HelloAngel
ONE love, blood, life
By Abby Myers
The second of the ?angel songs? in U2?s pantheon is ?If God Will Send His Angels,? from 1997?s Pop and also featured in the 1998 film City of Angels. Although it is often mentioned or thought of in tandem with ?Stay (Faraway So Close),? it doesn?t exactly pick up where ?Stay? left off. Rather, ?If God Will Send His Angels,? while sharing much of the mood created by ?Stay,? looks to transcend the desolation and desperation in a way that ?Stay? does not.
The song opens quietly, with only Bono?s voice intoning gently:
Nobody else here baby
No one here to blame
No one to point the finger
It?s just you and me and the rain
These words open the scene for the listener: two people, wronged somehow (perhaps by each other), seeming to be at the end of their respective ropes. The narrator knows that it has come to down to himself and his partner, and that both of them are out of excuses. They must face each other and deal with each other without distraction or any third party to facilitate or blame.
This theme is repeated in the next part of the verse:
Nobody made you do it
No one put words in your mouth
Nobody here taking orders
When love took a train heading south
The narrator emphasizes the mutual solitude of the couple, and thus reinforces the concept that they are responsible for their situation. There is no one ?here to blame,? and ?nobody made you do it.? While there is to be sure some sadness to be dealt with in these words, they can also be inspirational in the sense that such an acknowledgment of aloneness and responsibility can be the beginning of a rebuilding as well. This idea is not explicitly stated in the lyrics, but something does seem to ?give? a bit after these lines; some modest instrumentation comes in behind Bono?s voice, and the words get a little louder. This happens gradually throughout the song; ?If God Will Send His Angels? seems to unfold, rather than progress in a more linear manner, musically speaking.
In the final lines of the verse and the introduction of the first chorus, the narrator makes two shifts. First, he admits a sense of powerlessness after only just speaking of the necessity of responsibility: ?It?s the blind leading the blonde/it?s the stuff, it?s the stuff of country songs.? Here the listener gets the impression of a lack of (metaphorical) vision, as well as a deep, hard-luck, ?country song? sadness. Maybe, the narrator seems to be saying, it?s true that we can?t blame anyone else for these problems. We have made them and we must fix them. But damn, it?s hard.
To attempt to solve this problem, then, the narrator turns to a likely source of support: God. He asks in the chorus:
Hey if God will send his angels
And if God will send a sign
And if God will send his angels
Would everything be alright?
The interesting part of this chorus really lies in that last line: ?Would everything be alright?? This is not a rhetorical question as it might seem at first glance. The narrator isn?t sure that God will, in fact, send the angels; ?if? God will send them is in question. But even if God does, he wonders, will it make a difference? This may get back to the earlier question of whose responsibility it is to ?fix? wounded relationships, or it may also allude to another question growing out of the song: how much power does God really have in our lives? Can God intervene in these matters? Does he? Will he?
This question is answered, somewhat gloomily, in the second verse:
God has 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
Hanging ?round this neighborhood
Not only is the narrator at odds with a lover, but there is obviously a feeling of having been forgotten or abandoned by God. A plea for God to ?send his angels,? the narrator seems to feel, is going nowhere. Furthermore, it would seem that God has not only abandoned this particular pleading voice; ?it?s been a while since we saw that child/hanging ?round this neighborhood? seems to signify that God has forgotten or abandoned a lot of people?an entire ?neighborhood,? perhaps. Since Pop contains other references to ?the troubles? in Ireland, most markedly in ?Please,? perhaps this a subtle nod to a feeling of God not being able or willing to intervene in the tragedies of the Irish people.
This seems more likely when one considers the second half of the verse:
You see his mother dealing in a doorway
See Father Christmas with a begging bowl
Jesus?s sister?s eyes are a blister
The High Street never looked so low
The signs of a missing God are all around as the narrator departs further from himself and his own situation. The imagery is stark and dreary: ?dealing in a doorway,? ?begging,? ?blister.? Without God, it?s another case of ?the blind leading the blonde,? as he comments again. There is ruin, desolation, and depression. What is to be done?
That is what the speaker in this song would like to know:
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
Everything seems to be lost at this point, even ?faith, hope, and love? (a subtle Biblical allusion as the word ?love,? ?the greatest of these? according to St. Paul, opens up the verse into poetic speculation). The atmosphere is uncertain and frightening; one can?t even count on the news.
In all of this turmoil, the chorus is repeated and the plea for God?s attention is reiterated. But the narrator seems to have a bad feeling about this, as the chorus segues into Bono?s plaintive moan of ?Where do we go?? Obviously we don?t know. There is no answer from anyone or anywhere?least of all from the somehow absent God himself.
In the third verse that follows, the narrator confesses perhaps the most profound commentary on the loss of God and faith in the entire song:
Jesus never let me down
You know Jesus used to show me the score
Then they put Jesus in show business
Now it?s hard to get in the door
This is profound, so profound that interpretation here is difficult. What is meant by ?putting Jesus in show business?? It?s hard to say, but obviously there us a sense of unreachability here again, the same as with celebrities. Jesus is as distant from the narrator as Tom Cruise is to this writer.
The song ends with the final plea for God to ?send his angels? and another question of ?where do we go?? This song provides no easy answers, and the angels never seem to come. ?If God Will Send His Angels? is both a heartbreaking expression of challenged faith and a mournful tune about lost relationships?not only the fractured love relationship in the first verse, but that between the speaker and God. It is one of U2?s loveliest and most difficult songs about faith, God, love?and angels.
