Pavarotti (2019)

Bono: Self

Photos 

Quotes 

• Bono : [singing]  Is there a time for keeping your distance, A time to turn your eyes away, Is there a time for keeping your head down, For getting on with your day, Here she comes, Heads turn around, Here she comes, To take her crown...

• Bono : My father put a love of opera in me, for sure. So, I just imagined it was my father Bob singing in the shower. And Edge came in, his father being a tenor also. And he said, "Ya, but he'll want the higher note to hit." After we wrote the song and recorded the song, we thought it would be the end of all this. You know, just to give him the song. Oh, no. Just the start.

• Bono : Luciano *is* one of the great emotional arm wrestlers and he will break your fucking arm.

• Bono : [archival footage - interview]  It's true that the maestro here has been haunting me and he has like a spirit been in this building long before he arrived here in person. And we made a piece called "Miss Sarajevo". We hope to - we will perform this song in Modena. On what is the date?

  Luciano Pavarotti : [patting the back of Bono's head]  The twelfth of September.

• Bono : You have Luciano Pavarotti, the greatest singer on earth, maybe who ever existed, calling you at home trying to get us to write a song.

  Nicoletta Mantovani : He called Bono for ages. He became friend of the housekeeper of Bono, because, she was Italian.

  Bono : Our housekeeper, Theresa, he just got to know her. He'd ring and say, "Is God at home?" The technique was one of humility, which is, of course, a very mischievous trick. He had turned our housekeeper into his Consigliere. Because at breakfast, dinner and tea, she was like, "Have you got that song done for him?"

  Nicoletta Mantovani : Bono said, "I don't have a song. I have no idea." And Luciano said, "God will inspire you."

  Bono : I remember this Easter coming up and he said, "Ah, God will sing him something." And, I woke up with the melody. And it really did happen - like that.

• Bono : He was crushed by injustice and the war deeply offended him. He just had the sense in him that he better use this other currency and try to do something with it.

• Bono : I remember somebody saying to me, "Oh no, I saw him in the great days. It was a whole different thing." And I think, "You don't know anything do you. You don't know anything about singing." The reason why he is great, is because he has *lived* those songs and you can hear them in every crack of his voice. He used to break your heart again and again and again singing those songs. It really pisses me off when people miss that. Because, these are well known songs. What can you bring to them? The *only* thing you can bring to them, is your entire life. A life that's been lived. The mistakes you've made. The hopes. The desires. That's all that stuff comes crashing into the performance.

• Bono : The grandiosity of the voice completely disguised the fact that he could be extremely humble. And that was a shock to me. And we ended up becoming great friends.