U2: Death Threats, a Song that Inspired a Killer, and the Murder of Rebecca Schaeffer

Summary

Podcast Summary: DISGRACELAND

Episode: U2 – Death Threats, a Song that Inspired a Killer, and the Murder of Rebecca Schaeffer

Host: Jake Brennan
Release Date: November 8, 2025
Duration (content): ~00:51:00

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Overview

This riveting episode of DISGRACELAND pulls back the curtain on the darker intersections between megastardom, activism, psychological disturbance, and true crime. Focusing on U2’s meteoric rise during the 1980s, the narrative winds through political threats, their music's entanglement with extremism, and culminates with a chilling account of how the song "Exit" became linked to the 1989 murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer by an obsessed fan.

Jake Brennan delivers a fast-paced, sound-rich narrative blending gripping first-person detail, music mythology, and crime storytelling. The tone is at once reverential and raw: part legendary rock biography, part cautionary true crime tapestry.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

U2’s Meteoric Rise and Activist Identity

[03:00 – 07:30]

• The Joshua Tree Era: In 1987, U2 were at the peak of their fame, especially with their album The Joshua Tree dominating U.S. charts, going nine weeks at #1.
• Activism as Identity: The band's activism and outspoken political stances (especially Bono's) were central to their appeal and controversies.
• Quote [05:01] – Jake Brennan on U2’s idealism:

  “They were loved precisely because of their best intentions and their hearts being in the right place. The very same traits that would work against them decades later.”

Music and Real-World Violence

[07:30 – 12:20]

• Death Threats at Sun Devil Stadium: After public protest about Arizona’s refusal to observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day, U2 received a credible death threat if they played "Pride (In the Name of Love)" in Tempe. Despite federal agents and a packed stadium, they performed it as planned.
• Personal Encounters with Danger: Bono’s paranoia after the release of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" led to a chilling encounter with two armed men at his door, likely IRA.
• Quote [09:33] – On the danger of activism:

  “Speaking out against the IRA could get a Dubliner killed. A fact made crystal clear by the two men…who wore green berets and carried rifles. Definitely not police.”

“Exit” – Art Imitates the Darkest Parts of Life

[11:10 – 14:40]

• “Exit” as a Descent Into Darkness: Written to capture the mindset of a killer (inspired by In Cold Blood), “Exit” became a disturbing centerpiece of the Joshua Tree Tour. Bono described “evil crawling all over his skin” during performances—sometimes with physical consequences, such as a dislocated shoulder at RFK Stadium.
• Quote [13:16] – Bono’s onstage crisis:

  “He was still in character with that thing, that evil, crawling all over his skin. It animated him and moved him too fast…He heard the pop. He felt the excruciating pain. His arm dangling, his shoulder dislocated.”

Ireland’s Troubles and U2’s Position

[17:00 – 24:30]

• Origins in Conflict: U2's formation amidst Ireland’s 1970s-80s turmoil ("Lipton Village") forged a political conscience influenced by punk rock and aspiration for transformation.
• Bono’s Denver Rant [21:44]: Outraged by the Enniskillen bombing, Bono used a Sunday Bloody Sunday performance to call out romanticized violence by “Irish Americans”…
• Quote [21:44] – Bono in Denver:

  “I've had enough of Irish Americans who haven’t been back to their country in 20 or 30 years come up to me and talk about…the glory of dying for the revolution…They don't talk about the glory of killing…Where is the glory in that?…No more. Say it. No more.”

• Real Consequences: After Bono’s statements, the IRA threatened his family, and Irish counter-terrorism registered the band’s fingerprints (and even footprints) for eventual identification “in case they’re blown up.”

The Rebecca Schaeffer Case: When Obsession Turns Fatal

[27:30 – 45:00]

• Robert John Bardo’s Descent: Bardo, obsessed with both U2 and actress Rebecca Schaeffer (My Sister Sam), fixated on "Exit". He drew direct inspiration from Bono’s lyrics for his plan, blending delusions with themes from the song.
• Quote [33:32] – Bardo’s thoughts:

  “Mostly, though, when Bono sang about the hands of love, it reminded Robert John Bardo of her. Rebecca Schaeffer. So pure, so innocent.”

