>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight, bono for the hour. >> if music played a role for me it's probably as a kid looking out my bathroom window and listening to music having, you know, bob dylan or john lennon or bob marley later whispering words of dissent and encouragement into my ear. what i got from their music was a simple idea that the world outside the window was not fixed. and that it was more malleable than everyone else is telling you. we're telling you that the world can be changed. >> rose: bono for the hour. next.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.

>> rose: more than 30 years ago, four boys from dublin played music together for the first time. they started rehearsing in a small kitchen but have since played in the world's biggest arenas. the four are paul houston, known to us as bono. david evans, known as the edge. adam clayton and larry mullen, jr. they are u2 and they redefined rock and roll. the band has sold more than 150 million albums. they have won 22 grammy awards. they were inducted into the rock 'n' roll hall of fame in the very first year they were eligible democrat spite fame and fortune the band has remained true to their roots and values. at the band's heart is bono. he is u2's lead singer and songwriter. he turned his global popularity into a tool for affect vichl. he is the co-founder of the one campaign and red which together worked to fight poverty and disease. he has traveled the world to raise awareness for african debt government corruption and the

h.i.v./aids epidemic. today he is one of those influential figures in modern philanthropy and he continues to use that influence to give voice to his cause. >> forget the rock opera, forget the bombast, my usual tricks. the only thing singing today would be the facts for i have truly embraced my inner nerd. (laughter) so exit the rock star -- (laughter) enter the evidence-based activist, it can factivist. >> rose: we expanded on those themes and his passions in an hour-long conversation yesterday in new york at the spotted pig restaurant. when you made your ted speech, ten minutes -- >> it was very hard. >> rose: (laughs) chris anderson said what i want you to do is compile. put together 25 years of

anti-poverty campaigns into ten minutes. spl >> >> only an englishman would ask an irishman to do that. >> rose: it would take a miracle. (laughs) and chris said use something that's complex. yefrjts, there was -- there wasn't exactly -- suck sinceness is not exactly a national characteristic, for sure. and i appreciate my friends tell me-- and you can tell me in this interview-- i can go off and it's -- in ireland we sort of -- we search for stuff by talking it through, you know? and it's not good if you're sitting in front of it sometimes and mayor bloomberg got a load of rich people together in a room for me once. he's a great supporter of what we do and at the end of it he said "you want to go out to dinner? " i said "yeah." he said "next time i get you in a room with a load of rich people, have a speech."

>> rose: (laughs) >> he said that! and i said "well, i was trying to be more intimate. i was making it up when i went along." >> he said you're better when you have a speech. >> rose: he's right. you have to have a bit of messianic complex to do what you want to do. you have to believe in yourself, to believe it's possible so tell me what the mission is. tell me what you think is possible. >> well, first of all, anyone who finds their way to the front of a rock bandstanding in a spotlight at the center on the stage is definitely got a messianic complex. and the shy ones, the kind of "oh, how did this happen to me" ones? they're the worst kinds. a lot of artists play that. so, yeah, you're the front man. we've got a shy guy to my right, stage right, edge is incredible, one of the most extraordinary -- probably the most influential guitar player of the last 25 years. but he doesn't -- he does not have a messianic complex and

he's -- so sfrr, well, i think belief in your script is essential. i am a salesman. i come from a long line of traveling salespeople on my mother's side and i think i'm a good salesman of ideas. songs is, melodies. if i believe in them. tab and the reason i'm on your program, i suppose, today is to sell the idea that people getting out on the streets, getting organized and fighting to eliminate extreme poverty is working. and that's the mission because i believe if people understand it and see the successes of it then they'll do more of it. >> rose: poverty, though.