The second of the ?angel songs? in U2?s pantheon is ?If God Will Send His Angels,? from 1997?s Pop and also featured in the 1998 film City of Angels. Although it is often mentioned or thought of in tandem with ?Stay (Faraway So Close),? it doesn?t exactly pick up where ?Stay? left off. Rather, ?If God Will Send His Angels,? while sharing much of the mood created by ?Stay,? looks to transcend the desolation and desperation in a way that ?Stay? does not.
The song opens quietly, with only Bono?s voice intoning gently:
Nobody else here baby
No one here to blame
No one to point the finger
It?s just you and me and the rain
These words open the scene for the listener: two people, wronged somehow (perhaps by each other), seeming to be at the end of their respective ropes. The narrator knows that it has come to down to himself and his partner, and that both of them are out of excuses. They must face each other and deal with each other without distraction or any third party to facilitate or blame.
This theme is repeated in the next part of the verse:
Nobody made you do it
No one put words in your mouth
Nobody here taking orders
When love took a train heading south
The narrator emphasizes the mutual solitude of the couple, and thus reinforces the concept that they are responsible for their situation. There is no one ?here to blame,? and ?nobody made you do it.? While there is to be sure some sadness to be dealt with in these words, they can also be inspirational in the sense that such an acknowledgment of aloneness and responsibility can be the beginning of a rebuilding as well. This idea is not explicitly stated in the lyrics, but something does seem to ?give? a bit after these lines; some modest instrumentation comes in behind Bono?s voice, and the words get a little louder. This happens gradually throughout the song; ?If God Will Send His Angels? seems to unfold, rather than progress in a more linear manner, musically speaking.
In the final lines of the verse and the introduction of the first chorus, the narrator makes two shifts. First, he admits a sense of powerlessness after only just speaking of the necessity of responsibility: ?It?s the blind leading the blonde/it?s the stuff, it?s the stuff of country songs.? Here the listener gets the impression of a lack of (metaphorical) vision, as well as a deep, hard-luck, ?country song? sadness. Maybe, the narrator seems to be saying, it?s true that we can?t blame anyone else for these problems. We have made them and we must fix them. But damn, it?s hard.
To attempt to solve this problem, then, the narrator turns to a likely source of support: God. He asks in the chorus:
Hey if God will send his angels
And if God will send a sign
And if God will send his angels
Would everything be alright?
The interesting part of this chorus really lies in that last line: ?Would everything be alright?? This is not a rhetorical question as it might seem at first glance. The narrator isn?t sure that God will, in fact, send the angels; ?if? God will send them is in question. But even if God does, he wonders, will it make a difference? This may get back to the earlier question of whose responsibility it is to ?fix? wounded relationships, or it may also allude to another question growing out of the song: how much power does God really have in our lives? Can God intervene in these matters? Does he? Will he?
This question is answered, somewhat gloomily, in the second verse:
God has 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
Hanging ?round this neighborhood
Not only is the narrator at odds with a lover, but there is obviously a feeling of having been forgotten or abandoned by God. A plea for God to ?send his angels,? the narrator seems to feel, is going nowhere. Furthermore, it would seem that God has not only abandoned this particular pleading voice; ?it?s been a while since we saw that child/hanging ?round this neighborhood? seems to signify that God has forgotten or abandoned a lot of people?an entire ?neighborhood,? perhaps. Since Pop contains other references to ?the troubles? in Ireland, most markedly in ?Please,? perhaps this a subtle nod to a feeling of God not being able or willing to intervene in the tragedies of the Irish people.
This seems more likely when one considers the second half of the verse:
You see his mother dealing in a doorway
See Father Christmas with a begging bowl
Jesus?s sister?s eyes are a blister
The High Street never looked so low
The signs of a missing God are all around as the narrator departs further from himself and his own situation. The imagery is stark and dreary: ?dealing in a doorway,? ?begging,? ?blister.? Without God, it?s another case of ?the blind leading the blonde,? as he comments again. There is ruin, desolation, and depression. What is to be done?
That is what the speaker in this song would like to know:
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
Everything seems to be lost at this point, even ?faith, hope, and love? (a subtle Biblical allusion as the word ?love,? ?the greatest of these? according to St. Paul, opens up the verse into poetic speculation). The atmosphere is uncertain and frightening; one can?t even count on the news.
In all of this turmoil, the chorus is repeated and the plea for God?s attention is reiterated. But the narrator seems to have a bad feeling about this, as the chorus segues into Bono?s plaintive moan of ?Where do we go?? Obviously we don?t know. There is no answer from anyone or anywhere?least of all from the somehow absent God himself.
In the third verse that follows, the narrator confesses perhaps the most profound commentary on the loss of God and faith in the entire song:
Jesus never let me down
You know Jesus used to show me the score
Then they put Jesus in show business
Now it?s hard to get in the door
This is profound, so profound that interpretation here is difficult. What is meant by ?putting Jesus in show business?? It?s hard to say, but obviously there us a sense of unreachability here again, the same as with celebrities. Jesus is as distant from the narrator as Tom Cruise is to this writer.
The song ends with the final plea for God to ?send his angels? and another question of ?where do we go?? This song provides no easy answers, and the angels never seem to come. ?If God Will Send His Angels? is both a heartbreaking expression of challenged faith and a mournful tune about lost relationships?not only the fractured love relationship in the first verse, but that between the speaker and God. It is one of U2?s loveliest and most difficult songs about faith, God, love?and angels.