• The Murder: After being rebuffed by Schaeffer at her apartment, Bardo returned with a gun, shot her at point-blank range, and was later arrested.
• The Song in the Courtroom [42:20]: "Exit" was played as evidence at his trial. Bardo was seen rocking out, mouthing the lyrics, as if possessed, but the judge concluded the crime was Bardo’s responsibility—not the song’s.
• Quote [43:15] – On Bardo in court:

  “Right there, in the courtroom, Robert John Bardo on trial for murder, rocking the fuck out. When the song ended, it was like a toggle switch had flipped.”

• “Stealing” the Song: Just as Manson “took” Helter Skelter from the Beatles, Bardo “stole” “Exit” from U2. The band would later “steal it back” on the Joshua Tree’s 30th Anniversary tour.

U2’s Evolution and Retaking Their Narrative

[45:00 – 50:00]

• Post-‘Joshua Tree’ Exhaustion: Fearing irrelevance and dogged criticism (“self-indulgent ego trip!”), U2 decided to radically reinvent themselves, culminating in Achtung Baby (1991) and a new artistic direction.
• Closure and Aftermath:
  • The violence that haunted U2’s life and music (and the pain visited on those like Schaeffer) lessened with Northern Ireland’s peace process in the 1990s.
  • In 2017, U2 reclaimed “Exit” in live performance, symbolically taking it back from its dark association.
• Quote [49:30] – On reclaiming art:

  “They were stealing the song back from Robert John Bardo, from a man who had tried and failed to make the music A Disgrace.”

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• [05:01] Jake Brennan:
  “They were loved precisely because of their best intentions and their hearts being in the right place. The very same traits that would work against them decades later.”

• [09:33] On IRA danger:
  “Speaking out against the IRA could get a Dubliner killed.”

• [13:16] Bono's onstage trauma:
  “He was still in character with that thing, that evil, crawling all over his skin...He heard the pop...his shoulder dislocated.”

• [21:44] Bono in Denver:
  “No more. Say it. No more.”

• [43:15] Bardo in court, possessed by the song:
  “Right there, in the courtroom, Robert John Bardo…rocking the fuck out. When the song ended, it was like a toggle switch had flipped.”

• [49:30] On U2 reclaiming “Exit”:
  “They were stealing the song back from Robert John Bardo, from a man who had tried and failed to make the music A Disgrace.”

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:00 | Overview of U2’s Joshua Tree era and activism | | 07:30 | Death threat before Arizona MLK tribute show | | 09:33 | Bono’s post-"Sunday Bloody Sunday" IRA scare | | 13:16 | Bono’s injury during “Exit,” onstage at RFK | | 17:00 | U2’s roots, Ireland’s turmoil, Lipton Village origins | | 21:44 | Bono’s anti-violence epic rant in Denver, post bombing | | 27:30 | Transition to Robert John Bardo and Rebecca Schaeffer | | 33:32 | Bardo’s infatuation and merging of reality with “Exit” | | 42:20 | Playing “Exit” in the courtroom and Bardo’s chilling affect | | 45:00 | U2’s reinvention, “stealing back” the song | | 49:30 | U2 reclaims “Exit” on 2017 tour anniversary |

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Memorable Moments

• The moment U2 received a credible onstage death threat but played “Pride (In the Name of Love)” anyway, surrounded by federal agents.
• Bono grabbing a kitchen knife in terror, contemplating whether to defend himself against shadowy IRA figures.
• The courtroom playing “Exit” – and Bardo, charged with murder, rocking out with chilling detachment, as the judge stared in horror.
• The analogy of songs being “stolen” by murderers – a reflection on the power and tragic misuse of art.

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Tone & Storytelling

Jake Brennan threads together historic details, psychological insight, and rock mythology with a noirish, vivid tone—infusing reverence for the band but never flinching from the messiness of their journey or the darkness entwined with fame.