why poverty? you could have chosen this disease or that disease. >> i have been working for nelson mandela since i was about 18 years old. i did an anti-apartheid gig with him. he and desmond tutu, really. that's how i got into debt cancellation, how i got into lots of the stuff that i do and mandela says -- you know, he says poverty is not a natural condition. it's man made. then he made that great speech where he said -- he talks about to every generation falls a chance to be great. this is your chance to rad rate it. not pushing this idea of charity at all, but actually it's injustice. so i've always been on the justice tip rather than on a charity one. >> rose: where does it come from within you? >> well,'m more than

an idealist. i know this stuff works and i want to see more of it and, you know, infant mortality, which is the best sort of measure that we have of this nrp the last ten years, i think it's -- infant mortality under five deaths have halved. 2.6 billion lives a year, i think that's right. 7,256 a day. when i see that progress i'm excited and want to do more. >> rose: you can look at people under five and say "we can save your life." >> and i've met them. >> you've seen their hope and you've seen their -- >> yeah, i've met them. i've got to know them and i think there's a -- you know, there is a sort of rage probably in me. >> rose: rage. >> from childhood at a certain injustice.

i think it's in irish people. it's probably our history. and we had a famine in our country not that long ago with mismanagement rather than a single crop dependency and it's just in us and i think that we respond very well to this call when i came by mandela and tutu and the like. >> rose: you have discovered data, too, which you called activism. >> i'm an evidence-based activist, yes. >> rose: activist. bona fides in the beginning.r people knew you, they knew you sang the song right but they had to know you got it. and i'm meaning people like bill gates and others. >> yeah, well, i think i -- my feeling is always wanting to know this subject. if i can better than the person whom i'd like to harangue or

harass and i appreciate that those first meetings on capitol hill i was looked at as some sort of exotic plant and just let in the door so you could meet the staff, really. but then i didn't leave. i stayed and i really got to know the subject. and american -- the body politic is very different than europe or a parliamentary system. originally i thought if we taught bill gates -- bik and into debt cancellation that that was the job done. then i learned that the united states congress is actually the most powerful thing, even it's each tent right now. >> rose: and there was a guy named jesse helms. >> right. a single true line for me was always not to divide the audience. not to go to the left or the right but to find some sort of radical center.

and this was often a creature of the left normally, this kind of activism and i thought why would we do that? and let's talk to everybody. and i do my great friend and u2 guitar player edge was really in astonishment at meeting jesse helms because he came -- he married into a sort of american art family and he thought, as he put it, jesse helms all but abolished the national endowment for the arts, you cannot meet him. and i did meet him and he proved incredibly effective in turning around evangelicals and skeptics on the right. indeed, he repented for the way he thought about aids. he turned up for debt cancellation and then he did one thing worse. he turned up at a u2 show. >> rose: (laughs) this was a really hard thing for the edge to take and he cede fantastic thing afterwards.

i said what did you think when you looked out there? and he said "i looked out on those people, their hands waving in the air and they looked like a field of corn in the wind." >> rose: (laughs) >> and we have a picture that bobby shriver took of the senator with edge running past backstage. >> rose: where do we stand in terms of debt cancellation? >> well, it's very important to ask these questions because people need to know they've accomplished when they get on the streets and often they don't. and according to the world bank, money is freed up by debt cancellation. it helped put about 51 million children in school in the continent of africa alone. >> rose: cancel their debt and make them do other things with their resources. >> this is african leadership at its best. it was only a 10% because some of the debt was written down or written off but it was really

important and it was important to know the ways it was a condition alty implied if you wanted your debts canceled you had to tackle corruption. so i meet with ministers and they tell me that was the most important thing about it. >> rose: corruption is a big issue and transparency a big issue. >> yes and that's the thing we're most excited about. it's very understandable for the developing world to cringe and when sad sort of waved around as a sort of -- some sort of single bullet -- silver bullet. and what's -- what they want to do is to be able to look after their own destinies and the national resource, domestic resource is sometimes enormous. the problem is getting the wealth that's in the ground out

from under the ground in terms of gold, silver, gas, oil, whatever, into the hands of the people who stand on that ground. and corruption is killing more kids than malaria, t.v., aids, combined. >> rose: you've said it's the ultimate enemy. >> it is, but there is a vaccine for that, too, and it's called transparency. and one of the things we worked on for the coalition -- there's a coalition called "publish what you pay" and it was a dreadful moment in the life of a great hero of mine, chris dodd, to be harassed by me if he's working on this finance reform bill dodd frank, this giant reimagining of the sort of financial architecture of the u.s.a. and i was harassing him to put an amendment to put in the lugar amendment which makes it law that a mining company, an oil company or a gas company has to

publish how much they paid for those rights. those mining rights. you would say this is a simple thing. this is obvious. how big an ask would that will be? as we speak, the american petroleum institute is suing the s.e.c. to stop that from happening. >> rose: they do not want it. >> so ask yourself why. why would that be? and -- because daylight is everything. it's a revolution, i would say, of transparency and it's happening across all sectors and this year's g-8 it will be a theme for david cameron, the prime minister is going to really push on this. >> rose: what have you come to appreciate or not about capitalism and the private sect and the kinds of things that you are obsessed by and on a mission to change? >> capitalism i mean, creative capitalism has probably pulled more people out of poverty than any other ideology. but it be reimagined

for the times. it hasn't caught up. it's a big, powerful sort of neanderthal force and i think, you know, we -- we cannot underestimate the role of commerce and -- but i think -- i think it has to catch up with the age. growth, by the way, in the developing world will be a huge driver for our growth. i've had meetings recently -- >> rose: growth in the developing world will be a driver for our growth meaning u.s. and other developed nations they'll have new markets and things like that? >> oh, yeah. for example, ask yourself -- indeed, i asked chancellor merkel this will a few weeks back. what would this recession that you're just about avoiding look like were it not for the rise of china? and she looked at me knowing

that german economy is not the big monolithic companies, it's the small to medium size german companies that are the center of their economy and machine tools, and whatever. and they are building the rise in china. >> rose: they need markets to sell to and the schin knees to provide the markets and they are dependent on experts for their own economy. >> right. and then i sty the british-- and they get a chance to meet these leaders, it's an amazing thing they let me in, and cameron was really on this is that the relationship with africa on its rise, that the british have a role to play not just in financial services but also in engineering things like that. same for the u.s. the continent of africa will double the size of china. all but double. i think two billion to 1.3. half the world's youth will live

on the continent of africa. shp now think about being a manufacturer in the united states. that will change everything. >> rose: and your world is there because of debt cancellation and second because you see poverty, third because you see disease but you come there knowing that there is this potential. >> i didn't. it was an education for me. i arrived as an activist, you know, social justice was part of u2's agenda. >> rose: it was your poetly. >> it was where we came from. then i discovered the role of commerce and it was a bit of an education for me. i started to get interested in commerce. started to get interested in the theme of capitalism, what does it do? how does it work? why have economies in southeast asia been successful of taking people out of poverty? oh, gosh, that's a managed economy, that's autocratic, how do i feel about that?

it's not pro human rights such as brazil would be and i start to teach myself and i start to educate on these matters and you cannot ignore the role of growth. larry summers was a great educator for me on that. he said that's what it's all about. i say yes, that's true larry, but we actually -- people can't be part of the economy if they're dead. and larry actually -- larry summers -- we would not have the got debt cancellation through without larry summers. he went and knocked on every door. we had some extraordinarily interesting evenings as a result of it because he can get into some big arguments but he's a great and powerful advocate for development. >> rose: i love the idea of the argument, too. so give me the sense of the -- what's the game plan? what's the model to attack poverty and disease wherever you find it but especially africa? how is it going to happen?

how are you going to achieve results? how are you going to convince people that not only is it goal worthy it's achievable. we can do this if we focus. >> maybe by not stressing the worthiness. maybe that will help. you know, -- like, for example, the united states, it's a hoe hy roeic story. you ar way outin front in the fight against aids. of the over eight million people that are on anti-retro viral drugs, most of them are alive because of america. do americans know that, charlie? do people know that they're part of this incredible story? to me this is as heroic as your intervention in the second world war. >> rose: right, right. >> and no lives down, just lives saved. >> rose: and it was only because we had our economy and a government that believed in scientific research, because it was from that research that came

the drug cocktail that enabled us to combat h.i.v. virus. >> yeah, it's an investment, that's right. you're exactly right. it's an investment in the future of the united states and of europe to keep this thing going across three surfaces. just take the africa, for example. one economic i've just mentioned fighting the next recession will be a lot easier if africa's rise continues. two, political. the war against terror. right now you see this unholy trinity of extreme poverty, extreme climate and extreme ideology in the continent of africa, you see it? somalia but it's right across -- that whole parched part of the world goes right into afghanistan, funnily enough. and dealing with terrorism and the future is critical that the

