popacrobat
Rock n' Roll Doggie FOB
Let's talk about Kite.
One of U2's best songs? Yes.
Cool.
One of U2's best songs? Yes.
Cool.
I've been thinking about this a little bit lately, and I would say Kite is U2's greatest song.
Forgettable
I hate people saying Atty Club more than the album, that's for sure.
My problem with this song is the lyrics, esp. of the chorus. When I first listened to this album back in late 2000, I was already shocked by how "boy-band" the production of the album was, and then when I got to this song, the lyrics kind of shocked me in how cliché they were. The offending lines, in particular, are:
- "I don't know / which way the wind will blow"
and, the worst of all:
- "Don't want to see you cry / I know that this is not goodbye"
That last one had me rolling my eyes, and thinking, "Really, Bono? Did you get that idea from a Céline Dion or Diane Warren song?'.
My problem with this song is the lyrics, esp. of the chorus. When I first listened to this album back in late 2000, I was already shocked by how "boy-band" the production of the album was, and then when I got to this song, the lyrics kind of shocked me in how cliché they were. The offending lines, in particular, are:
- "I don't know / which way the wind will blow"
and, the worst of all:
- "Don't want to see you cry / I know that this is not goodbye"
That last one had me rolling my eyes, and thinking, "Really, Bono? Did you get that idea from a Céline Dion or Diane Warren song?"
Unfortunately, aside from those two offensive clichés (the latter driven home a few times in the chorus), it's a rather good song. The gentle slide guitar works well, and the "I'm a MAN" vocal is heroic. Nice tune, also.
But it was hard for me to accept that this band, on an album already self-consciously designed to sound "like U2", was simultaneously entering the area of 'power-ballad cliché'.
Funny, I find those two lyrics in particular to be among his best.
Not every song has to contain subtle metaphoric wonder to be good.
I strongly disagree on both accounts.
The last in particular is so powerful during the Slane Castle performance where Bono is still torn up about the recent passing of his father.
Ok, but you're talking about the delivery of the line, and not the line itself, which is about as generic as it gets. Same with the other one.
I haaaate to agree with BVS, but here we are.
Who fucking cares?! I never understood the obsession with taking one or two lines out and labeling them generic or cliche?
How many Dylan, Springsteen, or Bowie songs could I do that to?
And then the lines you point out, could easily be described as cliched.
Kite doesn't break any new ground. It's a song of vulnerability and embracing one's mortality told in a nice metaphor. Nothing more, nothing less. And that's what makes it great.
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I actually like it whenever I can finally find something to agree on with BVS.
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You know, I'm usually the last one (on here) to criticize Bono's lyrics (his over-singing / hamming in recent years is another matter) -- I even like the lines about "the top of a newborn baby's head" and so on; I think that's great.
But cliché does way negatively affect a song, especially when it's the focus of the oft-repeated chorus. You know, imagine if 'With or Without You's' chorus -- instead of "You give / You give yourself away", was instead "Don't cry / This isn't goodbye".
It would, in fact, debilitate the song.