Lyrically this song is garbage. The 'Magic Marker' line is indeed pathetic and even more so, totally dated. Bono should have said 'Sharpie'. That's much more modern, and would have changed the complexion of the song to keep the listener totally drawn in. Plus, it would be much harder to wash off, and I'm betting Nelson and Winnie would have never gotten divorced if that were the case. This song is also missing an obvious '..and Winnie needs her man / like an antelope needs a helicopter' line to push it into Achtung-levels of awesome. It's definitely not up to Pride's epic epicness, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be. Both songs are about black guys after all. But *great* black guys! Not at all like that poet guy whose head Bono tripped on, or that bird in an open cage who'd only fly for freedom, but really, couldn't fly without freedom anyhow. Maybe it's just that the guy who got the better song was already dead, and just like how paintings increase in value when the artist dies, maybe if U2 just waited a little longer the Mandela song would have been just as good as the MLK song. That, or independently writing a tribute to the memory of great man is different from writing a song about a great man's love story with his wife for a movie about that man. Either way, I'm completely pissed that U2 were on autopilot for this song. Musically, It just sounds way too generic U2-y. But not nearly as pissed as I am about them writing this unrecognizable abomination of a Coldplay-doing-U2-doing-U2-doing-Coldplay knockoff that sounds nothing like their classic work. It's exactly the opposite of what I was hoping for, and what I was hoping for was something I have never heard before. While I don't know what that sounds like, I'll know it when I don't hear it. This song, I *heard*, and heard too well for it to be something I haven't heard from U2 before. What really irks me about OL is how simple it is. There's no *meat* there. It I can *get* it so quickly, after just one listen, it must be a bland, pale shadow of the more complex, textured, layered, faceted, multi-hued work from their past - and in the invisible future I want from them - that I've listened to a thousand times. It bothers me that even after repeated listens, I still don't get that 'more' I need from a U2 song, that 'something other'. It's a thorn twisting in my side that I find myself humming such a trite offering in the shower without realizing it, never finding that U2 I was looking for in this abomination. Unlike their previous, previous, but no, after that..yes, that work, this song Is just a promise of what could be, without the payoff. I keep listening, but am never fulfilled. If this is what the upcoming album holds, I'll be so disappointed, unless this is a direct sign that the album will be the opposite of what this song is. Whatever that is.