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Conclusion

This episode encapsulates the shadow side of music as cultural force—a force that can inspire resistance, provoke violence, and, at its most tragic, become the soundtrack to a killer’s journey. While U2 embodies activism and idealism, DISGRACELAND doesn't shy from the reality that darkness can find anyone, even those with the best of intentions. Ultimately, the band’s story is one of persistence, transformation, and reclaiming art from the edge of disgrace.

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Transcript

[Jake Brennan]

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This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The story is about you too are insane. In 1987, touring behind their blockbuster album the Joshua Tree, their songs became a lightning rod for violence. Pride in the Name of Love, a song inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. Earned them a death threat. Sunday Bloody Sunday, a song about the troubles back home in Ireland, made them a target of the Iraq. But it was the song Exit, a tune written from the point of view of a killer that was linked with pure evil. That song allegedly inspired a mentally disturbed man to hop an overnight bus with a loaded.357 Magnum, determined to meet an actress that he was obsessed with, just like he was obsessed with U2's music. Great music. Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called Desert Dagger MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to a clip from if you don't know me by now by Simply Red. And why would I play you that specific slice of red haired blue eyed soul cheese. Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on July 18, 1989. And that was the day that Robert John Bardo arrived in West Hollywood carrying a copy of the Joshua Tree and the Pistol and murdered actress Rebecca Schaeffer on this episode, Death Threats, the ira, the Joshua Tree, a song that inspired a killer, the murder of Rebecca Schaeffer and U2. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. U2's planned for how they would release their 13th studio album was like all of U2's plans, done with the best of intentions and with their hearts in the right place. But when Songs of Innocence was loaded by surprise and for free into the music libraries of more than 500 million iTunes, customers not everyone was feeling the love. To some, it was auditory spam, an invasion of privacy. As U2's lead singer Bono later explained, we wanted to deliver a pint of milk to people's front porches, but in a few cases, it ended up in their fridge or on their cereal. And some people were like, hey, I'm dairy free. In 2014, many people simply woke up one morning and suddenly found they were U2 intolerant. But here's the thing. 27 years earlier, in 1987, millions of people would have killed for a free U2 album. Especially in America, the country that inspired the Irish band's then brand new album, the Joshua Tree. Nine consecutive weeks at the top of the US album chart. Two singles, with or without you and I Still Haven't Found what I'm Looking for, that became the band's first two number one hits in the United States. The subsequent tour brought the bigness of the U2 phenomenon to life. 109 shows in 1987 alone, 79 of them in America, most of them at capacity. It was on this tour that U2 graduated from playing arenas to playing stadiums. They literally had to learn about scaling up the tour as it was happening. Bono endured rigorous physical challenges required to captivate larger and larger audiences night after night. U2's music was made for this big music. And Bono could sell it, especially with that big voice and that big heart and the big American Stetson on his head, too. But U2's appeal wasn't just about the music. They were loved precisely because of their best intentions and their hearts being in the right place. The very same traits that would work against them decades later. Bono and U2 were good men, Men who spoke up and stood up for what was right. They honored the legacy of other good men like Martin Luther King Jr. Not just with their song Pride in the Name of Love, but by publicly calling out the Governor of Arizona on the Joshua Tree tour. When he refused to Observe the new MLK holiday at the state level, U2 made that public statement just hours before their show in Tempe. Word traveled fast. The phone rang at Sun Devil Stadium, the Arizona State Coliseum, where U2 were set to perform that evening. The caller was anonymous and the threat was clear and present. If you two dared to play that Martin Luther King song at the show, Bono wasn't going to live to sing the final chorus. Federal agents swarmed through the sold out crowd of more than 110,000, searching in vain for bombs, for guns, for an assassin. U2 didn't back down. They played their set as planned, including Pride, in the Name of Love. Not because they weren't afraid that someone would take a shot