I probably bought my copy of Achtung Baby in late 1999 or 2000, as either a senior in high school or an undergraduate. I enjoyed it, because the album included several timeless songs that I'd been hearing on the radio for years - notably One and Mysterious Ways. I'd undergone a sort of radical religious conversion a few years earlier, and contemporary Christian music having more or less bottomed out late in my high school years, I was looking for something to fill that artistic void in my spiritual life. I received the Elevation 2001: U2 Live from Boston DVD for Christmas of 2001, and this opened my eyes to the deeper meanings of the songs not only on Achtung Baby, but throughout U2's lengthy catalog. Until the End of the World was a love letter from Judas to Jesus? Mysterious Ways was about the Holy Spirit? The real clincher for me was the sheer depth of The Fly, blending C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones, William Golding's Lord of the Flies, and a touch of Dante's Divine Comedy?
What else didn't I know about the world?
In the short term, this discovery of the depth of meaning that I'd been missing not only in U2's work, but potentially in other works of art, blew my mind in a way that I suspect many people only experience by way of experimenting with hallucinogens. I didn't need any controlled substances - just listening to Achtung Baby became a trip for me. Without making the decision for me, these revelations nudged a decision that would impact the course of the rest of my life. In the longer term, Achtung Baby, and particularly The Fly, reoriented the way that I thought about the world: understand your adversary, and that adversary loses their power. Among other influences, The Fly played a huge role in me learning to understand, and then embracing, people and cultures that I'd have previously considered to be my enemy. For me, it was that transformational.
My life took a major turn in 2005, when I graduated from college, spent a year looking for a real job, and struck out with a series of romantic interests. Meanwhile, The Fly's traditional performances from the ZooTV era ev-olv- ed.
The band has been performing those twelve songs since 1991, to include their epic multi-year world tour that kicked off in February of 1991 in Lakeland, Florida, and ended in December of 1993 in Tokyo. Below are my favorite versions of these twelve songs.
Thirty years. Amazing. Lots to reflect on. Maybe, one of these days, I'll post about my experiences with The Joshua Tree and the season of my life spent in the Mojave Desert.
