"The Miracle" of U2 by June Imler

I was getting ready for bed, looking through music on my iPod to listen to so I could fall asleep. Being indecisive as usual, I just tapped “shuffle all” and climbed under my blankets. After a few familiar songs, I heard something I hadn’t heard before:

“Ba-ba-barbara

Santa Barbara…” (“California” 1-2)

My eyes flew open as I reached for my ipod, and turned it on to see an unfamiliar song and artist.

“‘California’ by U2,” I read in my head, “who’s U2?”

I swiped to the right, typed up the passcode, and saw the album: Songs of Innocence.

“Oh this is one of the albums my dad forgot to delete when he gave me this iPod,” I thought, reading some of the songs’ names, “ ‘California,’ ‘The Miracle (of Joey Ramone),’ Raised by Wolves,’ ‘Iris…’”

The song ended as I was looking through the album, a new song (‘The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)’) started, and I turned off my iPod.

My last thought before I drifted off to sleep was, “This album and band is  beautiful. Well, I think so, do U2? Ha ha ha ha……."

U2, formerly known as “The Larry Mullen Band,” “Feedback,” and “The Hype” was formed in 1976 when Larry Mullen (Jr.) posted a note on his school’s notice board (at Mount Temple Comprehensive School) looking for musicians to start a band. Six people responded: Paul Davidson Hewson (later nicknamed Bono), David Howell Evans (later nicknamed The Edge), Adam Clayton, Dik Evans (David Evan’s older brother), and Ivan Cormick and Peter Martin (both friends of Larry Mullen Jr.. Ivan quit after a few weeks and Peter only came to the first practice, where Larry tried to name the band after himself, but failed after Paul Hewson (Bono) came in. At first they named the new band “Feedback” because it was one of the only musical terms they knew, but changed it to “The Hype” after thinking of  other names. And as you could probably tell from their limited musical terminology , most of them were pretty inexperienced with instruments. They started out doing covers, but over time decided that they weren’t very good at it, and started writing their own songs. They were mainly influenced by punk rock, but as they got older and spent more time with each other as a band, their songs became more personal , often talking about spiritual imagery, personal and sociopolitical concerns and beliefs, and their experiences together. The band became “U2” after a concert where Dik Evans walked off the stage, leaving the remaining four members to play original material as “U2” (which was chosen because it was ambiguous, could be interpreted many ways, and was the least disliked out of the six names that Adam Clayton’s family friend and punk rock musician in the band The Radiators Steve Averill suggested. After that, U2 won a talent show in Limerick that gave them ￡500 in prize money and studio time to record a demo that would be heard by CBS Ireland (a record lable). That win was an important milestone for the band, and encouraged them to become  official. And after U2’s publication journalist Bill Graham introduced the band to Paul McGuinness, who agreed to become their band manager, they started recording and performing/touring all across Ireland and the world.

In their song “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone),” U2 uses the literary devices allusion, rhyme, and irony (situational and verbal) throughout the song to convey the theme, good things can happen to people who need it, even if they don’t believe in it.

By using allusions, U2 helps the listeners understand that good things can happen to people who need it, even if they don’t believe in it. In the chorus, U2 talks about the title of the song, “The Miracle,” and describes it as such: “I woke up at the moment when the miracle occurred/Heard a song that made some sense out of the world” (“Miracle” 15-16 and 28-29) In this line U2 alludes to the “miracle,” which refers to the moment when someone comes out of depression. This reveals the theme that good things can happen to people who need it, even if they don’t believe in it, because if you have depression you usually don’t think you’ll ever be happy again, which is why the miracle of happiness doesn’t seem realistic to those with depression (they don’t believe in it). But in order to understand the allusion,you have to know about depression, which is why U2 targeted this song (and album) to adults and teenagers, because they would know about it.

By using rhyme, U2 helps the listeners understand that good things can happen to people who need it, even if they don’t believe in it. In the pre-chorus U2 talks about before the “miracle:”

I was young,

Not dumb,

Just wishing to be blinded

By you,

Brand new,

And we were pilgrims on our way (“Miracle” 9-14 and 22-27)

In the line “I was young/Not dumb” (9-10 and 22-23), U2 is using rhyme to contrast the idea that young people are stupid and/or clueless with how U2/Bono thought of himself. This reveals the theme that good things can happen to people who need it, even if they don’t believe in it because if you’re young you often do things oblivious to the consequences, so even while they’re young and NOT dumb, they can do things on accident that changes something for the better, even if they didn’t believe they could make an accident obliviously.

U2 also uses situational and verbal irony to convey the theme that good things can happen to people who need it, even if they don’t believe in it. In the second verse U2 talks about how we use things like language and religion differently than you would think:

“We got language so we can’t communicate,

Religion so I can love and hate,

Music so I can exaggerate my pain, and give it a name” (“Miracle” 19-21)

In this verse U2 uses irony so that the audience is surprised by how U2 talks about how language, religion, and music are used in a way that the audience wouldn’t expect, because they expect U2 to talk about them in a positive way. This reveals the theme that good things can happen to people who need it, even if they don’t believe in it because good things can come out of the most unexpected places/things, like a miscommunication with an insufficient language (that you can’t communicate with) that turns into something good.

A particular strength in “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)” is how U2 sings expressively so that the listeners really get a sense of how big the ”miracle” was. With the background voices, Bono’s emotional singing, and the electric guitar, there’s a sense of revelation that helps the listeners understand the song’s message.

While U2’s sound is very expressive, their music video overexaggerates it by using colors that would give someone a migraine and dizzying shots. U2 is overdramatizing the “miracle” and taking you out of the song. And even though the song itself is fabulous, the video doesn’t match the song’s message because of its overwhelming graphics. By the end of the song I had a  headache.

All in all, U2 created a magnificent song that strongly conveys the theme that good things can happen to people who need it, even if they don’t believe in it to the audience. With its dark verses representing (being in) depression and the beautiful choruses and pre-choruses representing the “miracle” or revelation, the song can connect with many people’s stories of going through depression. And as  long as there are people suffering with depression, there should always be someone there to support them so they could get through it like in “The Miracle,” because anyone and everyone can make a difference, no matter how small it might be.