After One Week I Have Decided

[AEON]

...That this album is a genuine MASTERPIECE! The B-sides are awesome (which always somehow effect your opinion of the album itself), and I have no doubt these songs will get even better once we see them in concert.

This albums is so good it scares me. I am afraid they may retire on top.

I am 34 and have been a huge fan since 1982, so I am not one to throw around the MASTERPIECE label. I am also not one to dis- ATYCLB, which I thought was their third best album. But neither JT or AB had the sort of impact on me that this album is having.

I have not quite figured out the theme completely yet. There is a mystery to be solved here - and I love it. It took me about a year to figure out Achtung (well, maybe more, because I really didn't "get it" until I read Flanagan's book 1995 - so it took me 4 years!).

What I'm getting so far is all of this is going on in a fictional town called "Vertigo" - and I get the impression it is a poor, 3rd world type of place (war, hunger, disease, death). Bono is a character in this city - begging, praying, and singing for help.

In the middle of the album, the Bono character is battling his way out of Vertigo. But he is being beaten down by war (Love and Peace), death (Sometimes), hunger (Crumbs), a tough relationship (Man and a Woman). But he also catches glimpses of a better world (City of Blinding Lights, One Step Closer)

Ultimately, U2 is telling us that this place called Vertigo has hope. Right now things are dark (pain before the child is born, the dark before the dawn). Even though I think the Bono character eventually transcends/escapes the place called Vertigo (Original of the Species - the Character is rescued by God and is a new creation), he doesn't turn his back on the place he came from - and he begs God to make the City Shine on a Hill (...take this city...) He wants to keep up the battle, so he asks God to make his heart brave.

I may be way off track. I won't know this album for another 5 years, but that's what makes it so good! Man - I've never experienced music that perfectly evokes the emotion the songwriters intended.

Adam, Bono, Edge, Larry...Thank You!!!...Again, and again...and again

 

[mikal]

beautiful post!

 

[Michael Griffiths]

Very nicely done! There are definitely a few stories going through the album, but the main story, I think, is from a character in Africa (that Bono may or may not have met). 'Mirracle Drug' and 'Crumbs' are probably the most obvious indicators, but you can read the entire album through this lens. I haven't figured it all out yet, but one day I'll post more on it.

 

[mikal]

wait! "crumbs" wasn't written about a bus boy working at pizza hut?

 

[AEON]

I agree that this fictional city "Vertigo" is in a place like Africa, but I think Bono is painting with a broader brush. I think Vertigo can represent any desolate town/country/continent...person...

Just my opnion. It's a great discussion topic. If we all put our heads together, maybe we learn how WE can dismantle an atomic bomb...

 

[rjhbonovox]

Nah U2 doing a concept album....that sounds more like Pink Floyd surely!

 

[mofo82]

What I'm getting so far is all of this is going on in a fictional town called "Vertigo" - and I get the impression it is a poor, 3rd world type of place (war, hunger, disease, death). Bono is a character in this city - begging, praying, and singing for help.

In the middle of the album, the Bono character is battling his way out of Vertigo. But he is being beaten down by war (Love and Peace), death (Sometimes), hunger (Crumbs), a tough relationship (Man and a Woman). But he also catches glimpses of a better world (City of Blinding Lights, One Step Closer)

Ultimately, U2 is telling us that this place called Vertigo has hope. Right now things are dark (pain before the child is born, the dark before the dawn). Even though I think the Bono character eventually transcends/escapes the place called Vertigo (Original of the Species - the Character is rescued by God and is a new creation), he doesn't turn his back on the place he came from - and he begs God to make the City Shine on a Hill (...take this city...) He wants to keep up the battle, so he asks God to make his heart brave.

AEON, your post gives me a recollection to 'The Wanderer' and the character Bono created in that song. That character goes through much of the same as this individual in Vertigo has gone through. The difference I find is the synical attitude that 'The Wanderer' exudes (although he still has some hope, although it seems not to be alot) versus the renewed faith and beauty that is present in the Vertigo-character's mind. I think that describes the band as well, and their mentality at the time of each of these recordings. I really like the carryover of this journey we can follow through the creations of Bono's lyrics and the band's musical attitude.

