Book SummarySurrender, by Bono

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Surrender

In 1976, a teenage Irish schoolboy nicknamed “Bono” answered a classmate’s call for auditions to join a new band he was forming. Ten years later, that band—U2—was a global sensation whose musical career was still only just beginning. As U2’s lead singer, Bono leveraged his international fame as a rock star to become a voice for activist groups fighting poverty, hunger, and the AIDS epidemic. At the same time, he became a family man while pushing U2 to be creative and explore new styles of music.

Bono’s memoir, Surrender, published in 2022, tells the story of his life, from his childhood in Dublin, Ireland, to the formation and success of U2, to his...

Surrender Summary An Irish Adolescence

Paul “Bono” Hewson was born in Dublin, Ireland, on May 10, 1960. Though he was interested in music from a young age, his direction in life was also defined by family trauma and his growing Christian faith. Bono recalls how his childhood was shaped by the death of his mother, his introduction to evangelical Christianity, and the adolescent friendships that would launch him into adulthood.

Bono writes that his first exposure to music was through his father, who sang tenor and was a huge opera fan, though neither of his parents showed much interest in Bono’s early musical leanings. Had their lives gone differently, that might have changed, but sadly, Bono’s mother died when he was only 11. After her passing, Bono’s family hid their feelings of grief behind anger and silence. Bono became a classic latchkey child—taking care of himself, eating leftovers and canned food, and finding more emotional connection with his neighborhood friends than he ever did at home. It was one of those friends who gave Bono the nickname that would stick with him for life, rechristening him after the local “Bonavox” hearing aid store.

(Shortform note: Bono’s experiences as a teen had a deep impact on...

Surrender Summary The Band Comes Together

At the same time that Bono started dating Ali, he also responded to a call for members to play in a new local rock band. In this section, we’ll sketch Bono’s profile for each of the members of U2 before tracing the journey of the band’s early years.

The Band Members

The world-renowned musical group U2 began in the kitchen of drummer Larry Mullen’s house, where he auditioned his fellow classmates for spots in his new venture. All four future members of U2 were in that room.

Larry Mullen Jr.

Bono writes that of all U2’s members, Mullen is the natural “rock star.” From the beginning, Mullen’s drive to make music held their fledgling band together. Mullen learned to play drums for his love of rock music, though his father only encouraged him in the hopes that one day he’d switch to jazz. According to Bono, Mullen has always been the most cautious and protective member of U2, and Mullen’s mother served as the band’s surrogate mom until her death in a car accident in 1976. Since then, Bono has felt that his and Mullen’s shared loss of a parent is one of the things that ties them together.

(Shortform note: Mullen studied under the Irish drummer [Joe Bonnie...

Surrender Summary The Art of Music

Instead of being a musical flash in the pan, U2 would persevere and succeed as a band for over four decades. Bono argues that he’s persisted for that long because he’s driven by the need to express himself through music, even though he questions himself and sometimes feels like a fraud. Bono describes the anxiety he feels as a performer and songwriter, the value of music as a means to send a message, and the ugly business aspects that artists must consider when protecting their work.

Bono struggled with self-doubt throughout his musical career. On U2’s first record, he was anxious about the lyrics, which he felt were all less than what they could have been. His anxieties emerged during U2’s early shows—did he really fit in with the angry, rebellious British music scene of the time? After every concert, the band held a meeting to discuss what went right and wrong. In his memoir, Bono chides himself for berating his bandmates, though they often did the same to him regarding his on-stage antics. Bono admits to being an overly showy performer, partly to draw attention to himself and partly to hide behind a mask.

(Shortform note: The self-doubt, insecurity, and general feelings...

Surrender Summary Rock Stardom

For good or ill, the side of the music business that the public is most aware of is the fame and recognition that comes with success. For Bono, the first decade of U2’s rock stardom—a time he equates to U2’s “teenage years” as a band—opened his eyes to a much wider world. He describes the joys of connecting with an audience during a live performance, the privilege of seeing the world from a rock star’s perspective, and how this experience culminated in the recording of U2’s breakout album, The Joshua Tree.

U2 embarked on their first European tour, and Bono describes how every show was a communal experience in which the audience played as big a role as the band. U2 was catching the energy of the punk rock movement, but where punk was cynical at heart, U2’s early music was a celebration of innocence. Bono says that in the magic of a great concert, he wouldn’t just lose himself in the music; he’d enable the audience to do so as well. It was more than just playing well on stage—when the band could truly connect with the crowd and spark the current of excitement running through them, everyone in the room would have a heightened experience almost like a shared state of...

