Let’s have a quick appreciation for my favorite band, U2, a bunch of guys in their sixties producing music (Carnival De Luz, their new album) that is as fresh and exciting as anything I’ve heard in the last few years. Yes, I’m throwing down the gauntlet here. My guys in their retirement years are producing work that is simply spectacular. I’m not going to bore you with a history of U2 or my fandom or whatever. We’re simply going to dissect one song. The song in question is the song that opens the album, Go (Carnival De Luz).

Did you listen? What did you think? Was it what you expected? Or was it something different? Did it hurt your ears? Did you get into the groove of it? What happened when you listened to it?

Part of my own goal in live is to be one of the most creative human beings on the planet. I’m sure you’ve all heard me say this a billion times. When I was young, I vowed never to stop trying to be creative. I always thought that I would listen to the newest music, watch the most avant garde movies, and appreciate the finest, most experimental art that lived in the world around us.

Then, I got old.

I’m not that old, mind you. But as you age, your brain starts to settle a bit and you fall into set patterns and ways. That whole thing about always liking new music? Yeah, I hate modern music, and I have my reasons and those reasons are vast. Most new music nowadays sounds like a weird rehash of past music, run through an AI/algorithm-based blender to produce TikTok-ready singles that are good for the short attention spans of Gen Z, Y, or Alpha. It’s awful. So, I’ve failed in my first mission.

The second? I dislike 99% of all movies I see nowadays. Movies like The Drama or Obsession are just boring to me, and they were a couple of the most popular films this year. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve seen it all, and the people who are creating these films are merely echoing what they think audiences will like, without having the life experience to actually make something that audiences will like. Again, it’s an echo of entertainment, not actual entertainment!

And art? Well, I was off from the beginning with that one. Though I did like it when that guy taped that banana to the wall, and Banksy rules.

So, we all start to falter as we get older. Just as our joints get stiffer and don’t want to bend as we age, so too does our brain. We no longer want new things. We want things to be the old way, which is infinitely more comfortable than the new way. That’s half the reason Trump was elected…people wanted to go back to the old way (which wasn’t great in the first place, but age puts blinders on us. How could we make America great again when it wasn’t so hot to begin with?).

So with my band, U2, I was expecting an album with more of the same. They haven’t made an album in ten years and their last two albums were full of hit-chasing, zeitgeist pablum that wanted to be everything to everyone and turned out to be nothing to no one. They kind of went into a shell after their last album, focusing on two tours that celebrated their past rather than looking to the future. It took them ten years to make this new one. I imagined them spending those ten years meticulously working to recreate the past; to seek out that one hit that would make everyone love them again; to do everything they could to avoid looking different from what they were.

What a pleasant surprise this first song was.

To be quite frank, it’s just weird. For something as sonically interesting as this to be the first song on their new album is a statement, especially from a band whose youngest member is sixty-five years old. I attributed a lot of this to my personal hero, Brian Eno, who is also, at his advanced age, constantly challenging the norms and the status quo.

I want to be this adventurous when I’m in my sixties. Hell, I want to be this adventurous now. When I hear a song like this, I hear a creative freedom that 99% of the world’s population simply cannot comprehend. Imagine making this. Imagine adding layers to this. Imagine singing over the top of this. Can you? Can you imagine playing that descending bass line towards the end of the song and knowing that you’re creating that yourself? Imagine sitting in the room and clapping along to the song at such a sustained speed for the entirety of the thing.

I want to be in the room when these things are being created.

But I know that will never happen. So what I have to do is use musical moments like this to inspire my own creativity. What does it mean to be punk in this day and age, when we are so algorithmically numbed to the world that even punk seems bland? What does it mean to push the envelope of being a creative human being on the level of Ai Wei Wei or Banksy? This is why these people are special.

I tell my students all the time to try to copy great things, because when you try to copy great things, the ways in which you fail are what make you a unique artist! All of those flaws as you attempt to capture something great are what make you you. We get so bogged down in our little lives that we rarely attempt to dream big anymore. What this song makes me want to do is just that. I want the canvas to be as big as the world; I want the music to go up to eleven; I want to see things on a movie screen that I never could have imagined myself.

Whether you like U2 or not, you have to admire the fact that, even at this age, they are still trying to create something sonically interesting. And I use a song like this as inspiration to try to take those risks in my day-to-day, all to make my life a bit more extraordinary.

Sometimes, a song is just a song; a movie is just a movie; a work of art is simply a work of art. But sometimes, it’s more. Sometimes, it’s a point on the Tree of Life that you aspire to reach. Sometimes, it’s the catalyst for greater things than yourself. Sometimes, it will rouse you to get up off of your couch and do something else with your day than you originally planned to do. You might listen to Go and think it’s complete crap. But you can’t deny that it’s daring; that it’s challenging; and that it’s an example of everything we strive to live our lives by as human beings; pushing boundaries, blazing new trails, and trying to seize the moment that we’re in.

The rest of the album is great. But the first song is daring.

I challenge you to go out and do something daring this weekend.