Songs of Experience 36 - Now with 20% fewer acronyms

[aviastar]

My track ranking. Really like this album and there are no skippers. LIBTAIIW is one of the weaker tracks IMO....just kind of uninteresting to me.

Really like these songs:
Red Flag Day
Landlady
Little Things
Lights of Home
Showman
GOOYAW
Love Is All We Have Left
Ordinary Love (Extraordinary Mix)
Book Of You Heart

Like these tunes:
Best Thing
Summer of Love
Best Thing Kygo Mix
Lights of Home Strings
The Blackout

Meh:
American Soul
Love is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way
13 (There is a Light)

 

[rennowba]

love

Lights of home
Summer of love
Red flag day
The showman
Little things that give you away
The blackout

Like

Best thing
Get out of your own way
Land lady
Love is all we have left
13

Ok
American soul
Love is bigger then anything in it's way

 

[Gzusfrk]

Just listening to The Blackout again, and I think it was you Headache in your review that emphasized that this was a letter from Bono to his band mates more than anything, and I totally get that! Great observation! I can’t hear it any other way now, and that adds so much weight to the song for me!

 

[Nick66]

So that performance of "Do They Know It's Christmas" at Live Aid. Bono has the best line in that song, but in this performance Bowie and George Michael bring it. George Michael (looking vital with his shirt unbuttoned just so) even asks the audience "Are you having fun!?" (no answer, but presumably they are)

Still questions remain.

1. Why is Bono holding a lyric sheet when he only has one (solo) line in the song?
2. Why does Bono shout "Spring time is coming"? Did he lose his lyrics sheet?
3. Why does Bono keep adjusting his sleeves and otherwise look passive and confused throughout the performance?

 

[kabigon]

I would put in the bottom 3 after AS GOOYOW, it sounds so cheesy and Christian rock to me..... blahhhh. Dunno how people love it so much.

On paper the song seems like it shouldn't work at all. Long, clunky title, yet another song about love, as if we need another song like this, let alone one by U2. And yet they somehow manage to overcome what could be a self-conscious naive plea into such strength and optimism that I can't help being swept up by it.

 

[gweeps]

So, Bono says in that Dave Fanning interview that there's a typo in the lyric book. 'Done' should read 'dumb' in 13. "I know the world is dumb, but you don't have to be."

Still sounds like 'done' to me. Maybe an error in the mixing?

 

[Nick66]

In the liner notes he also says "You're the best thing that ever happened to a boy".

 

[gweeps]

Since I still hear "done', I interpret it to mean the world is the way it has always been, but you don't have to settle for that.

 

[kiwilad]

So that performance of "Do They Know It's Christmas" at Live Aid. Bono has the best line in that song, but in this performance Bowie and George Michael bring it. George Michael (looking vital with his shirt unbuttoned just so) even asks the audience "Are you having fun!?" (no answer, but presumably they are)

Still questions remain.

1. Why is Bono holding a lyric sheet when he only has one (solo) line in the song?
2. Why does Bono shout "Spring time is coming"? Did he lose his lyrics sheet?
3. Why does Bono keep adjusting his sleeves and otherwise look passive and confused throughout the performance?

I won't enjoy christmas until these questions are suitably answered.

 

[Nick66]

I won't enjoy christmas until these questions are suitably answered.

See that's what I'm talking about.

Also, notice the artists around Bono are all excitedly pogosticking, but Bono is just sorta standing there looking awkward. Is he too cool to pogostick?

 

[kiwilad]

See that's what I'm talking about.

Also, notice the artists around Bono are all excitedly pogosticking, but Bono is just sorta standing there looking awkward. Is he too cool to pogostick?

Near the end Freddie puts his arm around Bono's shoulder. Then immediately removes it.
Something's not right.

 

[Nick66]

Near the end Freddie puts his arm around Bono's shoulder. Then immediately removes it.
Something's not right.

Actually apparently Freddie hit on Bono at Live Aid backstage. Seriously chatted him up. So that might have something to do with it!

‘Freddie pulled me aside and said, “Oh, Bono .  .  . Is it Bo-No or Bon-O?” I told him, “It’s Bon-O.

'I was up against a wall and he put his hand on the wall and was talking to me like he was chatting up a chick. I thought, “Wow, this guy’s really camp.”

'I was telling somebody later and he said, “You’re surprised? They’re called Queen!” But I was really amazed. It hadn’t dawned on me.’

I love Bono's sweet naïveté about Mercury in that story.

 

[kiwilad]

But there's more going on here. Was that even Bono on stage? Was it a doppleganger thrust into the limelight while Bono got a head start on the post-gig catering?

 

[Nick66]

Well it would have been really awkward if there was no one to sing "tonight thank God it's them instead of you." That would have just made the whole song come to a crashing halt. Who was supposed to sing that line if not Bono? Roland Orzabal was apparently busy that day.

True fact: Joan Baez fell in love with Bono watching him perform Bad.

 

[Axver]

Guys, just because you like a certain food, it doesn’t mean it actually tastes good.

