U2 and Me

Puppet Life

I was an NME writer once and, like most NME writers, I wasn’t a fan of 80s band U2. Maybe it was the music, or Bono’s enthusiastic personality but they seemed somehow loud and annoying. But Bono was also engaging and funny (and a U2 cover sold papers): once, after yet another scathing piece, he sent my NME collaborator Steven Wells an axe, with the words LET’S BURY THE HATCHET written on the shaft.

When I started writing for Spitting Image, U2 seemed an obvious choice for a song parody, so I wrote one. Producer Geoffrey Perkins liked it and I went up to Central TV in Birmingham to see it filmed. It’s not a masterpiece but I liked it.

And then I went to see U2 on the Zooropa tour (they were briefly cool so it was OK). Banks of monitors played videos of the band - and one of the videos was my Spitting Image song.

Bono was good as a lion in Sing 2 as well.

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