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U2's Rather Brilliant If Grammatically Questionable Single, Get On Your Boots
Australian Post Posted by Jess McGuire at 12:27 PM on January 20, 2009

As promised, Defamer Australia's resident U2 expert Elmo Keep has kindly reviewed the new single 'Get On Your Boots' for us. Without any further ado, let's hear what she thinks!

U2's Rather Brilliant If Grammatically Questionable Single, Get On Your Boots

Oh! Suffered has the U2 fan! You know what really sucked this past decade (apart from the obvious)? The last two U2 albums. Can we all just admit that now? If I wanted to hear watered down versions of the Joshua Tree (which I do not), then I assume that is what Coldplay is for. In short, if you liked those two albums, you will likely hate Get On Your Boots. Which is great! There's still plenty of Keane tickets for you.



Anyway! Does it sound like Pump It Up? Yes it does in the rapid-fire verses, quite a bit. Elvis Costello loves U2! So no need to worry about that. What's more worrying is that if you wanted to, you could make out the Escape Club's Wild Wild West in there too. Eesh.

Am I painting a picture, or what?

What it really sounds like is U2 slipping through a casual loop in time and meeting back up with the band who recorded Achtung Baby. Zooropa and Pop. Hey, those guys were really good! So knows from where the demos for this came, but U2's penchant for taking 27 years to make a record leads me to believe that this could easily have been left over from the Pop sessions. Edge really kills it on this track with a deeply processed, catchy riff which sounds a little like Discotheque (U2's last great single), and layers of similarly processed drums and super-fuzz bass give the song some real balls, which U2 have so severely lacked lately.

The chorus takes a weird, atonal turn, ("You don't know how beautiful you are") which is where you can hear the Moroccan influence producer Daniel Lanois was talking about. There's flamenco-ish acoustic guitars underneath, and Edge takes minimalism to new scarcities with a bent, chiming, six-note solo.

So, what is Bono talking about? In the proud tradition of nonsensical Bono lyrics, that is not often clear. There's rockets at the fun fair, Satan loves a bomb scare, candyfloss ice cream and ghosts that aren't real. Someone's stuff is blowing up, Bono's into growing up, and Hey! Sexy boots! Get on your boots! Yeah!

See, makes total sense.

LIKE I CARE. THIS SONG IS GENIUS.

What will be made most of (other than his wonderful take on a Wilhelm Scream about two minutes in) is Bono's line "I don't want to talk about the wars between the nations." NEITHER DO WE, BONO! YOU ARE A ROCKSTAR, REMEMBER. GOOD JOB. "Not right now." Oh right. In a minute then. It really wouldn't be Bono without epic, politicised gestures. Neither would it be Bono without some unfettered praise of women (who "are the future with the big revelations"), and sweetly clumsy mixed metaphors ("I got a submarine, you got the gasoline.")

It all ends on a long, half-time drum breakdown, with Bono chanting that he wants us all to "meet him in the sound! Yeah, hey HEY!" Which you should do, it's really rather good in there. Really! U2's pendulum has swung back to wacky experimentalism. Rejoice! I'm only mildly disappointed they didn't call it Sexy Boots. Song titles were never their strong suit.

Verdict: WIN. Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Even if the album tracklist does read like a McSweeneys list, I have faith that U2 will once again ride on the Unsuck Express. Also, Bono has cut his hair really short, which always means business.

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Don't let the bastards grind you down.