“I had a feeling that people often think of Ireland as religious, as Catholic and closed but many of its young people are more open than anywhere.”
U2 have paired up with Vogue photographer and filmmaker David Mushegain to release a new video celebrating the lives of Dublin’s youth.
According to Mushegain, the video for ‘Love Is Better Than Anything In Its Way’, is “about being young and expressing yourself” and “how we all have friends and relatives who dress or look or style themselves differently but, as the song says, love is bigger than anything in its way”.
His original idea for the video had been to focus on LGBTQ individuals, but he admits that the canvas broadened as the idea came together.
“The LGBTQ community is made up of course of people who are LGBTQ themselves, but the community also includes friends and family so really it’s inclusive of everyone,” he says.
“It’s about being young and expressing yourself, it’s about how we all have friends and relatives who dress or look or style themselves differently but, as the song says, love is bigger than anything in its way.”
Travelling the world documenting the life and style of teenage youth culture, Mushegain developed a particular affection for the uniquely creative environment he found in Dublin.
He found himself returning to the city repeatedly over eight years, particularly to document people in their teens and early twenties.
“I’d made friends with a lot of people and kept in touch with them. I noticed they have such a unique take on personal expression, how they create their own style, the colours, what they do with clothes and hair.”
David harboured the idea of some kind of project capturing that aesthetic but didn’t know what it was until Guy Oseary, manager of U2, invited him to take a listen to tracks on the then-forthcoming record Songs of Experience.
Listening to ‘Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way’ he says, was a lightbulb moment.
“I gravitated towards that song immediately. It has the spirit of these young people I’d come to know, the spirit that says whatever’s in your way, you can overcome it. It’s such an uplifting song, it has such a positive spirit.”
The result is a beautiful, graceful and life-affirming documentary video which accompanies the release of the song on Friday.
In Dublin, David continues, ‘I’ve found people who are free to be who they want to be, to act how they want to act and dress how they want to dress.
“There would be some cities where people would be wary of what I was trying to do but not here, they really get into this, the way they styled themselves, the make-up, how they went for it during filming.”
Clip via U2
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