U2 scoop Golden Globe award for Mandela song

U2 have had a perfect start to the year after winning a Golden Globe for their song ‘Ordinary Love’.

U2 at the Golden Globes
U2 at the Golden Globes

The song was featured in the film ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’, a biopic of the former South African leader’s remarkable life.

Many spectators had expected the song ‘Let it Go’ from the Disney movie ‘Frozen’ to take the award. However, U2 stormed to victory and paid tribute to Mandela as they received the gong.

Singer Bono said: “This man turned our life upside down, right-side up. A man who refused to hate not because he didn’t have rage or anger or those things, but that he thought love would do a better job.”

Drummer Larry Mullen added: “Not only South Africa, but thanks to Mandela, the course of history in our country, holy Catholic Ireland, was changed forever. Amen.”

Bono was one of several singers who campaigned for the release of Nelson Mandela during the 1980s. Last month he wrote a personal tribute to the anti-apartheid leader in TIME Magazine.

Bono wrote: “He has been a forceful presence in my life going back to 1979, when U2 made its first anti-apartheid effort.

And he’s been a big part of the Irish consciousness even longer than that. Irish people related all too easily to the subjugation of ethnic majorities.”

The other big winners at last night’s Golden Globe award ceremony included David O’Russell’s ‘American Hustle’, Steve McQueen’s ’12 Years a Slave’ and Alfonso Cuáron’s ‘Gravity’.


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By Michael Kehoe

Michael Kehoe is a writer for Irish Music Daily and Ireland Calling. His favourite Irish Music bands are Flogging Molly and the Dropkick Murphys.