influence of the united states has in the continent of africa be deepened. the u.s. is much loved. i remember saying to president bush -- i said it to him in the oval office. i said "paint those pills red, white and blue if y have to, but they're the greatest advertisement for the u.s. you'll ever get." and he laughed but it's turned out to be true. so that's the second one, politics. and the war against terror. the third one is this:. and this is maybe the most gigantic geopolitical faux pas of the last 50 years would be to creed influence in the continent of africa to china. in 50 years, historically heads will roll over that. it's crazy to walk away. this is an enormously wealthy continent. rich in every resource, oil, gas coal.

>> rose: and therefore they're there. >> the chinese rethere in a very very -- in a veryweul way. the largest diaspora of recent times is chinese people, over a million of them, living in the continent of africa. they're making deals. the dignity of trade. we're still quite old-fashioned. we're there "we feel sorry for you people." it's like, no. some of the most incredible people you'll ever meet are the world's poor. i remember in ethiopia someone saying to me "the smartest people in eat opposed, no. a are farmers." i said "why is that?" he said "because if they weren't smart, they'd be dead." and so understanding china's role in -- on the continent is really important and not just -- and trying to match it. investment, seeing it differently. >> rose: talk to me about -- you're a well-known tech guy. there's a nerd in you somewhere.

>> (laughs) >> rose: i'm just trying to keep up with the edge. >> rose: (laughs) but it's a tool. >> right. >> rose: and it's a tool not just in the way we live our lives, it's a tool in the way people can change their lives. >> yeah. i mean, our sxwer your world of being transformative over the last ten years by technology. but, you know, information technology, access to information, different things to access the knowledge or to wisdom so within the next ten years, the next evolution of technology can be to connect people and learn from them, their wisdom i think stone is working on an idea plugged into this and things will be different. i didn't know much about technology but, like everything that i do in my life-- and i think it feels normal to me as an artist. the job of the artist is to sort

of feel the sort of forces that are shaping the world and try to understand and the preten shl word for it would be zeitgeist. we're obsessed by this but they're not always cultural, these forces. they're not always political. they can be economic, they can be -- technology is a huge force. so i did what i always do to understand a subject: i find the smartest people in the world and go work alongside them. so i've been -- you know, i've been investing, learning about that. you know, all kinds of -- >> rose: but technology give also gives you-- and bill gates is very strong on this-- it gives you the capacity to measure. and if you can measure you can figure out what's working and not working. >> yeah, i so love bill and melinda gates and i couldn't do what i do, we couldn't do as an dorgs -- he did a great thing, gave a million dollars ten years ago then told the "new york

times" it was the best million dollars he ever spent. >> rose: on debt cancellation? >> to gear up to be more organized. when bill gates says something about you, it really helps you fund raise and then, you know, others have joined, some incredible people, the buffetts, howard zinn, mike bloomberg have given this money. john dorr, a technology gist again. and when i look about these people-- and bill at the top of the list-- what i love about them is it's like that yates poem where --s talks about a poem as cold and as passionate as the dawn. yaits. because i think i'm tough minded. you know, i -- but he's tougher. and i'm moved by all kinds of things, the way i see the world, my philosophy, my faith. he's -- when things get really serious, bill get mrs. serious.

and he wants to know the data. he's unromantic about it. he wants to know what's going on >> rose: because it measures progress and therefore you don't make false efforts. >> yeah. and it's so powerful having a bill gates walk into a finance minister meeting and talk about value for money. >> rose: speaking of politicians bush in your judgment -- president bush 43 deserves enormous credit for pet far? >> oh, yes, he really does. and this is i think probably the -- the greatest ever fight, gathering of forces on a pandemic, on a health crisis in the history of the earth. and there it was, h.i.v./aids destroying everybody's work, 35

million people dead and everyone can't get these drugs to them and we're in knocking his door down telling him it is possible and lots of people around him were saying it wasn't. then comes -- condoleezza rice said, you know, it might be possible. and his chief of staff said it

