Larry Lootsteen, Conestogo, Ontario, Canada

As U2 fans, we are most certainly all music fans.  We cannot be otherwise.  We all listen to U2 but we also listen to many other types and forms of music.  Some, like me, become somewhat obsessive.  I take a great deal of selfish pride in searching out new music.  Others focus on a few bands.  Some, only one.

So that got me thinking about why.  Why do we love U2?  Why do we love the music we love?  When there are SOOOO many different types and styles of music, what connects us to it?

Some of it is most certainly mood related.  Some angry music when we are in a bad mood.  Moody, dark, sullen tracks when we are hurting.  High intensity, beat driven when we are manic.  Soaring, beautiful melodies when we are feeling good.

To me, all music, no matter the style has to come from somewhere.  Our imaginations produce myriads of ideas.  Is that as simple as a few chemical combinations in our brains producing things which we had never imagined before today?

Music, like many aspects of our lives, is a mystery.

And what then, when people work together and the combination of thought, personality and ideas somehow mange to produce something more than the individuals could have ever assembled separately.  How does that work?  Does the introduction of ideas from multiple sources trigger different brain responses?  Or as U2 often says, does 'God walk through the room'?  Are those two ideas ultimately the same thing?

Love.  Yet another mystery, seems to play into it.  And you might say 'Hey how does screamo metal have anything to do with love'?  Not every song is about love.  But to produce a really great song in any genre requires love.  Love of music.  Love of creation.  Love of imagination.

I don't have an ultimate answer.  Maybe one day we will, whether God, brain chemisrty, pheromones or whatever.  All I know is that I'm thankful each day for this mystery.  And the mystery of what our favourite band might deliver us this time floats on the ether of the universe, ready to tell us a new story and connect to our lives in the many ways that it can.