What was really shocking about the recording was how they’d inserted a speech clip of Bush Sr. (8:59) castigating Clinton for the stupidity of meeting with the “rock growp”, U2, effectively counterpointed with campaigning governor Bill Clinton calling them on live radio while on the campaign trail. It made her gasp. “You just lost the youth vote”, she thought of Bush, for not knowing the difference, and telling Clinton he could go consult “Boy George” on foreign policy. He thought he was slamming Clinton when it could only turn on himself. This person who had gotten away with using the lie of babies removed from incubators in order to invade a country, concocted by a PR firm from New York, finally something had bit him back. -Astonishing. It had nothing to do with the band in the sense that they hadn’t supported either candidate. It was that George Sr. or someone in his campaign had thought a good slam could be made of the fact that Clinton had bothered to meet with the band when the tour coincided with Clinton on the campaign trail, and Clinton had made a point of meeting them when they were in the same hotels in two different instances.
Then they had that absolute barnburner Thanksgiving Prayer by William Burroughs to introduce what, set list considered, would have been expected to be the second half. (Note how here the clip is banned in the United States, whereas notably the rest of the playlist is not (and based on the cited issue, should have been). Hence I cannot resolve whether this poem was excised from the MTV-US broadcast, as, ironically, it is in all probability still being removed. Censure only exists if you are looking, eh? Think of the implication of countering that poem directly with the soaring escape to transcendence of “Where the Streets Have No Name”.)
U2 were in form; she was inestimably proud of their audacity. The show was aborted before the hour was out. After Burroughs and “Where the Streets Have No Name” it jumped to the last song “Desire” and the closing credits. It felt like the show had been aborted, where was the rest? U2 had definitely stepped on some toes; the VJ made no secret of it; he groused at what had just happened. Certainly the Pat Kenny interference segment and “When Love Comes to Town” got dropped, and you have to question what else (considering the performance itself, it was quite a lot).
