we think. It was a beautiful, idealistic sentiment and one I thought they could relate to.

Why, I just couldn’t wait to share that with my students, almost all of whom were minorities and, understandably, were familiar with the concept of “them.” “Those kids from Gadsden County” or “Them, those undocumented immigrant kids.”

To get them to hear Bono’s healing, embracing words, maybe that would help them find their place in the world. He was on to something in that song, something I applied to me — and to them.

“I’m more than you know. More than you see here. More than you let me be.”

Then, as I thought about how to use it in the classroom, something told me to contrast it with U2’s earlier song “One” — a complex song of healing, of building and sustaining a relationship, a very personal song, a number that came to them in what had been a difficult and divisive recording session in Berlin, a song that may well have saved U2.

I’d used that song before. I’ll call a student up to my desk, usually a really shy girl and ask the class to imagine we were a couple. That was always good for a few laughs.

Then I’d recite a few lines from the song, “We’re one (meaning we’re a couple) but we’re not the same. (Always good laughs on that one) We hurt each other, then we do it again…” (They could imagine that, easily enough, many of them in single-parent families) Then, I’d softly put my arm on the young lady’s shoulder and say “We’re one but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other, carry each other. One.”

That idea of carrying one another at varying times in the relationship, I wanted that to stick. Then the amazing finish where Bono, like a cameraman, pulls back the lens for a wide angle view: “One life with each other — Sisters, brothers. One life but we're not the same. We get to carry each other, carry each other. One.”

Of course, I’d have to get my students and their writing to a place where they could tackle a heavy topic like that? But what the heck? What’s teaching a class for but to challenge them, make them think about what’s important and what isn’t.

Honestly, I’m not exactly sure how I would have answered that question myself. Both ideas are important. Both make them think about their own personal values (my idea!) and to try to stake out a place in their head and heart where they wanted to go.

The writing ended up being almost perfectly divided between the two songs. And once I told them to start writing, there wasn’t a bit of hesitation by any of them. (Also a good sign.)

A day or two later, one of my delightfully smart-assed students came up and proudly showed me her phone. She had added U2’s “Invisible” to her list of favorite songs.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s really cool. I’m impressed.”

“Hey, I’m more than you know, Mr. Nogo,” she quipped back, quoting the U2 song.

She was right.

THE VIDEO OF U2’s “One”

THE VIDEO OF U2’s “INVISIBLE”

THE ACTUAL ASSIGNMENT - AS HANDED OUT

TODAY’S ASSIGNMENT: Which song is more important and why? Explain the differences between the two songs.

(BACKGROUND INFORMATION)

ONE: Rated by Rolling Stone Magazine as U2’s best song.

In a catalog devoted to exploring romantic love, spiritual faith and social justice, no single U2 song unites all these themes as potently as this supreme soul ballad. “It’s [about] coming together, but not the old hippie idea of ‘Let’s all live together,'” Bono said. “It is, in fact, the opposite. It’s saying, ‘We are one, but we’re not the same’ … [and] we have to get along together in this world if it is to survive.” The lyrics, informed by tensions within U2 at the time, “fell out of the sky, a gift,” recalled Bono. “‘One,’ of course, is about the band.” The music, born of paired Edge guitar riffs, was painstakingly sculpted by producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, who added tension to the gentle beauty. The result is an immaculate balance of the intimate and anthemic. The understated rhythm section and Edge’s rainbow hues map Bono’s journey from the near-whispered opening (“Is it getting better?”), to the bridge where he declaims “love” in a cracked holler, to the falsetto outro, all pain and fierce hope. “One” reflects many geopolitical rifts – it was recorded in Germany, as the Cold War was coming to an end, and mixed in Ireland. Bono later recalled “going around Europe when stuff was going on in Bosnia, sometimes 300 miles from where we were playing.” Released as a single to benefit AIDS research, it spoke to families riven by the disease and to all embattled lovers. Singers from Johnny Cash to Mary J. Blige have covered it, Michael Stipe memorably sang it at an MTV event celebrating Bill Clinton’s inauguration, and Axl Rose called it “one of the greatest songs that’s ever been written,” adding that, when he first heard it, “I just broke down crying.”

“THERE IS NO THEM, ONLY US” LEARNING FROM U2’S “INVISIBLE”

Last night, as millions were watching the Superbowl, U2 launched their new single “Invisible.” Everything about this song is what fans like myself have come to expect from U2 – both the song and its release pushing us to see those whom we otherwise might not notice (and raising some money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS in the process – as Bank of America has pledged $1/ per itunes download). In Evangelium Gaudium 53, Pope Francis explains that we must be concerned not just with exploitation but with exclusion. The excluded are “thrown away;” it is as if they do not exist as human persons, they simply do not count.  They are invisible – and yet, their voices call out to the Lord – and we, like Cain, respond “Am I my Brother’s keeper?  Am I my Sister’s keeper?” There is much we can learn from prayerfully reflecting on Pope Francis’s repeated use of the Cain and Able story…but, for now I’d us to prayerfully reflect on what U2’s new song “Invisible” can teach us about human dignity and the one human family. The song includes two refrains and both of them poetically push us to a deeper understanding  justice, inequality, participation, and solidarity.   I’m more than you know/ I’m more than you see here
I’m more than you let me be
I’m more than you know / A body & A Soul
You don’t see me but you will/
I am not invisible / I am Here.  

Poverty for many means death.  Bono and the other members of U2 have long been advocates against extreme poverty and in fighting the global aids pandemic. The dignity and gift of each human person is “more than you know” and if she  is invisible – why? This song challenges us to look into our own hearts – why do we not see our neighbors? Why do we not see the persons suffering? Beyond that, the indictment “I am more than you let me be” is not an individual one, it is a collective judgment upon the global power structure which values some and throws away others. Am I prepared to make visible the ways in which I perpetuate and benefit from this allocation of resources and power? In a 2012 speech to students at Georgetown, Bono challenged the almost a thousand students present to see the invisible. “Because when you truly accept that those children in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you in God’s eyes or even in just your eyes, then your life is forever changed, you see something that you can’t un-see.” Once I recognize that you have human dignity, that you are a child of God, that you are the image of Christ – I cannot un-see that. Recognizing the human dignity of someone who has been thrown away or is invisible means accepting that they are valued, that they are human and that their value is in no way tethered to their usefulness. When Pope Francis points to the move from exploitation to complete marginalization – which relegates millions to invisible he recognizes that extreme global and national inequality erects barriers to seeing persons in poverty. Instead we set up barriers between “us” and “them.”  However, as U2 reminds us:                                                                  There is no them / only us/ only us
there is no them / only us / only us
There is no them / only you, only me
There is no them.                           This is what it means to be human. We are One Human Family. One human family, united against hunger is this year’s Caritas Internationalis theme — there is only us.