restored more than a billion something to the global fund? >> he -- his tour on the continent of africa will just be the most extraordinary thing. i cannot wait. he's going to go this year, that will be incredible. his relationship with the continent is completely horizon. he hates the verticals and so do they. so he's all about self-reliance. interestingly a more troubled ego could have walked away from the aids piece because his predecessor, george bush, was so all over it. >> rose: had made it his. >> not true. he saw in the life of his administration there was an opportunity to literally end aids. there's a graph and when it gets to the top and starts go down, it could actually happen in the next few years. certainly mother-to-child transmission of the virus of h.i.v. can be ended in the next few years. so he has really expanded on

what president bush has done and it's fantastic. food security is very important to him. they've done some great stuff, feed the future. and i think the big thing -- a big theme is self-reliance and i think -- and seeing education, bright minds he referred to in the state of the union speech. we've been pushing at the top of our agenda as sort of a campaign -- we call it -- inside we call it the life after dark. because think of all the bright minds that cannot read when the sun goes down. you've seen those pictures, haven't you, of kids around street lights. well, in some places there's not even street lights let alone lights in their own dwelling. so i don't know if the president will go there, i'd love to think he will. but i think he's a transformative character. hi likes big ideas and he's been great and very, very affable with me personally and i appreciate that. >> rose: you quoted william

butler yeates, a fellow dubliner. is he your muse in some way is he somebody that's spoken to you growing up in ireland? >> i prefer the poetry of patrick cavanaugh if you read roy foster's -- the ageneral thys magi, there's a real lesson in there for me because you see all the local problems he gets into and all the letters he's writing put out fires and god you could have been writing poetry, that's so insignificant. >> rose: what makes a songwriter

>> you know, i -- that is -- you know i -- drug of choice. >> rose: that's the drug? >> for me. i cannot believe that you have this melody line in your head and you take it down and you find words for it and an arrangement for it and the next thing you know you can be in a car in tokyo and it's on the radio. that's really my drug choice and songs are everything, really to us in the band and people say that the songs are like your children. no, they're like your parents. >> rose: (laughs) >> really. they tell you what to do. they tell you how to behave. they tell you how to misbehave. how to dress. everything you do is directed by the songs and it's a mysterious process. a mysterious process. you sort of wait. they find you if you're in the right place and then, you know, there's a sort of nuts and bolts of it which is sort of not nice that's putting it together that can sometimes take a while.

i'm in the middle of that now. but when they arrive-- and they have been just recently-- it's incredible. when you're down in the mine looking at the goals, you know, telling the difference between the gold and the coal gets complicated. >> rose: but you do the melody and you do the lyrics and then edge adds something to it? >> oh, edge adds everything. we work together, we can't even tell where one starts. sometimes edge will work on the lyrics, sometimes i'll be on the chords of the piano. sometimes it's larry, sometimes it's adam. it's very -- u2's a strange thing. and people come in and observe this and are -- and leave very puzzled. hard to know who's doing what. >> rose: it starts with the melody or the lyrics? >> often it starts with the melody but sometimes with a lyric. i try to -- i mean mostly improvise as a band and then i try to put into words what the melody is saying and the thing

is it's sort of -- you know, it's -- again, it's preten shl. songs are kind of prayers to -- they are for us. you have to be true to your -- in yourself or they just don't come and i say "true" meaning it's not the subject you think you have on your mind, or else i'd be writing songs about poverty and all things. that's what's occupying my mind. but the songs are more a preoccupation of your spirit. and, look, all of these problems that we've been discussing today are for me spiritual problems because i dread a territorial phenomenon but a famine is a completely different thing. a famine is man made. a disease may be caused by a bacteria or a virus but preventable, treatable disease -- >> rose: can be pandemic.

