Well I don't know if anyone's interested in reading this, but this is what I have at this point:
U2's song "One" opens with desperate questions that beg for resolution (?Is it getting better? / Or do you feel the same? / Will it make it easier on you now / You got someone to blame??). It proceeds to express the desire not solely for simple answers, but for complete absolution. The title of this appeal automatically suggests a sense of unity, which the speaker of the song craves. Its themes are specific enough to instill in the listener a sense of the necessity of unity and tolerance; but the lyrics are subjective enough to invite individual interpretation by listeners who combine the ideas presented with their own experience.
Lead singer Bono wrote "One" with his bandmates at the beginning of the 1990's, during a period when the band was plagued by personal conflicts. The composition of "One," which is thought of as "the song that saved U2," proved to be a turning point for the faltering band. Their ability to cooperate and compromise was reestablished. A suggestion of a kind of angst concerning world events also exists in a subtext of this song. Shortly before the session during which U2 wrote "One," the Berlin Wall had fallen, symbolizing a new beginning of sorts for those with an international mindset. The songs for the album ?Achtung Baby,? including the ?One? were finalized in terms of lyrical and musical content and impact in a Hansa studio in Berlin. Also at this time, AIDS was considered a new epidemic; some critiques of "One" hold that it is about a young man telling his father that he has AIDS. He makes the point that there is no turning back, and the forward is the only direction to bait them: ?Well it?s / Too late / Tonight / To drag the past out into the light.? But this interpretation is only one of many that have attempted to concisely explain the magnitude of the song's message.
Not only the time of the recording is significant, but the location also impacted the final product. Whereas fellow rock star David Bowie, who also recorded a series of albums at Hansa, channeled the spirit of division (in terms of the situation in Berlin), U2 channeled the spirit of unification. Additionally, Bowie said, when he wrote about ?Achtung Baby? that "Throughout the twentieth century, Berlin has emerged time and again as both corpse and artery of Europe. Come the nineties the Wall and its heroes and anti-heroes came crashing down. East German artifacts and West German rubble are strewn upon the road thorough millennium?s end.?
The location of ?One? in the album ?Achtung Baby? also weighs on the effects of the song. In his book U2 at the End of the World, U2 biographer and fan Bill Flanagan explains that the album is a cycle that follows ?a man messing up his secure home life by charging out into the night?s temptations.? The plea made in ?One,? then, ?sounds less like a comfort than an excuse? (20). The album basically creates a tension in which the principal character is torn by ?the moon as a dark woman who seduces the singer away from his virtuous love, the sun? (20). This discrepancy between his attentions ultimately result in conjecture that ??Love is Blindness,? the ability to distinguish day from night? (20).
Knowing this very basic assessment, one is free to let one?s self connect with the song. To me, the simple chorus, which varies, suggests a basic tolerance for all people, and the desire to possess the ideal: ?One life, / But we're not the same. / We get to / Carry each other, / Carry each other.? But while it is based on a future of possibility and progress, this ideal world of acceptance must challenge and admit the influence of past reality in order to progress: ?I can't be holding on / To what you got / When all you got is hurt.?
In my sole opinion, with no thought of historical or social significance, ?One? is a song about acceptance, tolerance, and forgiveness. I think everyone at one point or another desires and indeed requires understanding for deeds both destructive and progressive. Everyone is equally deserving of acknowledging the past and evolving in the future. The symbolism of blood in the lines ?One love / One blood / One life / You got to do what you should? suggest blood?s role as both the curse and gift of life. Blood can be thought of as anything from the physical fluid to actual life. In either case, it is the gift of blood that keeps one alive, but it is the blight and reality of blood that reminds one of limits. This simultaneous presence of life and death in one unit is a paradox that suggests, in ?One,? both the reassuring necessity and horrifying realities of acceptance and forgiveness.
?One? is certainly a simple yet strong song. The very fact that it is open to interpretation is its defining characteristic. I believe that a song has to be very powerful to hold up the desires, wishes, and hopes of the bearers of such diverse interpretations. The song is about AIDS, it?s about love, it?s about divorce, it?s about sex, it?s about Africa, it?s about Jesus, it?s about Berlin, it?s about the band. The song is about confession, it?s about denial, it?s about individual strength, it?s about communion. It is at once all these things at one moment, and then it is none of them in the next. Certainly, not just any song can pull off what ?One? does.
I don't believe that "One" can be truly distilled down to words different from the lyrics and the voice in which they arrive in the listener's mind. The way the messages of the song arise within the listener depend upon individual thought processes and experiences. The range of emotions and incidents that the song suggests cannot be contained by singular delineations of the lyrics. This anthem is both a promise and a wish, simultaneously a pledge and a request. The ideals presented in "One," then, seem to manifest as all dreams: they are dreams of awakening: awakening to greater meaning, awakening to fulfillment.
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how do I cite "MDH?"!?!?!??!!
GOD BLESS THE GO GOS. I mean Echo
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~*Mona*~
a litle girl with Spanish eyes
A little less circuitry ** A little more poetry
YOU KNOW I BELIEVE IT