at their lead singer. Because U2 had lived under the threat of violence their entire lives. Violence was one of Bono's earliest memories. Growing up in Ireland during the time of the the so called Troubles, violence was everywhere. Catholics versus Protestants, Unionists versus Nationalists, thousands dead. In 1972, British soldiers shot and killed 14 unarmed protesters in Derry. A tragedy that inspired U2's early hit, Sunday Bloody Sunday. They wrote it to condemn violence full stop. Instead it created confusion. Which side were you two really on? Bono was a good man, a stand up man. But he knew better than to answer that question by naming names. Speaking out against the IRA could get a Dubliner killed. A fact made crystal clear by the two men who approached the house where Bono was staying shortly after Sunday Bloody Sunday was released. They wore green berets and carried rifles. Definitely not police. Bono's heart pounded. Instinct took over. Violent instinct. He grabbed a large knife from the kitchen, prepared to use it to slip fully into the darkness. Seconds passed. The men said nothing, did nothing, just made their presence known and then walked away. The sense of relief that he never had to use the knife was huge. That same sense of relief leaf washed over him years later at the show in Tempe, where Bono managed to sing Pride without catching a bullet in the head. Still, wielding that knife made Bono feel like a hypocrite. He was a good man, A man who preached an anti paramilitary agenda, anti apartheid, anti hate, with an anti guitar hero doling out three chords in truth by his side. But to think that even he could be corrupted by violence, by evil, but he was. It crawled all over his skin whenever he sang Exit, one of the songs from the Joshua Tree album. He was singing it now at RFK Stadium in Washington D.C. september 1987. Exit was Bono's attempt to write a song from the point of view of a killer, inspired by American true crime books such as Truman Capote's and Cold Blood. For the audience, it was a highlight of each night's show. For U2, it was part of a stretch of songs that they called the set's Heart of Darkness. Bono didn't know if he was Willard, searching for that darkness in order to terminate it with extreme prejudice, or if he was Kurtz, evil gone rogue, a cancer of violence metastasizing in the jungle of his own soul. Either way, this thing, this evil, was inside him now. It borrowed his legs to walk. It pumped blood through his heart. And it used his voice to sing, to sing about hands. Hands of love. Robert John Bardo hit rewind on the cassette player. He wanted to hear it again. Side two, track five, the song Exit. He loved U2, especially this deep cut on the Joshua Tree. Exit reminded him of his own life and his own split emotional state of God and the devil always inside his head, always in constant conversation. Mostly, though, when Bono sang about the hands of love, it reminded Robert John Bardo of her. Rebecca Schaefer. So pure, so innocent. When he first saw her on a commercial for her TV sitcom, My Sister Sam, that was it. He had to go to Hollywood, all the way from Tucson, to tell her how he felt. He was sick with love. Couldn't they see that? The security guard at the Burbank studio's front gate didn't want to hear it. Ms. Schaefer doesn't want to see you. Ms. Schaefer doesn't Want to be disturbed. So Bardo returned to Tucson, heartbroken and frustrated. He thought about the letter he'd sent to Rebecca, how she actually wrote back. She said his letter was the most beautiful letter she'd ever received. How could someone who said that not want to see him? Barto decided to return. This time no one would stop him, and this song was going to guide him. But the song was over. He hit rewind again on the cassette player. Then he pressed play. Exit started up again. He bobbed his head to the throbbing bass line. He banged on his knees when the drums came crashing in. And he listened to Bono's voice singing about a man with a heavy head, his fingers inside the pocket of his jeans, touching cold steel. A pistol, of course. It was so clear to him now. Studio gates, security guards, they were all obstacles between him and her. A pistol would make quick work of them all. Only then would he reach her. Rebecca Schaefer. Reach her hands. The hands of love. Bono was singing a about the hands of love as U2 brought exit to its thunderous climax at RFK Stadium. Though the stage lights were on him, Bono was still in the darkness, still in character with that thing, that evil, crawling all over his skin. It animated him and moved him too fast. He slipped. His body hit the ground and he heard the pop. He felt the excruciating pain. His arm dangling, his shoulder dislocated. He carried on managing to finish the set before emerging for the encore with his arm in a sling, knowing full well that what had just happened wasn't an accident or a coincidence. It was what happened when you fucked with the devil.