>> it's a political situation, it's an economic situation. it's that will. >> rose: act of will and commitment. >> yeah. so when you're dealing with songs, it's a very peculiar thing. they come from somewhere else, really. >> rose: you're now at the process you said you've drilled down. >> down the mine. got the hats on. a few canaries. >> rose: you're going to bring it out. you're going to give birth to it. whatever metaphor you use. where are you in this new album? there's a title that -- ten reasons to do something you just threw throughout which is not the title. >> somebody asked me what it's all about and i said "ten reasons to exist." i just meant ten reasons to leave home, really great songs. because the does the world need another u2 album? i'm not sure. there's so many of them out there and for sure they don't need it unless it's great and so we've -- these guys that i'm i

the band with they're -- i promise you, there is no sense in fighting with them. they'll be waiting another ten years if that's what it took. they are very true to their audience, very -- they really -- you know, they've never -- they never phone it in. every night has to be the best night of their life. there's a strange tradition by the way. you're playing tuesday night in birmingham, alabama -- >> rose: and you have to remind yourself where you are. >> and it's like -- it can't even just be friday night, it could be new year's eve and it is new year's eve because people have saved and put away and come to get that ticket. it has to be great. the way to make it great is the songs and sometimes you have to wait. quincy jones said to me, he said "you've got to wait until god walks through the room." i said "q, god is on arrival." he said "he's teaching you to

wait, son." >> rose: do you wait? does it come to you? other people have said to me about this process. it's not that. you can't wait for a muse. you can't wait for it. you really have to start -- it's like plumbing. it's hard work and you've got to sit down and ask and struggle and try to find it. >> yeah. that's -- you know, artists are plumbers. >> rose: exactly. >> and plumbers -- >> rose: they're laborors. >> and laborors of -- soul miners or whatever you want to call it. but why we object to the idea that artists are somehow above the fray, you know, they don't -- they're not preoccupied by the things that we're preoccupied, the filthy luker, the strategizing and the positioning of, say, politics or business. boll locks. bullocks. we are some of the most self-obsessed narcissistic

creatures on earth. self-centered. >> rose: but could you do the art if you weren't that way? >> naval gazing for a living. >> rose: it's not naval gazing. >> the other work i do is a sense to balance that. >> rose: balance it with what? >> moving from the abstract to the concrete. you know, because -- yeah. it's a strange thing. and i just think it's very important to understand that we are plumbers. we are mechanics of some kind and some of the most inspiring people are know are business people or, indeed, politicians. >> rose: or scientists -- >> especially scientists. >> rose: especially scientists. so celebrity today. you could argue that you have taken your earned place

(laughs) >> cash, currency. >> rose: that's what it is. currency. it gives you the currency to change the globe. >> yeah, i mean you have to be -- you better be useful, use it wisely, spejd it wisely this currency. i try to do that but also i really like getting the nice table in the restaurant, i'll be honest. >> rose: (laughs) >> we live well you know? and i'm very grateful to our audience for giving us that life and i'm really sure of who's paying our wages in this operation. but celebrity is a funny one because i always think that just as something when it gets it -- really oppressive, whether that's state, whether that's government or the church, you know revolution is around the corner. >> rose: there's too much of something. >> right now it feels like celebrity has become a brens. and i think you're already seeing the signs of the people's

revolt. you know, those shots by the paparazzi of your fillings. those horrible magazines that point out women's stretch marks. even reality t.v.-- which can be really fun and i've watched it-- it's all because somebody's figuring out-- correctly-- that actually everybody's story is valuable. and yours, mine, is not more valuable. and that's just empirically true. but our society doesn't do that and we don't value mothers enough. we don't value nurses enough. we don't value scientists enough. and we value people like me too much. and i understand that. i'm not complaining. >> rose: and you'll take it. it's currency you can take. there are those who argue also that part of it is we had a place where people -- they like the foibles of celebrity because they like to think that they are not better than they are. >> right. well, there's plenty of foibles here.

>> rose: (laughs) >> thousands. loads of foibles for you. >> rose: u2. how come it's stayed on so long? what's the commitment that somehow keeps it the way it is? >> you know, you're as good as the arguments you get and i've got three of the greatest arguments on planet earth in this band and they are -- they're people of great integrity, they really are. i like them. i know i embarrass them. i know they find it hard sometimes, my activism. but, you know, they really support it: and they're funny about it. like, on the last tour they supported the global fund through red. they supported it with more than most countries. i think it was $12 million. they don't do public philanthropy so the only way i could talk them even to being able to say that is because in public/private partnerships they'll do it.

same with music generation which is a -- i think it was 10,000 people in ireland who they pay for to get music lessons. the only reason i can say that is because it was match money so they had to declare it. but most of what they are and who they are is under the water. and most of what i am isn't out of the water. i actually -- you might find this fun. chancellor merkel said to me once, she said "ly father said to me never appear to be more than you are and always be more than you appear." and i felt like maybe i just received a punch in the side of the head. >> rose: (laughs) >> she was talking about her government underpromising and overdelivering. but i think she was also having a go at me. so -- but the band are not like that. the band are the opposite. >> rose: you stay band -- you need the band more than they need you? >> right.

