Over the past few days, watching the TV coverage from Denver has been a fascinating experience, especially those long reports that attempt to answer the question, "Who is Barack Obama?" Each piece includes much coverage of his campaign, and what has struck me is that there's a distinctive soundtrack. It's U2. Always U2.
Early in his campaign, Obama chose U2's City of Blinding Lights as a campaign song. Later, when he'd won the nomination, and when he appeared recently with Senator Joe Biden, it was U2's Beautiful Day that boomed out at the public events.
Of course, all of these events are choreographed for a TV audience. The point is to get the clip, the report, on the TV news and use it as a commercial-by-proxy. Like any powerful commercial, the act of selling Obama and his message must have a catchy or uplifting musical accompaniment.
There's nothing casual about Obama's use of U2. If you go to the Internet to sites devoted to supporters of Obama, you'll find a subgroup called U2 Fans for Obama '08. And that group's mission statement is this: "Since Bono can't run for U.S. president, Obama is the next best thing. A group for those of us who see in Obama a progressive Christian who embodies the ideas and sentiments we find so compelling in U2's music."
Me, I find it unnerving...
The thing is, the power of the music is in its vagueness. It's about yearning, not achievement. It articulates aching needs. It is simultaneously all-meaningful and meaningless. As a selling tool, it's too vague. Beautiful Day is as powerful at a World Cup soccer game as it is at an Obama rally.
If it is used tonight, Obama is still only selling yearning, and he's not closing the deal. Like anyone selling something, he's got to be more concrete, to deal with the stony ground. Beautiful Day opens with "The heart is a bloom/ shoots up through the stony ground" and it's on the stony ground that elections are won. I don't think U2 closes the sale.
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