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See mintmobile.com 1976, Dublin. Lipton Village wasn't a real village. It was a state of mind, an invention, a collective of disaffected youth deliberately kicking against the pricks. Against a conservative ideology that snuffed out hope. Hope that a bright future might lay ahead. Ireland in the 70s and 80s was devoid of future. Embroiled in a brutal conflict that ripped apart families and seemed to have no bond, bottom or end. Ireland was not alright. But the kids were. And they sought spiritual refuge in punk rock. And in a parallel universe, they called Lipton Village, a place where reinvention was necessary. Ditch your Christian name and make up a new one. Call yourself Googie or Strongman or Gavin Friday. It was at Lipton Village the Paul David Hewsons became Bono Vox. Named so not for the Latin translation of clear voice, but for a local hearing aid factory and where David Evans became the Edge, the kid whose style of guitar playing was so unique it sounded like a transmission echoing from somewhere deep in the future. For Bono and the Edge and their friends Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. All four. Four of them were just outcast punk teens. When U2 first started, Lipton Village would never truly be their future. The future was somewhere else. It was all the way across the Atlantic in the redwood forest and the Gulf Stream waters, wide awake. In America, the future was in the pages of Flannery o' Connor and Allen Ginsberg, Raymond Carver and Sam Shepard. But it wasn't finished. It was still being written, just like America. The greatest idea the world ever had that didn't actually exist yet, but it could. A place where the streets had no name. A place where everyone could find what they were looking for. U2 didn't have the map, but they were finding their way. A way to bring the future they had discovered back to their home country. To use this platform they found themselves ascending to throughout the 1980s as one of the biggest bands in the world to bring attention to Ireland's troubles. A song like Sunday, Bloody Sunday gave them purpose. Bono didn't sing that song. The song sang him. A song that was more than a song. It could change the future, and maybe even the world. U2's best intentions and big hearts drew snickers from the Lipton Village crowd. A scene led by Gavin Friday's band, the Virgin Prunes, good friends of U2 from back in the day, who had remained as punk as U2 were now, populist, changing the world with music lame. By the time the Joshua Tree was released in 1987, U2 was on the other side of the globe from that imagined village, literally and figuratively. Their punk cred was all but gone. But it wasn't just the punks who had beef with U2. The eyes of the world were on them now. November 8, 1987. Denver. Bono was in the future, in America. But he was thinking about the past, about home, about Ireland. He was thinking about rubble and shattered glass, about an explosion so powerful it tore off the end of a building and sent vibrations rippling through people who stood waiting for a parade. Nowhere to run, nowhere to escape to. Bodies thrown against the steel railing on the sidewalk, crushed under smoldering debris. Children stumbling around on their two feet through a landscape now suffocated by dust and smoke, their ears ringing, bodies bleeding. Men and women, husbands and Wives, fathers and mothers gone. 11 dead. Another 63 injured. Word of the Remembrance Sunday parade bombing in the Northern Ireland town of Ineskillen reached U2 just hours before they performed at the McNichols Sports arena during the third and final leg of the Joshua Tree tour. The news made Bono sick. He was sick of it all. Sick of the violence ripping apart his home country. Sick of the assumption that you too had ties to an organization like the ira. Sick that when he said, this is not a revel song, a portion of his audience still didn't get it, instead tossing money on stage in hopes that it would find its way back to the quote, unquote cause. He was tired of living in fear, of speaking his mind. After all, he was a good man, a man who stood up against the injustices bringing other people down. It was what was expected of him and what he expected of himself. He was a singer, but he didn't sing the songs. The song sang him. He had surrendered to this fact years ago, and tonight he surrendered again. He did what the song wanted. Right in the middle of U2's performance of Sunday, Bloody Sunday, as a film crew rolled tape, Bono stood up and spoke. Let me tell you something. I've had enough of Irish Americans who haven't been back to their country in 20 or 30, 30 years come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home, and the glory of the revolution, and the glory of dying for the revolution. The revolution. They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What's the glory in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where is the glory in that? Where's the glory embalming a Remembrance Day parade of old age pensioners, the medals taken out and polished off for the day? Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying or crippled for life or dead under the rubble of a revolution that the majority of the people in my country don't want? No more. Say it. No more. Bono knew what he was doing, and he knew that his rant would draw the full fury of the Iraq. Which, of course, it did. The ira, like the devil, was not an entity you fucked with. Fundraising for the quote, unquote cause took a nosedive in America. The IRA blamed the band in their naive plea for peace. And when U2 returned to Dublin following the end of their US tour, they were all fingerprinted by the local police, and their toes, too. Not because they'd done anything wrong. Because if their Bodies were mutilated beyond recognition by an IRA bomb. Authorities would be able to identify them all because of a song. A song that still got played even as death threats rolled in. Even after Special Branch, Ireland's Counter Terrorism Unit advised the band to increase security and told Bono that the IRA would likely target his wife before they targeted him. And the songs didn't stop. Except for one. 1989, U2 was touring again. This time Australia. Down under. Bono was way under, back inside that darkness. He was singing Exit, the song that put him on his ass two years earlier in dc. A song that still frightened Bono when he played, performed it. He thought it best that he didn't with that one anymore. He respected the devil too much. Not in a religious sense, but as a powerful mindset to tap into. Bono himself was tapped out. So on this 89 tour, 47 shows total, you two played Exit once. Bono, for one, was ready to leave the darkness and come back to the light. Robert John Bardo could not stop playing Exit. He rewound the cassette tape again and started it from the top. He was obsessed with U2, with the song, and with her. Rebecca Schaefer. He bought another copy of the Joshua Tree, this one on CD as a gift for her. When he got to Los Angeles again, He placed the CD inside a shopping bag, right next to a 357 Magnum and a box of hollow points and a paperback copy of the Catcher in the Rye, the same book that Mark David Chapman carried when he assassinated John Lennon. The Magnum gave him peace of mind, made him feel like Dirty Harry Callahan, like Scarface. Unfuckwithable. This time he'd go right to the source. Rebecca's apartment. A private investigator in Tucson tracked down her address in West Hollywood for him. 120 North Sweezer. Amazing what 300 bucks could get you. So Robert John Bardo boarded a late night bus in Tucson, headed west. Shopping bag in his hand, the song Exit in his head, he cranked the volume on his Walkman. The music drowned out most everything else. Doubt, uncertainty, morality. It couldn't drown out the voices, though. They were back now. God on one side and the Devil on the other. The voices argued as the bus cut through the California desert along I10, just south of the Joshua Tree National Park. Stars heavy in the night sky. Bardo let them argue. There was no stopping them now. No stopping this bus from reaching its destination, and no stopping Robert John Bardo from getting what he wanted. We'll be right back after this were July 18, 1989. Robert John Bardo ate the onion rings first and then the cheesecake. Didn't matter that it was still morning and he was eating like it was later in the day. Morning, afternoon, evening, it was all the same. One hour bled into the next. Time was inconsequential. The only linear thing was his path from Tucson to here. West Hollywood first stop, some greasy spoon to satisfy the rumbling in his stomach. Then over to North Suzer to Rebecca's apartment where he would satisfy his mission. The bus ride was long. He barely slept all night. He kept looking out the window, up at the stars, nails in the sky, just like Bono sang, thinking about her, about what she would say or do when he just showed up. What if she didn't like him? She was capable of shutting him out of that same arrogance so grotesquely displayed by the security guard in Burbank. And she had disappointed him before. That new movie she was in scenes from a class struggle in Beverly Hills was nothing like her squeaky clean sitcom role. In that movie she was in bed with her male co star. They didn't show anything, but Bardo could imagine it. Hands all over her body, making her unclean, impure, dirty. The thought enraged him. The voices in his head joined in like a Greek chorus, shouting, his rage becoming the devil's rage and