>> rose: or you have said that. >> yeah. and it's still true. and -- >> rose: take away anything but don't take away my capacity to make music with these guys. >> yeah. and the person i love, the person i share my life with, alley, who i joined the ban, insanely, because i asked her out. so that was a good week. all those years ago. but these are people i need. i can't function without them. no. >> rose: are you closer -- or were you closer to your father who was catholic and i remember your mother was protestant? >> you know, i wasn't really close to either of them, which is generally the route to megalomania, isn't it? my mother died when i was 14 at the grave side of her father. she had a stroke and collapsed and that was it. and my father died some s

back o years ago. and i did get to know him a bit. we made our peace and, you know, after -- i used to wrestle with him, i'd be fighting with him. but after he died i -- it really dawned on me, the actually someone said something to me in an interview, he said "do you ever think you need to offer an apology to your father?" and i was like "what do you mean?" he said "you must have been really a handful." and i thought about it and it was true and i somehow in my heart i have made peace with my dad where i've apologized. and -- but he would say to me things like "you know, son, you're a baritone who thinks he's a tenor." >> rose: (laughs) and that's why i'll be a star, dad, because i think i am.

>> but the funny thing is after he passed away my voice somehow changed and moved up a notch and i can sing now melodies i couldn't sing before that. i don't know if that's some sort of gift in passing, i'm not superstition or any kind of thing but something changed in me that changed my voice but i owe him a lot, my father. very funny, very smart guy. >> rose: how about religion? who do you owe religion to? >> well, neither of them were very religious. but my dad thought it was a very important part of my life and he encouraged me to my own belief. they wouldn't really talk about religion in our house, for obvious reasons. the country was divided along sectarian lines in the '70s and ireland was grim. you know, it was rough, you can imagine. so i don't know where i developed my faith. there's a few reasons for it. but i have a very strong faith.

it's really at the center of me. and i think if there's a force of love and logic behind the universe that it should describe itself. but is it spirituality or is it simply -- >> rose: i mean is it catholicism? >> i would love to be a christian if i thought i was good enough to wear that badge i would tell people i am. gandhi said "i'd become a christian if i ever met one." >> rose: (laughs) >> but that's my -- i read the scriptures, we pray as a family, all this kind of stuff but we steer clear of religious folks. >> rose: but your kids were baptized in the catholic church? >> our kids were baptized especially not into any religion to honor my parents and, in fact, they're baptized as christians. >> rose: that's it. christians. >> i was thinking about this in terms of celebrity. pope francis. it's a rejection.

you can have a lot of problems with the doctrines of the church and you can debate -- catholics do that more than anyone but there is something about this message and the sense of -- and it's again the poor. that there is something there >> i said to jesse helms -- you want to know what brought jesse helms to tears? i can tell you. i said there's 2,003 verses of scrip dhaur pertain to the world's poor, none of them about judgment. christ never speaks of judgment. in the old testament there is judgment but christ never speaks of judgment except once. it's how we deal with the poor. it's this thing of as much as you treated the least of these so you treated me, matthew. and he just -- he started -- the great cold warrior just melted because the scriptures are powerful and that's -- when christ began his mission he started to talk about, you know,

the blind will see, i want to visit the sick, see people in prison and serve the poor. that's what it's about. and if it's not about that for me then i'm not in the room. >> rose: are the songs different today simply because the times are different or are they still -- there is somethat that is always there at the core? >> the problems of the world are the problems of the spirits. >> rose: songs come out of that have? >> a love songs can be the most political song. the greatest protest song could be to write -- motown, diana ross singing "baby i love you." you know, that -- in those times where joy is an act of defiance. a pop song is an act of defiance. nile rogers, you know, he's playing on this daft punk single

