U2’s Bono and the Edge dipped into their back catalog during a six-song set last night (Oct. 21) as part of their Woody Guthrie Prize ceremony at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Ok., and even unveiled some lyrics for an in-progress song that may appear on their next album.
The duo rattled off “Running To Stand Still,” “Mothers of the Disappeared,” “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” “One,” “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “Yahweh” in addition to a cover of Guthrie’s “Jesus Christ,” and later sang some a capella lines from the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” when accepting the award.
The Woody Guthrie Prize is given annually to artists who “best exemplify Guthrie’s spirit and work by speaking for the less fortunate through music, film, literature, dance or other art forms and serving as a positive force for social change.”
“Bob Dylan really did bring us to the place where the song was an instrument to open up worlds,” Bono said. “And the world of Woody Guthrie, I wouldn’t have entered if not for Bob.” He added, “America is the greatest song still yet to be written. The poetry is there but it’s still being written … don’t imagine it will continue to be extraordinary on its own, that if you fell asleep and woke up in 20 years, the world would be fairer or freer. It won’t. That’s not the way it works.”
“Our favorite protest songs always had a sense of vision, something to aim for,” said the Edge. “You don’t talk about the darkness — you make the light brighter.”
During a protest song-oriented discussion with producer T Bone Burnett, Bono admitted, “you can’t write a song to order,” but then proceeded to recite lyrics from an unfinished song about the late Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen: “one father shot / three children crying / if there is no law / is there no crime / if there is no hope / what’s there to rhyme / history is written / one life at a time.”
It was the first concrete evidence of material intended for the follow-up to 2017’s Songs of Experience, a release date for which has not been announced.
U2 hadn’t set foot in Cain’s Ballroom since performing there on April 4, 1981. The band returned to Tulsa again in 1983 and 2018 and had previously joked that its members were looking “forward to legally buying their own pints this time around.”
Bono, Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. join past Guthrie Prize recipients including Pete Seeger, Mavis Staples, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen and 2024 honoree Tom Morello.