Surrender Summary Fatherhood and Family

It was during this time of celebration that Bono first became a father. Bono’s fears and feelings regarding fatherhood are complex, especially because of his own upbringing. He discusses how his marriage to Ali helped him explore his childhood trauma, his anxieties about being a rock star dad, and how he and Ali grew into being parents.

Bono and Ali married in 1982, and as U2’s popularity grew, Ali and the band became Bono’s real family. Ali helped Bono realize that due to the trauma of losing his mother, a part of him hadn’t grown out of childhood. When Bono looks back at the anger he’d directed at his father during his teenage years, he concludes that the irrational child deep inside him blamed his father for his mother’s death. Though he’d transferred his love for his mother onto Ali, he’d still never processed his feelings toward his father.

(Shortform note: Bono’s observations about his own development align with those of psychologists who argue that people who experience trauma when they’re young can get trapped by their childhood coping mechanisms. One way that children avoid dealing with emotions is by...

Surrender Summary New Directions

As Bono’s life was changing, so too was U2’s music. Bono admits his obsession with constantly reinventing U2 and its music, in part to avoid becoming a band that only recycles its old greatest hits. As examples of his quest for reinvention, he brings up the stress of finding a new sound for the ’90s, the absurdist stage show that followed as a result, and the back-to-basics approach U2 adopted in the 2000s.

Bono writes that making the album Achtung, Baby was a particularly difficult time for the band. To record it, they arrived in Berlin exactly one year after the Berlin Wall came down. They had nothing written except some vague ideas and a wish to shed the ponderous seriousness that had come to define them and their music. Bono wanted to experiment with new musical arrangements and technological effects, but the process of improvising an album turned out to be much harder than expected. Bono takes responsibility for straining his relationship with the band, but the end product was an album they’re all proud of.

(Shortform note: The wall dividing Communist-controlled East Berlin and the capitalist city of West Berlin [was built in...

Surrender Summary Bono’s Activism

Part of U2’s “self-serious” public image wasn’t because of the band’s music but because of Bono’s work as an activist. Bono’s eyes were opened to the problems of poverty, sickness, and starvation when he and Ali went on mission trips in the ’80s, so as his personal platform grew with U2’s fame, he made use of it to shine a spotlight on certain issues. Bono speaks about his advocacy for debt relief in Africa and the need to combat the global AIDS crisis. He also acknowledges some of the problems involved with Western philanthropy and celebrity activism.

One of Bono’s core beliefs is that problems such as poverty and hunger represent a failure of justice, not a lack of charity. The primary injustice he addressed in the ’90s as a spokesman for the Jubilee 2000 campaign was the vast amount of debt left over from the Cold War that the world’s poorest nations owed to the richest. Bono argues that having to pay off that old debt prevented whole countries from investing in themselves. The point of the Jubilee 2000 project was to get the lender nations, including the US, to cancel poorer countries’ debt altogether, freeing their resources for education, health, and infrastructure. The...

Surrender Summary Expressions of Faith

Bono’s guiding star through all the issues in his life—his activism, music, and his role as a father—is the Christian faith he’s nourished since childhood. Bono’s spiritual life isn’t limited to any one branch of Christianity but instead draws from his life experiences and the people he’s connected with over the years. Throughout his memoir, Bono discusses his faith in terms of his journey through doubt, compassion for those in need, and ceding control of his life to God.

Bono explains that doubt is an essential part of his faith. He’s annoyed by overly showy religious figures and leaders who place restrictions on anyone who joins their congregations. For him, religious certainty is antithetical to faith. He sees God as something that can only be seen through symbols, music, and art. For this reason, he doesn’t write overtly Christian lyrics, instead choosing to imbue his songs with messages about searching for truth, rather than claims of having achieved it.

(Shortform note: During the ’80s, when U2 was first gaining popularity, Christian rock music established itself as a genre of its own with the success of...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on Bono’s Music, Life, and Activism

Like many famous musicians, Bono rose from obscurity to stardom while being shaped by his culture and the times he grew up in. Unlike most of his rock music contemporaries, Bono professes his Christian faith, which he uses to shape and inform U2’s music, as well as his personal activism. Reflect on how the context of Bono’s life shapes your impression of him as an artist, a celebrity, and an advocate for social justice.

Beyond this guide, how familiar are you with U2’s music and its religious undertones? Do you feel those messages are appropriate for mainstream entertainment? Why or why not?