Luminous Times ...

[Zoocifer]

With much time to be wasted, and a bored mind to entertain - I am going to attempt to give my own lyrical explanation of one of the b-sides to the "With or Without You" single entitled "Luminous Times"

With a first listen, it is obvious that this song is a sort of ballad that doesn't come along quite often. It exist both in the personal and universal appeals with love between man and woman & love between man and God. My descriptions would probably be different if certain situations did not happen to occur during my first listens to the song.

This could be a simple song of a man singing to his love. Dark room, flickering lights, warm wind blowing through, and an old guitar. One of the few songs by any artist to truly capture the contradiction that is called Love.

She is the gun fire
She is the car crash
She is a avalanche
She is the thunder
She is the waves and
She pulls me under

Beautiful comparisons and contradictions.

Now, I've always believed that Bono slips in either one or two lines of sheer personal truth into his songs - of course what is true to him, may be false to us. But, there is one line in the song that always hits me hard :

She is the car crash

This is because a few years ago while I was listening to the song, I learned that my cousin died in a car crash. The song instantly morphed from a simple love song into a song about faith, redemption, and death.

So, the song circles around singing Sister Love, Sister Soul, etc. I've always found this interesting because I infact believe he is singing to Love - to Soul. The first verse supports this.

Hey...sister love
Hey...sister soul
Hey...oh my love
You turn me around tonight
Hey...sister love
Save my soul, save my soul

What I get from it is that when everything is gone, turning to Love (or Soul) and to admit that surrendering would be the best idea will turn things around. The song goes on stressing to "hold on to love" - once again supporting my explanation.

Finally, everyone knows that the last verse is probably one of the strongest, saddest, and deepest that Bono has ever written.

I love you 'cause I need to
Not because I need you
I love you 'cause I understand
That God has given me your hand
He holds me in a tiny fist
And still I need your kiss

This finds the singer in desperation. Saying he needs Love ... he doesn't necessarily need "the one" - he just need Love. He believes in fate and he isn't going to go against it. All that is known before he has lost and now he has to have faith.

Thanks for reading this and I'd be happy to get any feedback. Again, this is just my personal explanation - not saying it's true or this is what the song is about ... it's just my point of view.

Thanks

~Zoo~



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" They had the Vision, but we had the Television " - The Edge

 

[justZOOme]

Zoo...i really liked what you had to say. I like that song a lot, very powerful lyric. Its such a gripping song that tugs at my strongest soulfoul need.

He believes in fate and he isn't going to go against it. All that is known before he has lost and now he has to have faith. QUOTE]

Just my 2 cents...Bono is citing God so i don't think he believes in fate. Is it possible to have faith in fate?

 

[majxtc]

I also like what you had to say about "Luminous Times". I personally believe it to be one of the most raw and passionate songs about the nature of love by U2, or by anyone else for that matter.

I have an interesting interpretation of the use of the term "Sister Love". In the Song of Solomon, the writer uses the phrase "my sister, my bride" several times in regard to his beloved, but later in the book, she replies "If only you were to me like a brother" reffering to that a brotherly or sisterly love seems safe and respectable. The trouble comes with the fact that the love of a lover is so much more risky than that for each of them - sort of like walking off of the proverbial cliff together. In order to move beyond "sister love" and into a mature love, it requires the lover and the beloved to admit they are more than just brother and sister, but are indeed one flesh.

If you look back at Abram and Sarai in Genesis, Abram got in trouble a couple of times telling others that Sarai was just his sister - fearing that if he told the truth, others would kill him in order to take Sarai from him. Only after God gave them a new covenant and blessing as man and wife (and thereby changing their names, and surgically altering Abraham's anatomy) did Sarah become with child.

The lyrics of

I love you 'cause I need to
Not because I need you
I love you 'cause I understand
That God has given me your hand
He holds me in a tiny fist
And still I need your kiss

reflects that sort of mature love, where it is not based on our human need to be loved, but rather the need to be like God, who is compelled to love because that is His nature and yet we are still vulnerable and dependent upon Him and our lover in our humble human condition.



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And love is not the easy thing...
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind