sometimes i think people dont like this song just because its on R&H, and liking songs on R&H is supposed to be taboo or something. if it was on AB (as the band said it should be) you all would be creaming in your pants over this song.
If you're right, and people on this forum are trying to "fit in" with others' opinions, then U2 fandom is indeed pathetic. However, that wouldn't surprise me (especially after seeing someone score this tune a '0', which is obviously irrational and attention-seeking).
I personally wouldn't take the song as only about hypocrisy.
In Lennon's "God", he tears down all of his "false idols" from his culture, youth, and Beatle-days (including The Beatles themselves), to conclude that he "just believe(s) in me" (and then he adds, "Yoko and me").
U2 obviously come from a more spiritual place than Lennon, and their song is to state that the singer "believes(s) in love". The contradictions are obviously examples of both the duality of existence and the extremes that our culture/society sets up for us and that we all get trapped into (like "the rich stay healthy / the sick stay poor"). Cutting through all this bullshit is the spiritual affirmation that "I believe in love".
This is much the same process -- though with a different conclusion -- as in Lennon's tune, which cuts through all the "bullshit" as Lennon saw it (Jesus, Buddha, yoga, tarot, Kennedy, Elvis, Bob Dylan, etc.) to arrive at a more individualistic affirmation.
I also think it's a clever tribute by U2 in that their song sort-of determines (as a kind of tribute to Lennon) that his music is really about "love", and isn't just a selfish thing as Lennon at his most cynical (ie., in 1970) would have seen it. I've always wondered if the "presence I can feel" in U2's song is Lennon himself, or God. (Or, maybe both.)
The original of the borrowed lyric, as I stated above, is Canadian Bruce Cockburn, and his brilliant "Lovers in a Dangerous Time", one of the greatest songs I've ever heard. The section from which the line is drawn is thus:
"
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime.
But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight --
Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight."
In this context, the lyric makes perfect sense in U2's song, as the theme is the struggle for "love" against the forces of materialism and corruption.
If you've never heard "Lovers in a Dangerous Time", the definitive version (for my generation) is Barenaked Ladies' cover of it, which was their first big hit in Canada. It's apparently been pulled off of YouTube, but you can see it here:
Dailymotion - Barenaked Ladies - Lovers In A Dangerous Time - une vidéo Musique
Sorry 'bout that. Still up for a drink on Friday?
