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London Calling Podcast Yana Bolder
(Credits: Far Out / Spotify)
U2 frontman Bono has used music as a source of escapism as a writer and fan. It has the magical ability to transport him to a different place and mindset, which he still never takes for granted. His passion is still as fervent as when he became hooked on the art form upon discovering The Beatles as a child.
In his mind, music is a vessel that contains superpowers and allows listeners to get lost within a universe that is preferable to their current set of circumstances. An artist he admires for using songwriting to improve their life is Nile Rodgers, who, despite his difficult start to life, created art that oozes infectious positivity.
Rodgers grew up surrounded by addiction, which ran through his family and neighbourhood. He first started experimenting with glue at age 13, the same age his mother fell pregnant with him, and his life could have feasibly headed down a devastating path. Instead, his bohemian upbringing lit a match inside of him to live a life filled with creativity.
Many people in his position would have had their spirits dampened after witnessing the tragedies that littered his early life. However, Rodgers refuses to let it bring him down, and Bono finds this trait hugely admirable.
During an interview with Charlie Rose in 2013, Bono said of the Chic founding member: “Joy as an act of defiance. A pop song is an act of defiance. Nile Rodgers, he’s playing on these Daft Punk singles, I idolise him. He talks about (how) he came from a rough, rough place, and when he wrote ‘Good Times’ or ‘We Are Family’, it wasn’t where he came from, he wrote the future he wanted to live in. He wrote those so he could have those good times.”
Additionally, to mark his 60th birthday, Bono listed 60 of his favourite songs and shared open letters to the artists who created the masterpieces. He named the Daft Punk song ‘Get Lucky’, which features Rodgers on guitar, and said in his message to Nile: “You have been the holy host of some of my favorite songs ever… a prophetic figure. You didn’t have much of a family so you wrote WE ARE FAMILY. You weren’t having good times, so you wrote GOOD TIMES.”
Bono added: “You wrote songs so you could be in them, and that light touch is never better than on this one. You were across a few of my favourite songs ever… Thank you. How could I not be a fan of this collaboration?”
Although Bono has never worked with Rodgers in an official capacity, they have teamed up various times to perform at charity functions over the years. Watch the duo perform ‘Good Times’ with The Edge at the (RED) Auction in 2013 below.
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PORT TOWNSEND — The Salish Sea Early Music Festival will present “Renaissance Psalms, Irish Baroque and Folk: Three Centuries of Folk Song” at 2 p.m. Sunday. Oleg Timofeyev and Jeffrey Cohan will perform at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1020 Jefferson St. in Port Townsend. Admission is by a $20 to […]
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