Needs more cowbell

It's almost midnight here, but I'm not asleep because I can't go to sleep until I've read, and I can't read because I'm about 100 pages away from the end of Book of Negroes and this book is so god damned depressing that I can't stand to read the rest. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic book, well researched, and with a really strong narrative voice in the main character; you just want to transport her through time to keep her safe and warm and give her back her freedom and dignity (not to mention her children). But I can tell that nothing good is going to happen between now and the end of the book and I just can't go on right now.

So, I'm playing on the Internet instead and I came across this acoustic cover of Get On Your Boots.



I really like it. It makes me wonder, though, The cover band (The Wrecking) uses two drummers, but U2 only has Larry [Mullen Jr.]. Does this mean that the song needs two drummers and that for the live performances they'll use backing tracks for some of the drums? Or, does it mean that Larry is as awesome as I have always suspected and he can do the work of two drummer boys?

Funny thing about me, but the name "Larry Mullen Jr." will forever be heard in my head as "Larry. Mullen. Junior." And if you care to know why, you should watch this performance of Angel of Harlem from the Rattle & Hum doc (I can't embed it, for some reason).

So, I've spent the last 20 minutes watching clips of Rattle and Hum, trying to find my favourites, but I want to put every single one up here. It's just too hard to choose. So I'll put this up, for no other reason that that I'd forgotten about this part of the movie. The song starts with a performance of Exit, which is one of the darkest, if not the darkest, U2 song. The album version starts off very slow, and quiet and it's very effective. I've read that this song was inspired by the works of Flannery O'Conner (if you're familiar with her, you'll know her writing is far from cheery), and what really makes it infamous is that there was a guy arrested for murder once who said that this is the song that told him to kill. The song ends in a cover of Van Morrison's Gloria. To me, the juxtaposition works.



And speaking of songs that make people kill, here's Bono taking back Helter Skelter.

Okay, I think that's enough copyright infringement for one night.