"feral naivety"

This anniversary article called Adolescent Awkwardness: U2's Boy 30 Years On is pretty much off topic here, but it's such a fine essay on the ambiance and influences of Boy that I wanted to link it. Excerpt:
What is certain is that themes of coming of age, loss of innocence, adolescent passion and a first awareness of death and mortality so dominate the record as to make it a virtual concept album. From its striking sleeve shot (a black and white portrait of seven-year-old Peter Rowen, Guggi from the Virgin Prunes' kid brother) Boy stands on the very cusp between youth and manhood, pure and apart, clean-limbed and untainted, yet ready too to assume the mantle of adult responsibility and sorrow. The early death of his mother left Bono no illusions that he could return to some comforting garden of pre-lapsarian innocence, and Boy is a farewell to childhood rather than a longing glance backward. But there are some qualities of youth that the band obviously wishes to retain: the sense of possibility, the honesty and vitality, the energy and righteous anger.

And... Don't miss the very end, which offers a parallel-universe view of where the members of U2 might be if they had broken up the band after their first album.