U2's Bono about Frank Sinatra in the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/opinion/11bono.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Read the whole thing to understand more fully how pompous Bono can be(big shocker, I know)

excerpt:

Interesting mood. The new Irish money has been gambled and lost; the Celtic Tiger’s tail is between its legs as builders and bankers laugh uneasy and hard at the last year, and swallow uneasy and hard at the new. There’s a voice on the speakers that wakes everyone out of the moment: it’s Frank Sinatra singing “My Way.” His ode to defiance is four decades old this year and everyone sings along for a lifetime of reasons. I am struck by the one quality his voice lacks: Sentimentality.

but later in the article:

The first was recorded in 1969 when the Chairman of the Board said to Paul Anka, who wrote the song for him: “I’m quitting the business. I’m sick of it. I’m getting the hell out.” In this reading, the song is a boast — more kiss-off than send-off — embodying all the machismo a man can muster about the mistakes he’s made on the way from here to everywhere.

In the later recording, Frank is 78. The Nelson Riddle arrangement is the same, the words and melody are exactly the same, but this time the song has become a heart-stopping, heartbreaking song of defeat. The singer’s hubris is out the door. (This singer, i.e. me, is in a puddle.) The song has become an apology.

To what end? Duality, complexity. I was lucky to duet with a man who understood duality, who had the talent to hear two opposing ideas in a single song, and the wisdom to know which side to reveal at which moment.

U2's Bono

That's the ilx font problem

Now I’m back in my own house in Dublin, uncorking some nice wine, ready for the vinegar it can turn to when families and friends overindulge, as I am about to. Right by the hole-in-the-wall cellar, I look up to see a vision in yellow: a painting Frank sent to me after I sang “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” with him on the 1993 “Duets” album. One from his own hand. A mad yellow canvas of violent concentric circles gyrating across a desert plain. Francis Albert Sinatra, painter, modernista.

http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo305/lejospopo/bono.jpg

Many NY Times commenters on their site like Bono's writing, but not all:

January 11, 2009 8:33 am
Link
I much prefer the late Phil Hartman's take on Sinatra. Bono's puffery can't touch the incisive honesty of Hartman-as-Sinatra's classic smackdown of Sting-as-Billy Idol: "I've got chunks of guys like you in my stool."

Not to mention his admonition to Adam Sandler-as-Bono: "We're done! Finito! So move along back to Dublin, find yourself a bottle to crawl into!"

Sounds like Bono here, doesn't it? If only the Chairman and Phil Hartman were still around to respond.

— wanderindiana, Indiana

bono's been peddling this stuff for years

i was going to say; how long is bono going to pimp that speech?

He related much more amusing Sinatra anecdotes to Bill Flanagan for the latter's U2 book.

I liked the audio version of Bono reading this - it adds another dimension.

This part's pretty great:

I said I had heard he was one of Miles Davis's biggest influences.

Little pithy replies:

"I don’t usually hang with men who wear earrings."

"Miles Davis never wasted a note, kid — or a word on a fool."

"Jazz is about the moment you're in. Being modern's not about the future, it’s about the present."

I love the image of Sinatra saying that line about "men who wear earrings" to Bono.

My mom, a Sinatra fan from Hoboken, did not like the column.

yr mom is correct it's a piss-poor piece of writing.

if he spent more than 20 minutes writing dictating this thing I'd be astonished. trotting out shopworn anecdotes abt fellow celebrities + claiming to a regular guy ("i go to pubs/get drunk") = how rockstars seduce gullible interviewers. can't wait til he weighs in on US politics.