Bono And Me, We Were Going To Save The World

by Becca J.R. Lachman

 “I will see the flash for the rest of the day…So it’s part vanity, it’s part privacy, it’s part sensitivity.” –Bono in Rolling Stone on his signature colored glasses

Perhaps what we’re all missing
is purple sunglasses. Every pair
I buy now disappears within
the year, left by accident in music
practice rooms or wedged under
a car’s front seat. My ’95 Escort
blazoned with BONO316 on both its
plates since college, a kind of moving
prophet. I pretend this, more than
anything, keeps me safe.

My older sister gave me Paul
Hewson in junior high, introduced
me to my memoir in “With or Without
You.” Soon, it was a contest: who could
harmonize most with The Joshua Tree, or
want him more fiercely, that Irish rebel
with curling chest hair and no mama.

We assured our Mennonite parents
that the constant U2 bass line was fueled,
in fact, by Jesus. Ignore the leather pants
or guitars pulsing, we’d say. Just focus on
“the message”: the way a crowd of 40,000
lifts lighters for a round of alleluias, all
at Bono’s soft command. Believe us, they
believe in the good grit of the world
as the intro to “Where the Streets Have No
Name”—flares out just like light
on moving water.

Musical Contribution: “Bit of Green”

In Their Own Words

” ‘Bit of Green’ quite literally asked to be a song instead of a poem: its first line surfaced with melody and lyrics. I snuck into the auditorium at Otterbein University where I was a musical theater composition student to lay down the main piano and vocals–and later, surrounded by a sagging pillar of pastel egg-crate mattresses at a local studio, recorded the layered backing vocals.”

About

Becca J.R. Lachman grew up in Kidron, Ohio attending hymn-sings and–on the other end of the spectrum–writing musicals. She now teaches and tutors at Ohio University.  It has taken her far too many degrees in music, poetry, and theater to realize that art is a daily, daring education with no diploma. A recent graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, her choral music is available through Heritage Press/The Lorenz Corporation. Look for her first poetry collection (The Apple Speaks, Cascadia Publishing House) in March.