OF THE END or at least THAT BIG CHANGE IS COMING
Time… time
Won’t leave me as I am
But time won’t take the boy out of this man (City of Blinding Lights -- Bono's persona, and U2’s first album, was the Boy. Remember ATYCLB’s Kite? “I’m a man, I’m not a child.” Bono now realizes time is passing him: In 2000 he was a man, perhaps the adult U2 is leaving too. Still the spirit lives on.)
I’m getting ready to leave the ground…. (City of Blinding Lights)
Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I’m waiting for the dawn (Yahweh -- expecting a new beginning… outside of U2?)
Baby slow down
The end is not as fun as the start
Please stay a child somewhere in your heart (Original of the Species -- although I believe this song is in some sense a reference to Bono’s father and his passing)
One step closer to knowing…
I’m hanging out to dry…
I’m on an island at a busy intersection
I can’t go forward, I can’t turn back
Can’t see the future
It’s getting away from me
(On Step Close -- the whole song seems to be about knowing what’s on “the other side”. This seems like it could apply to finding Heaven, the after life, or life after U2.)
I just arrived, I’m at the door
Of the place I started out from
And I want back inside
(All Because of You -- To me this song is on some level a big “thank you” to U2’s fans. 25 years have gone by and Bono feels like the band just began. He knows its about to end and he wants back inside.)
As you enter this life
I pray you depart
With a wrinkled face
And a brand new heart
(Love and Peace or Else -- This is clearly a political song, but this lyric still suggests they perhaps they are thinking about making sure they still have the same heart they had when they were still young lads in starting a band in Dublin.)
I'm asking for the check
Lights go down, and all I know
Is that you give me something
I can feel your love teaching me how
Your love is teaching me how
How to kneel, kneel (Vertigo – "Lights go down” invokes the end of the show. What have they learned? How to kneel… which suggests either prayer to the Almighty, or some kind of submission.)
The night is full of holes
These bullets rip the sky
Of ink with gold
They twinkle as the boys
Play rock and roll
They know that they can't dance
At least they know (Vertigo, again -- this reads like a recitation of the stages of U2’s career. “The night is full of holes” reminds me of the descriptions in A Sort of Homecoming from the Unforgettable Fire album. “These bullets rip the sky” sounds very close to Bullet the Blue Sky… and ink is often blue. “They know that they can’t dance”: Wasn’t that the whole lesson learned post Pop and Discotheque. (This piece may be a reach).
I realize that some of these may be dead wrong, or at least out of context. But in my mind, all these references add up and suggest something of a theme. Even the album cover: the four of them sitting in a row, almost looks like they are waiting for a bus, something to take them away.
I personally hate the idea of the band breaking up. If they can keep making records as good as this one, I’ll be ecstatic. But time does pass, and at some point the end must come. And for a while Bono has been talking about making the perfect record, and this, he feels, is it or nearly it. There’s got to come a point where you think you’ve come as close as you’re going to come. I never thought ATYCLB would be their last album, even though Bono has said the last song the band would play is Amazing Grace and that album ended with Grace. However a few weeks ago when the lyrics were first leaked, I was struck by at least some of these references. If there were just one or two of these references, I would think this was just me. But these references are practically in every song.
PS - as for the argument that they have another Best of coming, I'm pretty sure they'd not have a trouble convincing their label to sub this contract for a live double cd (which would inevitably have a best of nature). Or they have enough money just to break the contract and walk away, walk away....
