For a man who spends so much time in the future, Edge always carried some deep past in his soul, likely an obscure village in Methodist Wales. Edge's father, Garvin, was a mechanical engineer, a churchgoing one. Edge's mother was a schoolteacher, a churchgoing one. Science and faith were not antagonists in their house. His parents were hymn singers, and in Wales hymn singing is stadium rock.
Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
Hold me with thy powerful hand;
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, Feed me till I want no more.
It seems far-fetched when a listener says they hear Bach or Beethoven in our music, but probably they're hearing the hymns that are in the DNA of this contemplative congregationalist. There's a combination of notes you hear in the great choral music-fifths— you hear them in Bach especially. When you hear these huge hymns, you can survive any loss. You can take any amount of blows. You can make the most difficult decisions. You can march forward in your life against all adversity. It was in Edge that I found a marching music, found those huge soul-stirring melodies of Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, and John Newton, and when I was a young man, they were exactly what I was looking for. My soul had a desperate need to be stirred.
Bono in his book, “Surrender” P. 135