Joshua Tree, Bullet the Blue Sky, and 9/11

by editor Michele Catalano

I came into being a U2 fan by fate or circumstance or whatever you want to call it. I was volunteering at a radio station (WLIR FM) in 1980, when Denis, the program director, approached me with an album. “I have five copies to give away. Let’s get this band out there.” He handed me a copy of U2’s Boy. I’d heard “I Will Follow,” which was in heavy rotation at the station, but nothing else. I was intrigued. I really liked the song; it had a unique sound, one I would later associate with that time in my life. It was jangly yet urgent. The music was good, and I felt that they had something more to say. I wanted to hear the rest of the record.

That night, I gave away five copies to the “first five callers!” Sort of. The fifth “caller” was actually me. I put down my cousin’s name as a winner. The record would go to his address, and I would retrieve the album from him. I was scamming the station into giving me Boy. (I have never before told anyone this story. Let’s keep it between us.)

But the joke was on me. Once the album was sent out to my cousin, I had already lost at my own game. Because he listened to it when it arrived and told me there was no way he was letting go of it. I felt as if I had that coming to me. I sulked a bit, then went out and bought the album. It’s been my favorite U2 record ever since.

I kinda fell off U2 after War. I didn’t care for The Unforgettable Fire at all.  By the time Joshua Tree came out in 1987, I was long gone. I heard the songs on the radio. I heard people talking about it. But I was too busy listening to R.E.M., the Cure, and the Smiths to care about U2’s new album. That lasted until 2001.

I don’t remember the exact date. September 15 or 16, around there. That week, the days seemed to blend into each other. You woke up, watched the news, cried, felt hollow, watched more news, prayed, waited for the other shoe to drop. We were on edge, emotional, distraught. All of us. 

I attended quite a few services that week and afterward, as my father was NYFD and lost a lot of friends. But none seemed as harrowing as the memorial service I attended for a neighbor’s brother, who worked for the NYPD bomb squad. 

The service was held at the church of my childhood, a few blocks from my house. The church was so crowded that I had to park halfway down the block. I should have just walked. When I got to the church, the first thing I saw was several hundred uniformed cops lining the street, which was normal for a funeral for someone who was in his line of duty. What wasn’t normal were the sharpshooters poised on the roof of the church where I received my first Holy Communion. What wasn’t normal were the bomb sniffing dogs checking out the pews. What wasn’t normal was being fearful in church. 

As soon as I sat down, a woman walked down the aisle singing “Ave Maria.” I immediately felt like I was in a movie; a surreal, dreamlike state took over, almost dissociated from reality. Bagpipes played outside. A black helicopter hovered. Hundreds of people sat in the pews, stood in the back, gathered outside the doors. I remained in a mental stupor for the whole service, then gathered myself to head back to my car. I walked past the sharpshooters, past the dogs, “Ave Maria” and bagpipes ringing in my ears. I was shaking, I was numb, I was overwhelmed. 

I got in my car and sat there for a few minutes, practicing my panic attack breathing and trying not to cry. I turned the car on. The radio sputtered to life. 

One hundred. Two hundred

I paused.

And I can see those fighter planes

I had a sense that this was all part of the same script I was following inside the church. I was helpless at this point and let my emotions have their way with me. I started crying, deep, gulping sobs that I’d been holding in since the morning of 9/11, since finding out that one of my dad’s best friends was killed, and not hearing from my cousins, who were in the rubble looking for colleagues. I was more scared than anything else; scared that the attacks weren’t done, but also terrified of how America would retaliate. I let Bono accompany my sobs. 

Outside, it’s America

Outside, it’s America

I looked in my rearview mirror, where I could still see the roof of the church and the black helicopter and the bomb sniffing dogs and the people milling about, not sure of where to go or what to do now. Everyone was shell-shocked.

I put the car in drive, contemplating our immediate future, not consoled at all by our past. 

I went out the next day and bought Joshua Tree. I wanted to hear “Bullet the Blue Sky” again. And again. And again. It had been playing in my mind since that moment in the car, and I knew it would forever be a touchstone.

What I didn’t know was how much I would fall in love with the album, how the power of the other songs would override the angst of “Bullet the Blue Sky,” how it would make me feel something other than despair and anguish, and how Joshua Tree would also become a touchstone for me. I will never not think about that harrowing September day in my car when I listen to the record, but the rest of the album buoys me. “Trip Through Your Wires” and “In God’s Country” became all-time favorites. I allowed U2 into my life again at a time when I needed them. They answered the call.

I listened to “Bullet the Blue Sky” last night while thinking about this essay, trying to listen in the context of now, not 9/11. But I ended up thinking about both. The anxiety, the despair, the worry I felt back then, they’re all still here. They haven’t gone away. The source  has changed, but “Bullet the Blue Sky” stays relevant. It’s a timeless song, isn’t it?

Across the field you see the sky ripped open

See the rain through a gaping wound

Pounding on the women and children

Who run

Into the arms

Of America

Indeed.

I Have That on Vinyl is a reader supported publication. If you enjoy what’s going on here please consider donating to the site’s writer fund: venmo // paypal