Native Son

[Mr. V]

Catorce > Any meaning of Native Son

 

[U2girl]

It wasn't the band that changed the lyrics, it was Bono. Lillywhite told the story in several interviews that when he came in to work on the album and had the band set up together in the room to play through what they already had, Bono got 30 seconds into Native Son and came to a screeching halt saying "I can't sing that song for two years on the road." For whatever reason the song no longer worked for Bono with those lyrics and if Bono can't get into the song he can't sing it. After this Edge and the others fiddled with the music a little changing something (I don't remember what Steve said) then Bono came in and improvised on the lyric. Lillywhite also said that the Native Son lyric was a case of Bono trying to write to a specific issue which often comes out forced and doesn't sit well with the music.

Dana

Lillywhite also said the band was feeling uneasy when Bono's activism started creeping in the studio. I don't know whether Bono wrote Native Son lyrics on his own but he and Edge are credited for Vertigo lyrics.

Native Son is a weak "political U2" song, Vertigo is a strong single - their respective lyrics just don't work with their respective music. Plus I don't think Bono could handle that "Freee!" scream live each night.

 

[U2girl]

1. The band felt the lyrics and music did not mesh as well as they could have.

2. The band sold out.

Not a difficult choice in this forum.

 

[mikal]

Agreed.

I do love the way he sings that last verse of Vertigo... "I can feel your love teaching me how..." and the guitar accompanying it, and this is absent on Native Son. So

And just cos I spent the past 2 hours working on this.... here's my best attempt at an ideal Bomb. I know it's not perfect because we can only work with the songs we have and certain songs like Vertigo and Native Son for example could have probably benefited with parts from both songs! Anyway...

1. Love And Peace (cheesetastic "or else" removed )
2. City Of Blinding Lights
3. Native Son
4. All Because Of You (alternate version)
5. Miracle Drug
6. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
7. Original Of The Species (single version)
8. Yahweh (alternate version)
9. Fast Cars
10. A Man And A Woman
11. Crumbs From Your Table
12. One Step Closer

Optional: Hidden track, Mercy

LAP makes a good opener and if one is impatient to get to the much better song, it's easy to skip. Native Son/Vertigo and ABOY always went well together for me. Sometimes and Original went great together on the tour. Yahweh and Fast Cars is perfect for me. Can't explain it. Fast Cars and AMAAW are musically similar. Crumbs is the high before the mellow ending just like New York/Grace. This list works for me right now... until I change it again!

ETA: I'm not sure I prefer the ABOY alt. version thaaaat much to the album version but anything is better than that ear piercing intro that's why I chose the alt version.

good playlist, i also added:

13. AYGWF
14. Mercy
15. Neon Lights

 

[rihannsu]

Lillywhite also said the band was feeling uneasy when Bono's activism started creeping in the studio. I don't know whether Bono wrote Native Son lyrics on his own but he and Edge are credited for Vertigo lyrics.

Native Son is a weak "political U2" song, Vertigo is a strong single - their respective lyrics just don't work with their respective music. Plus I don't think Bono could handle that "Freee!" scream live each night.

They feel uneasy when he tries to force it into the songs. Actually when you look back on some of their more political or controversial songs they start with Edge. Sunday Bloody Sunday was started by Edge and his first line was "Don't talk to me about the rights of the IRA." He said that Bono was the one who kind of toned down the lyric there. Also he wrote the beginning of Seconds, the beginning of Wake Up Dead Man with the controversial "fucked up world" lyric that Bono takes a lot of heat for. Bono's best political songs start with him trying to sketch the images that the music brings to him rather than starting with lyrics then fitting them to music. He is best at taking little snippets that he may have written ahead of time and have floating around in his head and letting the music bring to the fore which ones fit. That is why when you look at all the demos you see lines and phrases showing up in multiple songs. The ideas are wandering around looking for the right home.

For my tastes although I like all the unreleased tracks and think they are good songs, they just don't quite have the magic touch yet. It's more like I can see that they could be magic but haven't quite got there yet.

Dana

 

[roy]

The lyrics in Native Son sound 'forced' to me. Like Bono was trying 'too hard' to be political, I think that's why he stepped back from them and went another direction.

 

[Zoots]

good playlist, i also added:

13. AYGWF
14. Mercy
15. Neon Lights

Thanks. I actually had AYGWF in there before. I like it but frankly I think it's a little short of album worthy. That's why I removed it.

