shortfuse
The Fly
Miracle Drug
City of blinding lights
sometimes u cant .............
City of blinding lights
sometimes u cant .............
The Three Best Songs on HTDAAB Are...
- Thread starter redhill
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
BANZAI
War Child
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2004
- Messages
- 575
COBL, SYCMIOYO, Yahweh
bono_man2002
Blue Crack Addict
COBL, Crumbs and the rest is #3...yes thats right, Vertigo as well
phillyfan26
Blue Crack Supplier
- Joined
- May 7, 2006
- Messages
- 30,343
1. Original of the Species
2. City of Blinding Lights
3. Love and Peace or Else
10. One Step Closer
11. Crumbs from Your Table
(Axver: Crumbs lyrics 10 times worse than Ultraviolet!)
2. City of Blinding Lights
3. Love and Peace or Else
10. One Step Closer
11. Crumbs from Your Table
(Axver: Crumbs lyrics 10 times worse than Ultraviolet!)
An Cat Gav
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
phillyfan26 said:
"With a mouthfull of teeth, you ate all your friends"
Is that one of the lyrics you mean??
Got to agree with you, but then I love Ultraviolet!
The_acrobat
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
City of Blinding Lights
Original of the Species
Vertigo
Original of the Species
Vertigo
MumblingBono
War Child
Crumbs
Yahweh
Vertigo
Yahweh
Vertigo
God Part III
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
VERTIGO
City Of Blinding Lights
A Man And A Woman
City Of Blinding Lights
A Man And A Woman
roy
Refugee
Vertigo
City of Blinding Lights
Original of the Species
City of Blinding Lights
Original of the Species
POP-ROMANCER
War Child
Vertigo
Love and peace or else
Original of the species
Love and peace or else
Original of the species
waynetravis
Blue Crack Supplier
City of Blinding Lights
Original of the Species
Fast Cars
Original of the Species
Fast Cars
CTU2fan
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
- Joined
- May 21, 2004
- Messages
- 5,366
1. OOTS
2. Crumbs
3. Vertigo
Live Yahweh is great, album version kinda sucks.
And I will never understand the love for COBL, IMO it and Man&Woman are clearly the worst songs on the album. COBL is OK musically but those lyrics, ugh. Lame hook, contrived verses...when did B-man fall off the tracks lyrically, '93 I guess (some days are sneaky, some days are leaky...)?
2. Crumbs
3. Vertigo
Live Yahweh is great, album version kinda sucks.
And I will never understand the love for COBL, IMO it and Man&Woman are clearly the worst songs on the album. COBL is OK musically but those lyrics, ugh. Lame hook, contrived verses...when did B-man fall off the tracks lyrically, '93 I guess (some days are sneaky, some days are leaky...)?
Michael Griffiths
Rock n' Roll Doggie
I don't know about '93. What about '91 in the seemingly infallible 'One'? It's a song that could very well be Bono's finest hour as a lyric writer, yet there is still the redundant line, "Did I ask too much, more than a lot?" Clearly a case of looking for a rhyme for the next line ("You gave me nothing, now it's all I got.")CTU2fan said:
I also think subject matter has a lot to do with lyrical style. Bono used to write less personal songs in the 1980s -- they were serious songs about the world for the most part -- and they were mostly somehow romanticized and intentionally poetic. These days, Bono is writing about his personal feelings a lot of the time, and the result is something much more direct, something more like you'd find in a diary.
Canadiens1131
ONE love, blood, life
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2004
- Messages
- 10,363
Zootlesque said:
Tiger Edge
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
OOTS, Fast Cars, Love and Peas
If we aren't including Fast Cars
mad: ) then I guess All Because of Juice.
If we aren't including Fast Cars
mad: ) then I guess All Because of Juice.namkcuR
ONE love, blood, life
CTU2fan said:
I agree for the most part about COBL, but I can't see you say that 93 is when Bono "fell off the tracks" lyrically and say nothing in return.