the devil's rage drawing forth the wrath of God. Bardo felt momentarily betrayed. The feeling quickly passed and so did the voices. He had nothing to worry worry about. She would like him. She wouldn't be pissed. She would open the door and he would be standing there and he would say, hi, I'm Robert John Bardo from Tucson, Arizona. I'm a big fan of yours. And then he'd give her the copy of the Joshua Tree along with another letter he'd written. A special letter. A letter so special he wanted to hand deliver it. He finished his cake, paid his tab and left the diner. He wasn't sure who or what he would encounter between now and the moment he had been waiting for. He had to prepare. He ducked into an alley. There, alone, unseen, he pulled the.357 Magnum from his shopping bag and loaded five of the hollow point rounds. He left one cylinder empty, just in case. He jostled the bag and the hammer accidentally struck. He didn't want to literally shoot himself in the foot with the pistol, just like he didn't want to metaphorically shoot himself in the foot if he said the wrong thing to Rebecca. This was it. His big chance, his future. Don't fuck this up. Fucking it up would mean going back to the way things were. He was 19, too old for foster homes now, but not too old for an institution like the one he'd been put in four years prior. The doctors there asked him the kinds of questions that his drunk father or mentally ill mother never could. Questions about the voices in his head, about the things he wrote. Things like I will fight because I am evil and I feel that if I get pushed around, I will kill, bardo wrote, as big and as bold as the devil felt to him. K I L L All caps. All powerful. But killing wasn't on the agenda today. Not at this moment. At this moment it was 10:15am Pacific Time and Robert John Bardo was standing in front of Rebecca Shafer's apartment at 120 North SU, pressing the buzzer. Seconds passed, the door opened and there she was, right in front of him. No security, just the two of them alone together. It was perfect. A wave of euphoria. Smoke smacked Bardo in the face. He smiled. Hi, I'm Robert John Bardo from Tucson, Arizona. I'm a big fan of yours. He was so excited, so nervous. He told her he was sorry to bother her, but he just had to see her. He reached into his shopping bag. His hand grazed the copy of the Catcher in the Rye and then the pistol. He pushed them aside and fished out not as many new letter, but the letter she had sent him. Remember this, Rebecca? You said my letter was the sweetest one you ever got. Rebecca herself was sweet. At this very moment she did remember. It was a nice letter. She told him to take care and then she shut the door. Bardo was elated. As he walked away. He thought about running to the bus station, hopping the next Greyhound back to Tucson so he could tell his brother, his brother all about it. He would never believe him. She remembered his letter, said he was sweet and told him to take care. What did she mean by that? Now that he was thinking about it, what did she meant by that entire interaction? Was she actually being honest or was she just acting? That's what she did for work. After all. How could he be sure she was being sincere? And the more he thought about it, the more it bothered him. It seemed like she was in a hurry, like she didn't have time for him. She bum rushed him. The whole thing was over so fast he forgot to give her the CD and the letter. Shit. What would happen if he went back there? Would she smile at him again? Or would she get angry this time? A breeze picked up and so did the sounds inside his head. The voices of good and evil, of Bono howling in a desert wind. He had to do it, to go back to place those things in her hands. The hands of love. His heart raced. He reached into the shopping bag again and took out the pistol and loaded the final empty chamber with the final bullet. He didn't think about it. He just did it. Just like what he was doing now. Walking back to Rebecca's apartment. He rang the bell. No answer. His heart was pounding in his chest now. He rang the bell a second time. At last the door opened. Rebecca Schaefer stood in the doorway in her bathrobe. You came to my door again. She was annoyed. It was so obvious he was bothering her. He knew it. He was a pest, a creep, a piece of fucking shit. She didn't know him. He was a fan. And not just any fan. Hero. Biggest fan. She was it for him. And she was just going to treat him like an annoyance, an inconvenience. It was callous, is what it was. Disappointing. It fucking hurt. The voices were swirling now. His heart was beating, beating, beating. He reached his hand inside the shopping bag. The pistol weighed a ton. I forgot to give you something, he said. He pulled out the.300 and.57 Magnum, its barrel as long