As for that lyric "officer put down the gun" I'm not a major fan of it or anything but I still think the chorus lyrics in Native Son fit the melody better than those on Vertigo. There's a beautiful flow to "is it so hard for a native son to be free" that I love more than "except you give me something I can feel". But the verse lyrics on NS are kinda clumsy.

 

[gvox]

Catorce > Any meaning of Native Son

I respect the band's decision to go forward with Vertigo, but I sincerely hope that was sarcasm.

 

[kingofsorrow]

if i had to choose between N.S. or vertigo, i would choose Drowning Man.

 

[TheBrazilianFly]

I find Vertigo to be better and more exciting. There are some elements in it that makes it stand out and more interesting (like the Spanish). Native Son is alright but it has nothing too special about it. When I listen to it I can clearly feel them trying hard to come up with a great rock song and not being able to nail it. They did nailed it wth Vertigo later on. And that's Edge singing at 1:17.

 

[U2387]

Native Son is good, but as an unreleased non album track. I know it has been said to be about Leonard Peltier, but then, I don't get the 'officer put down the gun' or 'i never wanted to own one' in that context, as Peltier owned plenty of guns and the two officers were not shooting before the indcident, but I digress. Somehow, I doubt it is about Peltier, can anyone help me with a quote from Bono or anyone else, or better yet, another interpretation of the lyrics??

Either way, Vertigo is far better, both as a rock song and live. As others pointed out, it has that early U2 reminiscent guitar sound in 'feel your love teaching me how' verse and the Spanish throughout the song made it catchy and radio worthy. It was the perfect comeback single, and was not in anyway a sellout. U2 is in the business of making music for money, they are all very open about that, Bono says artists are business people, always have been, etc. Get over it, it was not selling out, Vertigo sounds very U2-like and plenty natural, it didnt even sound forced to be single and radio worthy. The people who do not like Vertigo can be put in 2 categories:
1.) U2 sold out: Again, Apple has come up w. a system to compensate the artists for downloads, something U2 appreciates and wanted to reciprocate. Apple has helped U2 in this regard, U2 wanted to help Apple. Not selling out, they are doing what they have done since they signed a record deal- make music for money.
2.)Those who hate the lyrics, think it is a cliche rocker w/ no meaning: they only think that because of the IPOD and the Spanish. Also, it was played alot, so some are sick of it. However, its themes of finding fulfillment and meaning amongst moral decadence are portrayed brilliantly. 'feeling so much stronger than a thought' 'your love is teaching me how' , if people actually listened to the song, they would find it explains alot about living the fast nightlife, knowing its downfalls, but still doing it because of some intangible feeling that is found within it.(girl with crimson nails and the cross, definitelty symbolic there) I cant quite figure out the meaning myself, but if you read the lyrics, you cant deny, it makes you think and is not just U2 being loud and Bono mumbling incoherently to try and score a hit. (a small connection with last night on earth is starting to POP into my head(no pun intended) as I think of the lyrics, what does everyone think?

With these people in the 2nd category, you would of thought U2 had re released de do do do de da da da by the Police, which is obviously not true. While a great song in my opinion, that is truly an example of meaningless lyrics that attempt to describe how you act when you are nervous approaching someone.

 

[kingofsorrow]

well vertigo did have that cool vid. and those awesome graphics on the LED curtains during the live performance. i don't think N.S. would have worked well with those.

 

[ahittle]

I think Bono had the right instinct: he couldn't see himself singing Native Son night after night after night. Native Son could've been another marginal track along the lines of ABOY. Good track, but lacks a certain something. And as a lead single, that would've been disastrous.

I find it odd that people find Native Son more "raw" than Vertigo. I think it's overly slick and over-dubbed into impotence.

I know it took real cajones for Edge to drop that squiggly lead part. It's hard to strip back once you've gotten used to guitar parts. I love the fact that Vertigo is almost completely one guitar track all the way through.

And the Vertigo drum sound is grade A rock. Steve L earned his cash on this one.

 

[phillyfan26]

I think the real answer is Native Son's lyrics and intro with the rest of the music of Vertigo after the intro. And with Edge's great verse.

No stupid Spanish or "hello hello" or "yeah yeah yeah." That's horrible. Get that out.