Forgetting the music completely, many people here, including myself, think that the Pop record, released in 1997, is the pinnacle of Bono's lyric-writing:
"Mother/am I still your son/you know I've waited for so long/to hear you say so/Mother/you left and made me someone/now I'm still a child/but no one tells me no"
"Looking for a sound that's gonna drown out the world/looking for the father of my two little girls"
"God's got his phone off the hook, babe/Would he even pick up if he could?/It's been a while since we saw that child/Hangin' round this neighbourhood/See his mother dealing in a doorway/See Father Christmas with a begging bowl/And Jesus' sister's eyes are a blister/The High Street never looked so low"
"It's the blind leading the blond/It's the cops collecting for the cons/So where is the hope and/Where is the faith and the love?/What's that you say to me/Does love light up your Christmas tree?/The next minute you're blowing a fuse/And the cartoon network turns into the news"
"Intransigence is all around/Military's still in town/Armour plated suits and ties/Daddy just won't say goodbye/Referee won't blow the whistle/God is good but will he listen?/I'm nearly great but there's something missing/I left it in the duty free/Oh, though you never really/belonged to me"
"You wanted to get somewhere so badly/You had to lose yourself along the way/You changed your name/Well that's okay, it's necessary/And what you leave behind you don't miss anyway"
"You hurt yourself/you hurt your lover/Then you discover/What you thought was freedom is just greed"
"September, streets capsizing/Spilling over down the drains/Shard of glass, splinters like rain/But you could only feel your own pain/October, talk getting nowhere/November, December; remember/We just started again"
"Love is big/bigger than us/but love is not/what you're thinking of/It's what lovers deal/It's what lovers steal/You know I've found it/Hard to receive/'Cause you, my love/I could never believe"
"Jesus, were you just around the corner?/Did you think to try and warn her?/Were you working on something new?/If there's an order in all of this disorder/Is it like a tape recorder?/Can we rewind it just once more?"
And ATYCLB gets unfairly bashed for it's lyrical content as well. Granted, Elevation is not lyrical genius, nor is Wild Honey, nor is Peace On Earth, but there are some definite "Bono" moments on that record:
"And if the night runs over/and if the day won't last/and if your way should falter/along this stoney pass/it's just a moment/this time will pass"
"Home/hard to know what it is if you've never had one/home/I can't say where it is but I know I'm going/home"
"All that you fashion/All that you make/All that you build/All that you break/All that you measure/All that you steal/All this you can leave behind"
"In summer I can taste the salt in the sea/There's a kite blowing out of control on a breeze/I wonder what's gonna happen to you/
You wonder what has happened to me"
"A man dreams one day to fly/a man takes a rocket ship into the sky/he lives on a star that's dying in the night/he follows in the trail, the scatter of light"
"When the night is someone else's/and you're trying to get some sleep/and your thoughts are too expensive/to ever want to keep"
"I'm in the waiting room/can't see for the smoke/I think of you and your holy book/while the rest of us choke"
Zoots
Blue Crack Supplier
Great lyrics all of 'em 
the tourist
Blue Crack Addict
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2003
- Messages
- 27,919
Fast Cars, City Of BLinding Lights, and Love And Peace Or Else
ozeeko
Refugee
CTU2fan said:
Yahweh is the Devil.
And I'm with you on COBL. Horrendous music notwithstanding, the title alone makes me gag. "City Of Blinding Lights". I can't read that, let alone say that, without having an urge to vomit. While it may not be the worst song in their repertoir, I believe a case can be made for the worst song title.
And I'll defend "Some Days are better" to the death. The lyrics are meant to be silly!!!
Michael Griffiths
Rock n' Roll Doggie
And don't forget the best set of lyrics on the entire Pop album (maybe of any U2 album?):namkcuR said:
Listen to your words they'll tell you what to do
Listen over the rhythm that's confusing you
Listen to the reed in the saxophone
Listen over the hum in the radio
Listen over sounds of blades in rotation
Listen through the traffic and circulation
Listen as hope and peace try to rhyme
Listen over marching bands playing out their time
Also, even though many don't like 'Peace on Earth', it actually has a couple brilliant moments that aren't so obvious. For example, "Where I grew up there weren't many tress / Where there was we'd tear them down and use them on our enemies." This is sly reference to the Irish using the trees to make ships for battle. The problem with many modern day U2 lyrics (or the problem people have with them) is they aren't meant to be read literally. They're usually referencing something else, but using basic language. They're very deceptive. The same goes for 'Wild Honey'....