 

[mofo82]

Now that I think of it, I said months ago that I believed 'The Wanderer' would be used to some degree on this tour. When you think of the imagery in that song, it fits in very well with Atomic Bomb's themes and lyrics- 'I went out walking under an atomic sky where the ground won't turn and the rain it burns like the tears when I said goodbye' (ode to Mr' Hewson); 'a city without a soul'; 'the capitals of tin' (Vertigo as described in this thread); 'where son's turn their fathers in'. Atomic Bomb doesn't have that song that leaves you with a feeling of hopelessness the way 'Please' did , which leads me to believe Wanderer would be a great setup for one of the great heartfelt songs from HTDAAB in concert, or even just for a listen on your own.

The references to city, hope but loss, its religious tone and the mere mention of 'sons turning their father's in' the way Bono has in his writing of HTDAAB all make for great reasons to be played to some degree on this tour, as a setup for 'Streets' or COBL.

I know I'm a little off track about HTDAAB's themes but I'd like to think that finding similarities from their past works will help make sense out of the new material. You can feel the renewed faith in themselves that felt under the surface throughout the 90's.

 

[AEON]

I think you're onto something Mofo.

He said he'd be back by noon...I guess he was off by a few years...

 

[mofo82]

I can't stop thinking of the relationship between 'The Wanderer' and this place called Vertigo, and for that matter on a larger scale, HTDAAB. One connection I'll post now is the idea regarding the lyrics:
"I went out searching looking for one good man
A spirit that would not bend or break
Who would sit at his father's right hand"

Take the idea that we have a man searching for this one man, who in one context could be Bono searching for the mysteries of his ralationship with his father, that eventually take shape in lyrical form, added with the idea of the personal nature of the thoughts that might make Bono feel as lonely or overly personal as if he's a lone man in a desert trying to break down who this person is (dismantling the complicated nature of this person who he really doesn't know or at least can't identify).

By the end of 'The Wanderer' the character has left the city in search and very well could have ended in the desolation of a desert like that which we see is used in the 'Vertigo' video. Maybe the metaphor that is the desert is the only place that can provide the type of environment that one could search their own souls, deep in thought and in conscoiusness, without the distractions and complications that eat you up. The target that the band performs in (Vertigo video) features circles that engulf them shaking and breaking, rolling and in waves, but centered on their preformance of thoughts and movements. In this sense, if you get to the point of 'Vertigo', as a point of open consicousness, you may have arrived at your destination, arrived at clarity, where you can see and understand all that is around you, yet there is so much to be understood that you are bombarded from all directions by all those thoughts, beliefs, understandings and misunderstandings, etc.

I know this might be a stretch but it makes sense to me. U2 has proven they aren't a lazy band when it comes to the amount of thought that they put into their work and I'm a sucker for that, so I gotta run with this.

These are the kinds of thoughts that are rushing through my skull right now but I have way too much work to get that involved. I'll try to post some more of these crazy thoughts soon.

 

[AEON]

"By the end of 'The Wanderer' the character has left the city in search and very well could have ended in the desolation of a desert like that which we see is used in the 'Vertigo' video. Maybe the metaphor that is the desert is the only place that can provide the type of environment that one could search their own souls, deep in thought and in conscoiusness, without the distractions and complications that eat you up."

Terrific insight!

 

[jphelmet]

One connection I'll post now is the idea regarding the lyrics:
"I went out searching looking for one good man
A spirit that would not bend or break
Who would sit at his father's right hand"

Act 7:55-56 But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."

 

[Lancemc]

the Wanderer is one of Bono's lyrical masterpieces. It stands among his best like One, Until the End of the World, Please, and Bad. lyrically that is.

 

[trevgreg]

Wonderful synopsis there! Always heard about the supposed "story" to AB, and this one doesn't seem to far off either.

 

[mofo82]

What I think really helps with this interpretation of 'The Wanderer' is the choice to bring in a voice of despair - Johnny Cash- to sing the vocals. Not only did we have MacPhisto already present in Zooropa, which would've been the prefect character to be portrayed in 'The Wanderer', but you added a near soul-less feeling in Cash's delivery (not saying Cash has no soul ) Why a video was never made to go with this song is beyond me.

I designed an illustrative narrartive to go with this song in a past college art class because this song really carries some weight. Fittingly, the final frame features this MacPhisto-type character walking out, away from the city towards a radiating sunset.

 

[NebraskaU2]

I can't believe it. It has finally happened...after all these years we have turned into Pink Floyd

 

[mofo82]

nice

see ya on the dark side...

 

[mofo82]

doesnt HTDAAB seem like the perfect point to revive MacPhisto to set him and his problems straight?...

 

[what a bomb!]

don't none of you sense a new maturity in this album? I do.

 

[mofo82]

I do.