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

native son may be a weak political song by U2's standards, but it's the first one they'd done in a long time. so it's a win for me.

plus vertigo...is that really about anything?

 

[Earnie Shavers]

Native Son = better song.
Vertigo = better single.

If Vertigo didn't exist and they had continued to run with Native Son (which would have sounded very different once they'd finished with it, not the obviously choppy 'work in progress' version we have) I think the album would have been fine. No doubt Vertigo was huge and can probably be directly credited for most of the initial success of the album, but I think a better produced/mixed COBL could have easily held it's own as the opening single, and adding depth further down the album could have only done it good, or at least not done it any harm. Hammering it full of 'single' songs probably didn't quite work out the way they had hoped anyway.

 

[Salome]

but I agree it's a great verse, my favourite one in the song, reminds me a lot of "old" U2.

to be honest, Native Son has a more retro feel than Vertigo
besides the awkwardness of the lyrics never would have allowed it on an album

 

[bonocomet]

plus vertigo...is that really about anything?

Yes!!! I really can't see how so many people see no meaning in this song!

Vertigo has a lot of meaning in it, and the fact that it's also rolled up perfectly in a catchy pop tune makes it extra awesome IMO.

 

[xaviMF22]

plus vertigo...is that really about anything?

about a place called vertigo?

which makes no sense

 

[bonocomet]

Well it makes perfect sense if you've been there.

 

[xaviMF22]

Well it makes perfect sense if you've been there.

meh, I rather be on a place called Elevation

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

I have been told it's everyting I wish I didn't know...

 

[xaviMF22]

I have been told it's everyting I wish I didn't know...

then maybe I don't want to know

 

[Bono's shades]

Native Son isn't a great song if you compare it to Pride or Sunday Bloody Sunday or BTBS, but Bono singing the word "free" on that high note is an amazing moment that has more meaning behind it than Vertigo has in the entire song.

 

[Earnie Shavers]

I just listened to Native Son and Vertigo back to back. Probably the first time I've listened to either in maybe (seriously) a year. I just can't get past how far better a song Native Son is. Vertigo is all catchiness and rifftasticness, loud and brash and light fun - and I flat out hated it till I was in the crowd for it, where it is brilliant. It was a huge single, Atomic Bomb should thank it for most of it's success as an album, it is what it is and it did what it was meant to do.

But why is Native Son better? It's a different thing, it's an entirely different song to Vertigo. The way that 'Vertigo' riff is used in Native Son, it means something musically. "To be freee", and only then the riff kicks in, sounding like someone kicking down a door and running outside. The natural energy build throughout the song till the end, when Edge's solo part (that made it into Vertigo) then goes on and kicks it up a notch behind Bono's massive 'Freeeee' and in and onto a final full on chorus. Vertigo didn't/couldn't do that. They loaded it with all it's punches from the very beginning and then just hit repeat. They needed it full on from the start to be that smashing little pop radio single. They couldn't build the song, couldn't build energy. The only way they could give the end any kind of difference and punch was to do what they did - essentially just stop the track for a breather and then just start it up again, this time with extra sonic beef. Not as good, IMO.

From the 'yeah, yeah, yeahs' on is where Native Son owns Vertigo under any and all definitions. It's where they're playing the same game, and Native Son kills it. I bet that even if you are well in Vertigo's camp on this, you wish it had the release Native Son has at the end. Before that point, from start to "yeah yeah yeah", it depends on whether you think it's more important that U2 made it a killer single, or a great song.

 

[bonocomet]

^ Well I do agree with that. I love Vertigo, for exactly what it is. And I also love Native Son. They are different songs. But obviously U2 couldn't use them both. I have also been listening to them back to back lately, and there are highs to them both.

 

[el_milagro]

For me, this is the answer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbsTQgjPiZ0

SalU2!

 

[Mr. V]

I respect the band's decision to go forward with Vertigo, but I sincerely hope that was sarcasm.

nope. U2 needed fucking catorce. they delivered.

 

[Moser]

nope. U2 needed fucking catorce. they delivered.

True.

Perhaps people shouldn't listen to Vertigo in any form for ten years, and then come back and rediscover the song.

Remember what it sounded like when you first heard it?

Yeh, it's awesome.

 

[The Sad Punk]

So, who else was not at all impressed by Vertigo when they first heard it?