Another clever line from 'Walk On' -- "a place that has to be believed to be seen..."
mediaman44
War Child
currently or overall
It makes a difference whether this is best overall or currently.
Currrently
Xanax and Wine
OOTS
MD
Overall
COBL
Vertigo
MD and SYCMIOYO (tie)
The whole album is great. I haven't found much love in my heart for one step closer yet. Maybe it will take more time
It makes a difference whether this is best overall or currently.
Currrently
Xanax and Wine
OOTS
MD
Overall
COBL
Vertigo
MD and SYCMIOYO (tie)
The whole album is great. I haven't found much love in my heart for one step closer yet. Maybe it will take more time
LyricalDrug
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Well, we know for a fact that Crumbs is not one of the album's best, because the band didn't want to play it live.
We know for a fact that SYCMIOYO is. When Paul McGuinness, Bono, Edge, and Steve Lillywhite say it's the best song on the album, then it's probably one of the top 3. A Grammy for Song of the Year doesn't hurt, either.
We know for a fact that Vertigo is. Hell, they were playing it TWICE at some shows, it's that good.
The third one is COBL.
We know for a fact that SYCMIOYO is. When Paul McGuinness, Bono, Edge, and Steve Lillywhite say it's the best song on the album, then it's probably one of the top 3. A Grammy for Song of the Year doesn't hurt, either.
We know for a fact that Vertigo is. Hell, they were playing it TWICE at some shows, it's that good.
The third one is COBL.
Bean Skidds
The Fly
LyricalDrug said:
Well thanks for setting us all straight about Crumbs, what would we do without your all-knowing wisdom and guidance
In fact Crumbs is one of the best songs on the album to me, and to a number of others. We must be "wrong", but Ill learn to live with it.
powerhour24
ONE love, blood, life
"3) OOTS- still amazingly flawed, and borderlining horrible, but decent in comparison to the rest of BOMB"
WHAT??
WHAT??
powerhour24
ONE love, blood, life
COBL
OOTS
Sometimes
not including Fast Cars which is amazing
OOTS
Sometimes
not including Fast Cars which is amazing
LyricalDrug
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Bean Skidds said:
Well thanks for setting us all straight about Crumbs, what would we do without your all-knowing wisdom and guidance
In fact Crumbs is one of the best songs on the album to me, and to a number of others. We must be "wrong", but Ill learn to live with it.
Hey, I was just keeping with the tone set by the original post, is all.
My point is that if we're trying to figure out the "best 3 songs on the album," there's no way one of them is gonna be a song that the band doesn't even like to play live. All art is subjective, of course, but who knows U2 songs better than U2 does?
powerhour24
ONE love, blood, life
"All art is subjective, of course, but who knows U2 songs better than U2 does?"
Not to insult them or anything, and I like Bomb, but plenty of outtakes they left off from the sessions like Mercy obviously, are better than some of the tracks that made it, so maybe that isn't the case.
Not to insult them or anything, and I like Bomb, but plenty of outtakes they left off from the sessions like Mercy obviously, are better than some of the tracks that made it, so maybe that isn't the case.
powerhour24
ONE love, blood, life
"Also, even though many don't like 'Peace on Earth', it actually has a couple brilliant moments that aren't so obvious. For example, "Where I grew up there weren't many tress / Where there was we'd tear them down and use them on our enemies." This is sly reference to the Irish using the trees to make ships for battle. The problem with many modern day U2 lyrics (or the problem people have with them) is they aren't meant to be read literally. They're usually referencing something else, but using basic language. They're very deceptive"
Which is why they're so brilliant, songwriters like Billy Joel or pop writers write literal lyrics, U2's are superior because of the figurative language they use, and even though Peace on Earth isn't the most subtle song it takes too much crap around here as it really is a touching tribute to Omagh.
Which is why they're so brilliant, songwriters like Billy Joel or pop writers write literal lyrics, U2's are superior because of the figurative language they use, and even though Peace on Earth isn't the most subtle song it takes too much crap around here as it really is a touching tribute to Omagh.
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