U2’s Bono on his bike injury: "It is not clear that I will ever play guitar again"
“The band have reminded me that neither they, nor Western civilisation are depending on this,” writes Bono in a heartfelt but irreverent look back at 2014
Bono has revealed that he may never be able to play guitar again after a bicycle accident last November – but the U2 frontman is maintaining a sense of humour and perspective about the news...
“Recovery has been more difficult than I thought... As I write this, it is not clear that I will ever play guitar again,” the 54-year-old rock star writes in a blog on the band’s website entitled LITTLE BOOK OF A BIG YEAR: Bono's A to Z of 2014.
“The band have reminded me that neither they nor Western civilization are depending on this.”
Bono now has a titanium elbow and says the real injury was to his Irish pride thanks to his outfit choice on the day of the accident.
“I was wearing yellow and black Lycra cycling shorts. Yes, LYCRA. This is not very rock 'n' roll.” Although (look away now if you're squeamish) he does feel that waking up in New York Presbyterian "with my humerus bone sticking through my leather jacket" was “very punk rock as injuries go”.
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Bono says he’ll have to “concentrate hard” to be ready for the next U2 tour and as a result has cancelled all public appearances for the first half of 2015.
His A-Z, he says, is an attempt to learn from his mistakes. Namely that he is not an “armoured vehicle”, with bandmate The Edge saying he looks at his body as an inconvenience. “The problem, as I see it, is that I think my head is harder than any other surface.”
His alphabetical musings wander from religion via his family, a quick picture of said titanium elbow and of course, U2's decision to give away their recent album, Songs of Innocence, for free.
“Very annoying to people who a) like being annoyed, and/or b) felt it was like someone robbing their phone in the pub and taking a couple of photos before leaving it back on the table... some kind of breach of privacy which was really not intended.”
Bono also notes the excitement for the band of almost meeting one of their “all time idols” at the Oscars (yep, a photobombing Benedict Cumberbatch), and for the letter B he has a nice little chat about himself in third person:
“Talking about yourself in the third person is a little weird... But Bono embraces it. Bono thinks solipsism for an artist is like an overactive thyroid for a comedian; it's hard to fix if it's paying your way…"
By way of warning, the he notes of his long and wide-ranging blog: “If you do get to the end of it then you are probably on the same painkillers as me.”
