Music
27 Jan 16

Bono Pays Tribute To David Bowie

The U2 frontman has talked to Rolling Stone about his relationship with an artist, who was one of the great icons of the 1970s...

U2 frontman Bono has paid tribute to the late David Bowie. In a special memorial issue of Rolling Stone magazine, he described Bowie as his idea of a rock star: “So vivid. So luminous. So fluorescent."

In what is a moving tribute, the U2 singer shares his recollections of the London-born star, from growing up on the north side of Dublin listening to his music to meeting him in person, when U2 were recording Achtung Baby.

Bono offered an interesting perspective. Although he has "played at being a rock & roll star" he isn't really one, the U2 man claimed. To him, Bowie is the perfect rock star.

"Right now, I'm in Myanmar, a little cut off from the reaction to David's passing,” he is quoted as saying, "but I can assure you the sky is a lot darker here without the Starman."

Bono became friends with Bowie after U2 became successful. Indeed Bono credits Bowie with helping to guide the band along the way. "He came and visited us when we were mixing Achtung Baby,” Bono recalls. “And, of course, he had introduced us to Berlin and to Hansa Studio. We had a playful sort of banter – he would really go there in conversations, and we would even occasionally hurt each other's feelings."

Bowie didn't pull his punches when it came to voicing his opinions, and made some negative remarks about the Broadway musical which Bono wrote with The Edge, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.

"He took his daughter to a matinee,” Bono confesses, "and he sent me the reasons he didn't like it and everything he said was really helpful, because it was in the early days of the show."

Bono reached out to Bowie on his birthday this year – which was just two days before he passed away, on January 10th, 2016.

"I sent him a picture of myself and Jordan toasting him on his birthday,” Bono says. "I sent him a long email, and I sent him a beautiful poem by Michael Leunig called Love and Fear — one line goes, 'there are only two feelings/love and fear.'

"I didn’t hear back,” Bono concludes sadly, "but I was told he got it."

The full text of Michael Leunig’s Love and Fear is as follows...

Love and Fear (by Michael Leunig)

There are only two feelings, love and fear:

There are only two languages, love and fear:

There are only two activities, love and fear:

There are only two motives, two procedures,

Two frameworks, two results, love and fear,

Love and fear