U2ube Video of the Week #7: "Exit"

So, there's enough going on personally right now that I could probably fill 5 very long posts, but I just don't fucking have it in me. I know I've been spotty lately and you'll just plain have to forgive me. In lieu of anything clever, well-thought or insightful, here's an entry in the ongoing U2ube series...

"The Joshua Tree" was an album so Side-1-heavy with miraculous singles and unforgettable tunes that by the time Side 2 came around you were almost too spent to continue. Sticking with it, however, delivered the greatest rewards of the album as well as the defining moments of what would become (arguably) the band's greatest work.

For years, even with exceptional bands, the content of the flipside of a record (or cassette) sometimes seemed like an afterthought. Most often the singles were the best songs the band had to offer and they were almost always loaded disproportionately on the album's first side. Not so with U2. In fact, I think most die-hard fans would agree that U2 are truly an album band. That the front-to-back journey is greater than the sum of its parts. And I think they would also agree that many of their greatest achievements wait patiently for attentive listeners on the other side.

This has always been the case with me at least. I can't help but think of Side 2 masterpieces like "Electric Co.", "40", "Bad", "Acrobat", "Love Is Blindness", "Please", "In a Little While", etc. as being where the true gems in their canon really lie. And that they are often the songs that best exemplify why we listen to the band in the first place.

This was never more true than on "The Joshua Tree". Both lyrically and sonically every song reinforces and expands on what was only hinted at on Side 1. Side 2 puts you in that desert. Metaphorically and spiritually, yes. But, physically. It dries you out and fills you up all at the same time. And for me, "Exit" has always been the penultimate track from that leg of the journey.

On the album, it often gets overlooked. The murky, muted, barely-there production and nearly gothic lyrical content - something about a wayward preacher with a pistol in his pocket and a sky full of nails - were a little abstract and confounding for newer fans. But the furious, bombastic payoff at the end makes that black desert trek worth every step.

I was 13 and already a hardcore fan when the band rolled through the only "nearby" town that was big enough to host them, Kansas City. My brother was a freshman in college and promised me early on that he would take me. He ended up going down on a bus with a bunch of college friends instead. (Don't worry, bro. It's not like it's something I'll NEVER GET OVER or anything.)

Luckily for me, the tour was captured in the concert-film-cum-documentary "Rattle & Hum". I went to see it on opening night with a girl I totally had a crush on at the time. (Remember that, Akerberg?) I was nervous and self-concious as the movie started, but everything changed at the point in the film when I heard the first dark, slinky, tremoloed strains of "Exit". The song became an entirely different beast live. I remember the thrill of seeing that performance like I remember my first orgasm. (Remember that, hand?) It nearly lifted me out of my seat. To this day, it remains in my top 3 all-time favorite U2 tracks.

The band hasn't played the song live since the "Lovetown" Tour in 1989 and probably won't any time soon. Which is a real shame.

Thank God we have this to remember it by...

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