Bono's Most Biting Lyrics

[Utoo]

...may very well be these lines:

"We're cut adrift
But still floating
I'm only hanging on
to watch you go down.....my love."

Such spite in those words! "I'm only sticking around to watch you suffer first." Then the pause, then addition of "my love"---it's like a twist of the knife just to hammer it home.

It took me years to appreciate So Cruel. I used to think that half of Pop had much more bite to it, but I finally came to see the pure spite in So Cruel a few years back.

Awesome song that often gets the shaft as the weakest on AB.

 

[financeguy]

Fairytale of New York rewritten by junkie lover. It is a very adult song. You don't appreciate the lyrics until you've lived a little.

It's cleverly biting, in the sense that you almost damn yourself if you get it.

 

[U2DMfan]

Most biting?

"With a mouth full of teeth, you ate all your friends."
But you don't mean "biting" that way, do you?
That's more...'bitey'.

Speaking of...I call the big one Bitey.

 

[cobl04]

And he doesn't sing that song in a sinister way either, which makes it all the more biting. One of Bono's very best lyrics.

 

[bono_212]

I liked that song from the very first time I heard it, but it took a while for me to notice the lyrics. As Cobbler points out, it's pretty unassuming at first because of the vocal delivery alone.

The song just makes me so incredibly sad.

I love it.

 

[cobl04]

That's one thing that disappoints me about AB... I've never experienced a lot of the stuff the lyrics are talking about, so while I can appreciate them, they don't hit me as hard

 

[bono_212]

You're sad that you've never had your heart broken to bits by a cheating spouse?

 

[LemonMelon]

They don't play it like that in the Dirrrty South. They just slap a bitch and move awn.

 

[cobl04]

You're sad that you've never had your heart broken to bits by a cheating spouse?

I know that may seem very but in a lot of ways I am jealous that I don't connect with some of the lyrics, I won't go into why.

 

[coolian2]

I know that may seem very but in a lot of ways I am jealous that I don't connect with some of the lyrics, I won't go into why.

once you get your ass kicked from pillar to post, you'll wish you'd never had those regrets.

 

[bono_212]

I know Ultraviolet (Ultra Violet? I'm never sure) used to make me super emotional when I thought I was in love with this one guy in high school. But, now it just makes me emotional because it's a beautiful song and it actually works pretty well for a working relationship, and not just pining.

 

[bono_man2002]

Speaking of...I call the big one Bitey.

 

[bazza]

I was punching in the numbers at the ATM machine
I could see in the reflection
A face staring back at me
At the moment of surrender
Of vision over visibility
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me

 

[bono_212]

Oh those cut me to the core because I relate so very much.

 

[Songman]

Great lyrics. 'So cruel' is lyrically, one of the best off AB.

Other biting lyrics, from the same album, from 'One'.

'You ask me to enter'
'But then you make me crawl'

Thats biting for sure. Someone, maybe a lover, some one thats important to your life, asks you to enter, or re-enter back in to their life, or to something they want you to be apart of, but you have to bring yourself down to the lowest level in order to do that. Thats power play.

 

[U2girl]

The opening lines in Wake up dead man.

I'm alone in this world
And a fucked-up world it is too.

Hear it every Christmas time
but hope and history won't rhyme
so what's it worth ?
This Peace on Earth...

I was speeding on the subway
through the stations of the cross
every eye looking every other way
counting down till the pain would stop

So where is the hope, and where is the faith, and the love ?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Mother, am I still your son?
You know I've waited so long
To hear you say so
Mother, you left and made me someone
Now I'm still a child,
No one tells me no...



They want you to be Jesus
They'll go down on one knee
But they'll want their money back
If you're alive at 33
And you're turning tricks
With your crucifix
Star

 

[doctorwho]

One reason I adore U2 is because of Bono. I know - lots of shock. But why? His passionate vocals and wonderful lyrics. Add those to the outstanding music the band create and it's little wonder U2 have been around for so long.

One of my more recent personal favorite is from "Electrical Storm". That song gets a lot of unfair grief over the "heavy as a truck" line. But the song is very beautiful. One powerful lyric is:

I think of you, all of the time...
I know that's not enough...

Very poignant comment about love. That couplet is open to many interpretations.

 

[Moose-Head-Brew]

"Have you come here for forgiveness
Have you come to raise the dead
Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in your head" --- Or , sometimes live "I did" (which i prefer)

One is a beautiful song about an ending relationship.
I have a good friend who had it as their wedding song. lol he was surprised when I explained what the song was actually written about.

 

[Jeannieco]

That's so funny, I was thinking of that very line from So Cruel before I opened the thread.

Love love love that song..... it's hypnotic and the lyrics just BITE in a good way.

It's such a great song to blast in a convertible at night alone on the highway... and just wail the chorus...especially the last part when he says.... " sweatheart................. you're so cruel."

 

[AnCatKatie]

Mother, am I still your son?
You know I've waited so long
To hear you say so
Mother, you left and made me someone
Now I'm still a child,
No one tells me no...

This. Mofo has a lot of pain in it...

 

[Babydoll]

This may not be a lyrical masterpiece, nor dark but to me it's poignant as it relates to quite a few situations in my life:

The lyrics from Kite:

Who's to say where the wind will take you?
Who's to say what it is will break you?
I don't know which way the wind will blow
Don't wanna see you cry,
I know that this is not goodbye...

 

[Jive Turkey]

Get it right
There's no blood thicker than ink

 

[waynetravis]

Love is blindness
I don't want to see
Won't you wrap the night
Around me
Oh my heart
Love is blindness

In a parked car
In a crowded street
You see your love
Made complete
Thread is ripping
The knot is slipping
Love is blindness

Love is clockworks
And cold steel
Fingers too numb to feel
Squeeze the handle
Blow out the candle
Love is blindness

Love is blindness
I don't want to see
Won't you wrap the night
Around me
Oh my love
Blindness

A little death
Without mourning
No call
And no warning
Baby...a dangerous idea
That almost makes sense

Love is drowning
In a deep well
All the secrets
And no one to tell
Take the money
Honey
Blindness

Love is blindness
I don't want to see
Won't you wrap the night
Around me
Oh my love
Blindness

 

[iron yuppie]

My nomination would be Gone. That is as scathing as they come in U2's catalogue.

 

[hikerdeb]

All the lyrics that have been mentioned here have a deep emotional impact, because Bono always writes from the heart.

But I don't know if Bono would have been capable of writing one of the cruelest lines I've ever heard. This is from an R.E.M. song:

"This one goes out to the one I love/This one goes out to the one I've left behind/A simple prop to occupy my time."

That line is chilling because it has NO emotion. It's cold and calculating. I can't think of anything that's quite equivalent to that in Bono's catalog.

 

[cobl04]

Nearly all the lines in So Cruel

 

[Jorinde]

Outside
Somebody's outside
Somebody's knocking at the door
There's a black car parked
At the side of the road
Don't go to the door
Don't go to the door

Won't you come back tomorrow?
Won't you be back tomorrow?
Will you be back tomorrow?
Can I sleep tonight?

 

[sunnysideoflove]

one's he's lifted are often very good, 'the silence creeps under the door'
'send a stretcher or you make me crawl'
and in context
'suffer the needle chill'
'high, higher than the sun'
it's a matter of context, when i saw them live, 'i got a feeling called vertigo' made total sense x

 

[sunnysideoflove]

such a happy lyric x