i idolize him. he talks about when he was -- he came from a rough, rough place and when he wrote ♪ good times or "we are family" it wasn't that's where he came from, he wrote the future he wanted to live in. he wrote those so he could have those good times. so i think a love song can be defined. it can be the biggest protest song you'll ever write, topical song. we don't write that many. we've written a few. "sunday bloody sunday," every few years one arrives but i'm certainly suspicious of it because i know the problems of the world are the problems of the human spirit and the problems of the human spirit are the problems of the human heart and hypocrisy of the human heart. that's what you're looking at across this table, charlie rose. because i have it. we all have it. we're afflicted by it. >> rose: have you written the perfect song in your judgment?

>> oh, no. god. >> rose: would you know? >> oh, i think so because i know ones that are perfect. the supremes "baby i love you." "i can't get no satisfaction." those are perfect songs. i'm trying to think of anything -- >> rose: the stones. do you think the stones song "i can't get no satisfaction is a perfect --" >> perfect pop song. duality is always the key. >> rose: duality is always the key? >> yeah. the verve, richard ashcroft. "bittersweet symphony." >> rose: what's closest, though, for you? >> ooh, gosh. i've heard recently that i've really turned my life upside down because i pull the car in, i just to -- >> rose: and it reverberates in your head. >> the one that really changed my life but it's 20 years old,

not recent, was i think massive attack and this incredible album called "blue lines." that blew my mind. i love oasis, too. knoll gallagher, chris martin from cold play is a great songwriter. >> rose: and yours, snow >> damian rice, an irish guy. watch his place. these the great songwriters. >> rose: what is it the irish have? >> it's what they haven't that makes the irish. >> rose: (laughs) that's right. that is the truth. >> you know? our little rock in the north atlantic ocean would be under the waves were it not for very smart innovative people. they had to be smart in ireland. irish people have been through very difficult times recently in this recession. brutal, debt crisis. a problem of the private sector that the public had to bail out and it's -- and yet we're good at managing the barricades.

we've been good at closing down the city. we could do that for weeks. but we're not! why? i think -- and i would understand it. i think we're smart and we know that we want to create a climate to attract foreign investment. that's how we're -- that's how we -- we're island people. we're island people. that's it. we like to travel. we're guests of this nation. we've been -- we're -- island people means that you go out to discover your -- you'll always explore. >> rose: both of these things we've been talking about today, music on the one hand and some commitment to make a better world, do they feed each other? >> if music played a role for me it's probably as a kid looking out my bathroom window and

listening to music having bob dylan or john len then or bob marley whispering words of dissent and encouragement into my ear. what i got from their music was a simple idea that the world outside the window was not fixed. and it was more malleable than every else is telling you. we're telling you that the world can be changed and that you must change, too. and i got this from songs and i've tried to demonstrate it as -- a band. sometimes people say, oh, you know, they play "imagine." i won't play that song. that's the only john lennon song i don't like. they'd say "what do you mean? it's a hymn to universalism!" i'd say no, no, i don't like --

i loved so many things about john lennon, you know? he wrote the blueprint. but imagining wasn't one of them. i'm more of a doing, more of an actions, more of a building and dreaming to me is a thing of the '60s. doing is a thing that we have to be a part of now and our manager paul mcguinness who i love and adore used to say to me, look, just describing the problem is the duty of the artist. don't feel you have to go and do something about them. but i can't -- i'm just whatever way i'm wired i feel i always want to -- to get involved in the thing so when we were part of live aid all those years ago and i saw the stories of those people that live far away with such december pyre, everyday despair, myself and ali got up and moved there for, like, five weeks and that turned my life upside down and following my

nose, following my curiosity to understand people better, understand the world better, understand myself better. i really just want to be charlie rose. >> rose: (laughs) >> all those people you have? that's -- i want to be that! >> rose: can i tell you what it would be like? >> that's all i see in you. all i see in you is your own curiosity to understand the world better and that's why you seem to have these people around and i'm probably really confusing. i should go. >> rose: no, you should do this more. bono for the hour. thank you for joining us. ♪ you don't care ♪

sgz ♪ leave a bad taste in your mouth ♪ you act like you've never had one ♪

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