Bono – U2 Frontman Says He May Never Play Guitar Again

Last night, U2 frontman, Bono, put out a New Year’s blog post of sorts on the bands official website chronicling the ups and downs of a tumultuous year in his life. In the blog post, entitled Little Book of a Big Year: Bono’s A to Z of 2014, Bono spoke frankly about his recent bike accident in New York City and what it may mean for his musical future.

Bono started off the post by talking about his inability to move.

“For the last few weeks I haven’t been able to move around physically so I have more than made up for it by leaving my mind to wanderlust, untethered except electronically…”

The U2 frontman said that he has been trying to write some songs, but it’s been difficult. Bono next went on to speak about the cause of his injury and alludes to having no memory of the accident in Central Park.

“On the day of my 50th birthday I received an injury because I was over indulging in exercise boxing and cycling, which was itself an overcompensation for overindulging on alcohol coming up to the big birthday. I promised myself I would be more mindful of my limits, but just four years on, it happened again—a massive injury I can’t blame on anyone but myself, mainly because I blanked out on impact and have no memory of how I ended up in New York Presbyterian with my humerus bone sticking through my leather jacket. Very punk rock as injuries go.”

Bono is very frank in the blog post about just how difficult his recovery has been and also gives an ominous outlook as to his future guitar playing.

“Recovery has been more difficult than I thought… As I write this, it is not clear that I will ever play guitar again. The band have reminded me that neither they nor Western civilization are depending on this. I personally would very much miss fingering the frets of my green Irish falcon or my (RED) Gretsch. Just for the pleasure, aside from writing tunes. But then does the Edge, or Jimmy Page, or any guitarist you know have a titanium elbow, as I do now? I’m all elbows, I am.

In his A to Z look at the last year, Bono does mention the iTunes debacle from a few months ago, when their latest album, Songs of Innocence, was given away for free to anyone that possessed iTunes. The album digitally just showed up in your playlist. The free album had many people up in arms, completely offended that they were given a free album “without their consent.” About that, Bono gave his opinion.

“Our album was to be like a bottle of milk dropped at the door of anyone interested in music and iTunes. As I understand it, the journey from the front door to the fridge and into what to some people felt was their bowl of cereal has something to do with a switch called “automatic download” — if you turn it on, you sign up for being pushed stuff. That’s about it…no flagrant abuse of human rights, but very annoying to people who a) like being annoyed, and/or b) felt it was like someone robbing their phone in the pub and taking a couple of photos before leaving it back on the table… some kind of breach of privacy which was really not intended.”

By his message, it sounds like Bono is going to do everything he can to get back into form by the time U2’s next tour starts. As such, he states in the post that he’ll be dropping all public appearances and obligations for the first half of 2015 so he can devote himself totally to rehabilitation.

[Image via Difundir]