Oh come on, surely at some point in your life you've had something shit by the Backstreet Boys or whoever stuck in your head, you get exactly what I mean.

There are way better songs on the album imo...... Its very cheesy.

As long as you dont put it above UV, we can agree to disagree.....

No, Love Is Bigger is a mile better than UV. Most U2 songs are.

 

[Nick66]

Oh come on, surely at some point in your life you've had something shit by the Backstreet Boys or whoever stuck in your head, you get exactly what I mean.

I know exactly what you mean, this very thing happened to me recently with a crapy song.

Oh wait, that was The Best Thing.

No, Love Is Bigger is a mile better than UV. Most U2 songs are.

WTF is wrong with you?

 

[Axver]

Whatever's wrong with me isn't as bad as whatever was so wrong with U2 in 1991 that they thought they should release Ultra Violet.

 

[superchuk5]

So, Bono says in that Dave Fanning interview that there's a typo in the lyric book. 'Done' should read 'dumb' in 13. "I know the world is dumb, but you don't have to be."

Still sounds like 'done' to me. Maybe an error in the mixing?

I first heard it as "dark" but now I hear "done." My favorite version of the lyric is actually the first version I misheard.

 

[Nick66]

Whatever's wrong with me isn't as bad as whatever was so wrong with U2 in 1991 that they thought they should release Ultra Violet.

Man you must have hated that swinging microphone.

Here's a tip, at the end of the song pretend Bono is singing "ultra-violence, ultra-violence"...it's much more fun that way.

 

[mikal]

Oh come on, surely at some point in your life you've had something shit by the Backstreet Boys or whoever stuck in your head, you get exactly what I mean.







No, Love Is Bigger is a mile better than UV. Most U2 songs are.

I’m just pointing out how bad that comment was. There’s a huge difference between getting a song in my head that’s made by my favorite band and one that’s made by the Backstreet Boys.

 

[CosmoKramer]

I’m just pointing out how bad that comment was. There’s a huge difference between getting a song in my head that’s made by my favorite band and one that’s made by the Backstreet Boys.

True story....I had their song “Quit playing games with my heart” stuck in my head for the longest time. Then I heard a parody of it called “quit playing games or I’ll fart”(I think on a comedy show or something) and that was the version that has stuck in my head since.

However, I do still enjoy Best Thing.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

So apparently some can't admit that songs by acts they normally wouldn't give the time of day to can actually be good.

 

[kabigon]

True story....I had their song “Quit playing games with my heart” stuck in my head for the longest time. Then I heard a parody of it called “quit playing games or I’ll fart”(I think on a comedy show or something) and that was the version that has stuck in my head since.

However, I do still enjoy Best Thing.

That reminds me, back when Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own came out, a local radio station made a parody called Someone tell Samuel L Jackson He's My Bro. Yes, it was as terrible as it sounds.

 

[Axver]

I’m just pointing out how bad that comment was. There’s a huge difference between getting a song in my head that’s made by my favorite band and one that’s made by the Backstreet Boys.

What? My point is simply that "this song is stuck in my head" is not a measure of quality, and people trying to argue that any song is good because it's stuck in their head (regardless of artist) are being disingenuous. Some of you are trying to suggest that because The Best Thing has been an earworm for you, it must be good. And that just does not hold up.

 

[redhill]

That reminds me, back when Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own came out, a local radio station made a parody called Someone tell Samuel L Jackson He's My Bro. Yes, it was as terrible as it sounds.

It's either so bad it's good or pretty darn good (as far as parodies go).

 

[dan_smee]

So the special aired in Canada. 45 minute version. Apparently a 1:25 version will air on the BBC on 28 December.

BD
WOWY
LIghts of Home
GOOYOW
Love is Bigger
One

All included. Imagine AIWIY will be in the longer versions

 

[CosmoKramer]

The whole second half is stellar! Starting from summer of love roughly all the way to 13. Great effort despite a few missteps. But the missteps this time are way fewer than during nloth or htdaab. Either that or I've aged and more forgiving these days.

This seems to be the general consensus around here, at least in this section of the forum (if you go to another part it's "U2 doom and gloom").

 

[Super Yo]

So the special aired in Canada. 45 minute version. Apparently a 1:25 version will air on the BBC on 28 December.

BD
WOWY
LIghts of Home
GOOYOW
Love is Bigger
One

All included. Imagine AIWIY will be in the longer versions

“Lights Of Home” was terrific and “Love is Bigger” epic.
On the other hand, could someone please hide the megaphone away from Bono? [emoji23]

Anyway, it was a great show.

 

[superchuk5]

So the special aired in Canada. 45 minute version. Apparently a 1:25 version will air on the BBC on 28 December.

BD
WOWY
LIghts of Home
GOOYOW
Love is Bigger
One

All included. Imagine AIWIY will be in the longer versions

any way to stream for people who don't live in the Commonwealth?

 

[Sr. Poop]

TBT in the top 40 here and heard it 3 times in 3 different places I was at including on the radio in my car today.

It's getting a lot of air play here in New England.

It doesn't matter what you guys here think of it. This is a radio hit for U2