24 September 1988
Dunk a-dunk a-dunk, a-dunk-dunk! That’s the Bo Diddley beat, a staple of rock music since the man himself popularised it in the ’50s, and a proven crowd-pleaser. For example, in 1987 it was used by George Michael on his worldwide massive retro rock ‘n’ roll hit with a one-word abstract-noun title, ‘Faith’. So, along with the other icons U2 leeched off in their 1988 Rattle And Hum project (The Beatles, Elvis, B.B. King, Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday) we can add the former lead singer of Wham! Edge, play the blues!
Okay, so originality was never a key concept to Rattle And Hum anyway. I actually prefer ‘Desire’—U2’s first UK number one single—to the singles off The Joshua Tree. As I said, that Bo Diddley beat is always a winner. Adam gets an actual bassline, and a pretty snazzy one at that. And the video (below) is a quaint time capsule of the ’80s trope of Irish and UK acts filling their videos with then-exotic Americana such as Americans and America. What lets it down is, of course, Bono: his breathy, throaty singing that strains to be macho and authentic; his clunky, cliched lyrics which he delivers as if they were Bible verses; his vaguely Americanised vocal mannerisms (“aw-rait!”). I don’t mind his harmonica playing at the end so much, as it stops him singing. Play more harmonica, Bono, is my message. At least ‘Desire’ gives us a welcome break from U2’s more overtly Christian rock – even if it still leans heavily on ‘Faith’.
