I'm sorry I got impatient and didn't wait to see where else this discussion has gone....
ozeeko said:
hahaha this is fun.
It's not like I'm anti-U2, far from it actually. i just really dislike that song. Call me insensitive to other people's tastes, but I don't see how this song comes close to any of their classics. I think it's one of the worst off the album..if anything "Crumbs" or "Miracle Drug" I can see someone putting in their top ten....
I haven't found you to be insensitive to the point of offensiveness or anything, btw. Taste is taste...I just thought the comparison to an 80s power ballad was *wrong*, but what people feel are the same kinds of things are affected by taste I'm sure...
Like I said, "Sometimes" isn't my favorite off HTDAAB, nor is it in my top ten (I've never actually created one formally, so I can't be absolutely sure it wouldn't appear, but...) list of U2 songs. I really like "Sometimes", but when I sit and think about any list of truly brilliant U2 songwriting, it doesn't come to mind, like "Stay", "One", "Bad", and to a lesser degree "Gone" and "Stuck in a Moment" do (these being some of the ones thrown about in this thread...)
"Sometimes" takes forever to get where it's going. And when it does get there, what's at stake? "Operas!! In Bono!!"
that's too funny! yes, indeed, operas in Bono are not news!
the whole deal is very operatic, really, and I can certainly understand impatience with that. It's like he's pacing in the hospital room, a scene from this relationship, and this is the score and the libretto for it, this song. And it's maybe that exaggerated drama of opera, 'tis true. And, yes, I agree, it's maybe more 'particular' than a real 'old standard' might be. I am not sorry however that Bono didn't save it for the family archives, and of course it's meant to be more universal than 'here's what I said to my ol' man'. But it is very personal, and it's very unlike, imho, anything else they've done. I'm not arguing that this is a reason anyone should like it, btw!
Take a song like "Bad", a song that lyrically didn't convey much, but what it did convey was an attitude and an emotion. The lyrics for "Bad" are rather amateurish if you want to get tough about it. But they come alive with the music. If "Sometimes" was written about something other than Bono's father, I'm sure people would have a different opinion. You know what, it wouldn't even make it to the B-side stage. Because It's a less than mediocre song but it made the cut just because of it's content. Well I'm sorry, but that shit doesn't fool me.
I must say I don't really get this about the lyrics to "Bad" being amateurish or not conveying much?! I mean, it's not a 'narrative' type song, sure, but ...I'm a little puzzled by the point.
Are you saying that you think that lyrics to "Sometimes" are also 'amateurish', or "don't convey much", and that's your complaint/why your ears hurt listening to it?
Or is your main complaint that you don't like the way 'it takes forever to get where its going' and then the 'only' point is that Bono wants to say to this person "You're the reason the operas' in me"?
I kind of agree, by the way, about it taking a long time to get to a climax, but I don't have a problem with that precisely *because* of the subject matter--I think the song *conveys* the subject matter lyrically and musically. It's not a pretty little ditty, it wasn't a pretty little relationship, and I think the song beautifully conveys some of the looong-held frustrations, the desire for reconciliation, the anger *and* the tenderness, the hope *and* the resignation, and the irony of yelling the obvious in a great crescendo of mixed emotions. I don't think anyone was 'trying to fool you'; I think its structure and form and content are an organic whole, not some devised combo to pass off 'mediocre tunes/ideas' as album-worthy!
*And* I'll say once more it beats the crap out of the competition for song of the year this year!
cheers all...
edit: I like Kanye, by the way. I mean, I liked some stuff off his last one, I like that Gold Digger deal well enough, and I don't really listen to rap but I like his pink argyle, teddies, willingness to call for getting the homophobia out of rap (he did that didn't he?)...even admired him well for posing as jesus on rollingstone, and for the guts to stray from the script at the telethon!
If he wins, and I'm sure he'll win some stuff, I hope he says something interesting!
