U2s/Bonos best songwriting period

[65980]

If we're talking about Bono exclusively, I'm going to say Rattle & Hum and Pop.

On the former, Hawkmoon, Love Rescue Me, When Loves Comes to Town, Heartland, God Part II, and All I Want Is You all have excellent lyrics (this is not to mention Edge's on Van Diemen's Land or the live tracks like Silver & Gold, which are also great). Bono spoke of Jimmy Iovine pushing him on the songwriting with this record, and Larry commented that Rattle & Hum is one of the few (the only?) albums where the songs are totally finished -- they couldn't be improved by doing anything else to them, which I tend to agree with (the album as a whole, of course, is another matter).

On Pop, Do You Feel Loved, Staring At The Sun, Last Night On Earth, Gone, The Playboy Mansion, If You Wear That Velvet Dress, and Please are all quite great, lyrically.


So that's just talking about Bono exclusively. The honorable mentions would go to The Joshua Tree and All That You Can't Leave Behind. (Achtung Baby is good, too.)


The early albums tend to be Bono's semi-improvised lyrics with minor last-minute revisions and fine-tunings, which obviously leaves a different effect than lyrics that are carefully pre-written. More recent times (starting with Joshua Tree and certainly Rattle and Hum) have seen more self-consciously crafted lyrics.

I totally approve of the HTTAAB lyrics, by the way. As a previous poster said, they're clearly intended to be very direct and loud -- I hear/see them as passionate pop art.

Some people seem to confuse "complicated" and "dark" with "good." The first two terms do not equate the third. Often in songwriting, the simplest lyrics are the best. Ever studied acoustic blues tunes? I recommend an old book called Blues Fell This Morning by a British guy called Paul Oliver. There was an interview with Paul McCartney in the late 60s where he suggested that "Love Me Do" was he best lyric The Beatles had ever written...

Another thing people seldom mention about U2's lyrics -- they're usually uplifting and positive / spiritual. This is the opposite of most pop/rock lyrics, which (besides being crap) are negative, bitching, whining, and moaning. Those kinds of lyrics are much easier to write than happy and uplifting ones. I respect U2 for always aiming to uplift the spirit, rather than bring it down.

 

[Muldfeld]

We all know that U2 can write very good/excellent songs but which period do you think their songwriting skills hit their high?

I'm not too sure but I'd go with the Zooropa-period because they songs such as "Lemon" and "Stay" which would be most songwriters dream to write.

Discuss...

Personally, though, I'm not too good a judge of lyrics (except most of the new ones which are just embarrassing) if the music's great. However, I think most of Zooropa was quite lame: Babyface, Some Days Are Better Than Others. Maybe it's mostly the music, though: everything except Numb and Lemon is quite lackluster and I really tried to love this; I listened to it every day all summer of 1993, reading Book 1 of The Lord of the Rings, and took about 6 months to accept it just wasn't anywhere near as good as Achtung Baby or The Joshua Tree. It was also one of 2 or 3 CDs I had....

 

[Muldfeld]

I totally approve of the HTTAAB lyrics, by the way. As a previous poster said, they're clearly intended to be very direct and loud -- I hear/see them as passionate pop art.

Some people seem to confuse "complicated" and "dark" with "good." The first two terms do not equate the third. Often in songwriting, the simplest lyrics are the best. Ever studied acoustic blues tunes? I recommend an old book called Blues Fell This Morning by a British guy called Paul Oliver. There was an interview with Paul McCartney in the late 60s where he suggested that "Love Me Do" was he best lyric The Beatles had ever written...

Another thing people seldom mention about U2's lyrics -- they're usually uplifting and positive / spiritual. This is the opposite of most pop/rock lyrics, which (besides being crap) are negative, bitching, whining, and moaning. Those kinds of lyrics are much easier to write than happy and uplifting ones. I respect U2 for always aiming to uplift the spirit, rather than bring it down.

The problem is the lyrics are full of cliches. Bono keeps searching for buzz words like "soul" and "love"; there's a serious lack of subtlety. There's an advertizing quality to the lyrics, a catch-all, mainstream approach; it's in the videos, too, especially the atrocious US versions of "Stuck in a Moment" and "Walk On". There's a difference between simple and condescending and I really felt U2 was insulting its audience, dumbing things down.

The lyrics didn't feel uplifting (the music on Miracle Drug and Original of the Species is only uplifting to me IN SPITE of the alternately clumsily vague and over-the top metaphors ("freedom has a scent like the top of a newborn baby's head"). It also feels like U2 is trying to pretend pain doesn't exist the same way most dumb pop does -- by trying to connect with the audience in the most generalized ways; that's the problem with emo punk like Linkin Park or Sum 41; even the pain is general and feel untrue. The same is true of U2's newer "uplifting" lyrics and sound. It just sounds like a frenetic attempt to be cool.

Sometimes the nicest thing is when pain is acknowledged in an honest fashion the way Thom Yorke or Robert Smith do and the way Bono used to. He needs to start writing about his problems in specific terms; I think he tried on some tracks like "Sometimes" or "Kite" (I think the music could have been better in both cases), but mostly hearing about a "singing bird in an open cage who will only fly for freedom" or being "a monkey stealing honey from a swarm of bees" just doesn't do anything for me.

 

[Earnie Shavers]

There's a difference between simple and condescending and I really felt U2 was insulting its audience, dumbing things down.

Close to spot on. Being direct instead of poetic is absolutely fine, but neither are automatically good. Same with being complicated or simplistic, dark or light. Doesn’t matter. All can be good, all can be bad. I don’t think Bono was deliberately dumbing down with the Bomb, I just think either he didn’t spend much time on those lyrics or he’s just not that good at direct/simplistic. I think the problem is compounded by his delivery in a lot of places as well.

Anyway, back to the question.. Lyrically I think, while certainly 11/10 brilliant, there are plenty of examples in the 80s where he’s trying too hard. Too meandering, too poetic. In the 00’s he’s mostly just doing himself and us a disservice, so much of it is totally forgettable and well beneath his talent. In the 90s though he’s not only brilliant, but he’s hitting a great middle ground. A lot of the lyrics are simple and direct, but still poetic and complicated. A lot of them are telling a great story without being nailed down to a point in time, they can be molded into whatever time and place you want (think about a song like Stay). They’re clearly very personal to him (or them), but still hammer you yourself in a deeply personal place.

I don’t think throughout their history there’s one album that from beginning to end excels over any other, and given a Top 10 Songs option I’m sure mine would be a pretty even spread between the 80s and 90s, but I do think that the peaks are highest and more consistent on those three 90s albums.

 

[U2opra]

I think the lyrics to both Lemon and Ultraviolet are very impressive lyrically.

 

[drt4]

All I can say is that Zooropa, although it may not be the best overall, has some fucking awesome lyrics.....

Songs like Lemon and Stay...oh wow...UNBELIEVABLE....

Me too! I've always been impressed by the lyrics on Zooropa.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

You could say that half of Zooropa have outstanding lyrics but the other half probably go down in quality. But anyway.