as the devil was bold. The same devil that talked to him back at the fucking institution and was talking to him now. Talking not through a pencil that scribbled K I L L, but through a pistol that spoke the same language, only with greater force and greater violence. Robert John Bardo's mission, his linear path. It ended here. He pointed the gun at Rebecca's chest. He wrapped his finger around the trigger. And then he fired. The attorney approached the judge's bench, where he loaded the tape inside a small black portable cassette deck. He pressed Play. The courtroom was silent. The judge, the prosecution, the defense, the small crowd assembled in the gallery. They all listened. First the sound of crickets, then the bass guitar beating, beating, beating, beating like a human heart. But not Rebecca Schaefer's heart. Her heart beat no more. Her heart stopped in an instant when it was hit with a hydroshock hollow point from the muzzle of Robert John Bardo's gun. Rebecca Schaefer, 21 years old, was dead, and Robert John Bardo couldn't sit still. He listened to U2's song Exit along with the rest of the courtroom room from his seat at the defense table, and he rocked back and forth. The song cradled him in darkness, a darkness that was already inside him, that spoke to him in the voices of good and Evil. But evil was once again in the driver's seat. Evil brought a smile to Bardo's face as the song's dynamic shift went from quiet to loud. Bono's voice from a whisper to a scream. The beat clear cut and steady. But the guitar is becoming fuzzy and distorted. The sound of a shell cracking open in the red hot ooze inside, spilling out. Robert John Bardo climbed inside that broken shell, into a vacuum. Nothing but him and the song. He mouthed the words, every line, loving it, obsessed with it. He wasn't singing the song, the song saying him. Right there, there, right there in the courtroom, Robert John Bardo on trial for murder, rocking the fuck out. When the song ended, it was like a toggle switch had flipped. Barto reverted to the way he'd been these last three weeks of his trial. Silent, still, complete and total lack of effect. The judge had the song played for the court so that he could witness the hold it had on Bardo for himself. But it wasn't enough to convince him that Bardo's schizophrenic illness was to blame. He planned and plotted. He loaded every last chamber of his.357 Magnum. He lay in wait for Rebecca Schaefer to emerge from her apartment and murdered her in cold blood. He did that. Not the song. A song which now belonged to to him. Robert John Bardo stole the song exit from U2, just like Charles Manson stole Helter Skelter from the Beatles. In Rattle and Hum, both the concert film and the double album that documented the Joshua Tree Tour, Bono opens U2's cover of Helter Skelter by saying they were stealing the song back from Manson. Rattle and Hum was intended to be a document of U2's ongoing obsession with America, with Elvis and Graceland, the blues and R and B, with a future and a hope they found lacking back in Ireland. It came off as a self indulgent ego trip. U2, of course, had only the best of intentions, as they always did. But they were beginning to believe what was being written and said about them. That they'd jumped the shark, that their best days were behind them. They did feel creatively and physically exhausted at a crossroads, future unknown. So they employed an old trick, that punk rock Lipton Village state of mind. They reinvented themselves. Their next album, Hoktom Baby, traded America for Europe. It used new sounds to envision a new future. A future now being written by a busted up Berlin Wall and the promise of of German reunification. Achtung Baby was released In November of 1991, just weeks after Robert John Bardo was convicted of first degree murder, sentenced to life without parole at a California state prison where he'd never see the outside again. Outside the place where the future continued to unfold, where the world slowly began to change. The provisional IRA ceasefire in 1994. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which brought decades of bloodshed in Ireland mostly to an end. In the 30th anniversary tour for the Joshua Tree in 2017, when U2 performed Exit for the first time in nearly three decades, they were stealing the song back from Robert John Bardo, from a man who had tried and failed to make the music A Disgrace I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with dollar Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes [e-mail] if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland Ad Free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details, rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on [e-mail] Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad, bad man.