In this present/past episode, Ted Asregadoo digs deep into “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story” by the lead singer and lyricist for U2, Bono. Bono’s memoir is a love letter to his wife Alison, his bandmates in U2, his children, his father, mother, brother, and God. It’s a deeply moving story of how rock and roll, faith, and love saved him from despair. However, despite the fact that the book is very well written, and there are many powerful moments of his life recounted, it falls short in some ways. Ted explains why.

The second segment is one from the audio archives. Ted features a 2009 interview he did with country-pop singer, Jessica Harp. Jessica and Michelle Branch fronted the short-lived group The Wreckers — which only had one studio and one live album before the band called it quits. In 2009, Jessica released a solo album entitled “A Woman Needs.” Her PR firm contacted Ted (who was writing a lot for Popdose at the time) about doing an interview to promote the record — which, of course, he agreed to. This interview features clips from the album — which had not had a full release yet — so some of the songs were heard for the first time on this recording. Despite generally good reviews for the album, Harp announced that she was done performing and would be focusing on songwriting going forward. “A Woman Needs” has many solid tunes like “A Boy Like Me,” the title track, and “Love Letter” and shows that country music in 2009 was continuing to inch closer to pop music than going back to its roots for inspiration.

The full interview of Bono talking to NPR’s Rachel Martin is on NPR’s YouTube Channel. A portion of that interview was used in this episode to illustrate U2s deep faith and how it affected the band’s songwriting.