I think “City of blinding lights” is perfect to celebrate Valentine's Day -- How sweet is to hear from someone near to your heart phrases like “I miss you when you’re not around” or “Oh, you look so beautiful tonight”???
I love this song -- it’s one of my favourite on the new record. It’s original, it’s brilliant and it deals with a lot of things: love, time, life.
The music intro lasts enough to create the atmosphere, than Bono’s soft voice enters. Dunno if this song is intended as a prosecution of “last night on earth” (there we had the lyrics “the more you take/the less you feel/the less you know the more you believe..) And dunno if Bono did it express or not -- IMO he didn’t.
“The more you see, the less you know / the less you find out as you go / I knew much more then than I do now”
Well, don’t we learn from experience? So aren’t these lines a sort of contradiction to reality? Maybe it’s a reference to something different than simple experience. As kids, we have the purity and, in some ways, only in childhood we seem to understand things. The more we grow, the more our approach to life changes and our comprehension becomes something else. We believe we know a lot and experience teaches us so many different things, but in some ways we loose the contact with a part of knowledge that only pure hearts can have.
Do you remember when Bono sang: “Teach me/ I know I’m not a hopeless case”? Well, maybe in “city” we’re not as far as it can seem from “beautiful day”. I mean, in BD the question was to be taught something, while here it’s like if we are getting aware that we need to have our pure hearts back! (btw, later in the record, there’s the line “please stay a child somewhere in your heart” -- not a coincidence, definitely!)
“Neon heart/dayglo eyes/a city lit by fireflies/they’re advertising in the sky for people like us”: welcome to NY! Lights everywhere, ads, neon and all that stuff…
And then, the romantic “And I miss you when you’re not around” -- and the line I yearn to hear live “I’m getting ready to leave the ground”. Yes, get ready, because you’re going to leave for the sky. (Will Bono decide to jump from the stage every night??)
“don’t look before you laugh, look ugly in a photograph/
flesh bulbs, purple irises the camera can see”
How many times you looked to picture of you and don’t like it? How many times those pics look false to your eyes?
“I’ve seen you walk unafraid/I’ve seen you in the clothes you made”; i.e., I know you built yourself a shield to defend yourself and for avoiding to show who you really are. Bono seems to address to someone he knows, and he knows how that person really is, beyond the mask she/he built.
“Can you see the beauty inside of me”? Also Bono wears masks. Is there a way to recognize the beauty he has?
“What happened to the beauty I had inside of me?”. A question, with no answer. I think Bono still has beauty inside, we see it in his actions, we hear it in his voice. Maybe he feels he lost part of that goodness -- maybe, he just could not avoid that loss.
And again, love comes in: “I miss you when you’re not around […]Oh you look so beautiful tonight”.
Then the songs becomes a challenge to time:
Time… time… time… time…
Time won’t leave me as I am, but time won’t take the boy out of this man
Whatever can happen, there’s still some pure part inside the heart, and the kindness and goodness stay there, or better spread to all the people we hold near to our hearts.
“Oh you look so beautiful tonight”. -- repeated 3 times (with that delicious “oh!” that makes my mind turn and my heart dance…)
“The more you know, the less you feel
Some pray for others steal
Bless is not just for the one who kneel… luckily”
We’re coming back to the start -- with something added: there’s a hope that everyone can be blessed and
So, isn’t this one of the nicest love songs you can dedicate to someone for Valantine’s Day??
If you don’t agree, post your own suggestions!
Cheers
Lady Luck
I love this song -- it’s one of my favourite on the new record. It’s original, it’s brilliant and it deals with a lot of things: love, time, life.
The music intro lasts enough to create the atmosphere, than Bono’s soft voice enters. Dunno if this song is intended as a prosecution of “last night on earth” (there we had the lyrics “the more you take/the less you feel/the less you know the more you believe..) And dunno if Bono did it express or not -- IMO he didn’t.
“The more you see, the less you know / the less you find out as you go / I knew much more then than I do now”
Well, don’t we learn from experience? So aren’t these lines a sort of contradiction to reality? Maybe it’s a reference to something different than simple experience. As kids, we have the purity and, in some ways, only in childhood we seem to understand things. The more we grow, the more our approach to life changes and our comprehension becomes something else. We believe we know a lot and experience teaches us so many different things, but in some ways we loose the contact with a part of knowledge that only pure hearts can have.
Do you remember when Bono sang: “Teach me/ I know I’m not a hopeless case”? Well, maybe in “city” we’re not as far as it can seem from “beautiful day”. I mean, in BD the question was to be taught something, while here it’s like if we are getting aware that we need to have our pure hearts back! (btw, later in the record, there’s the line “please stay a child somewhere in your heart” -- not a coincidence, definitely!)
“Neon heart/dayglo eyes/a city lit by fireflies/they’re advertising in the sky for people like us”: welcome to NY! Lights everywhere, ads, neon and all that stuff…
And then, the romantic “And I miss you when you’re not around” -- and the line I yearn to hear live “I’m getting ready to leave the ground”. Yes, get ready, because you’re going to leave for the sky. (Will Bono decide to jump from the stage every night??)
“don’t look before you laugh, look ugly in a photograph/
flesh bulbs, purple irises the camera can see”
How many times you looked to picture of you and don’t like it? How many times those pics look false to your eyes?
“I’ve seen you walk unafraid/I’ve seen you in the clothes you made”; i.e., I know you built yourself a shield to defend yourself and for avoiding to show who you really are. Bono seems to address to someone he knows, and he knows how that person really is, beyond the mask she/he built.
“Can you see the beauty inside of me”? Also Bono wears masks. Is there a way to recognize the beauty he has?
“What happened to the beauty I had inside of me?”. A question, with no answer. I think Bono still has beauty inside, we see it in his actions, we hear it in his voice. Maybe he feels he lost part of that goodness -- maybe, he just could not avoid that loss.
And again, love comes in: “I miss you when you’re not around […]Oh you look so beautiful tonight”.
Then the songs becomes a challenge to time:
Time… time… time… time…
Time won’t leave me as I am, but time won’t take the boy out of this man
Whatever can happen, there’s still some pure part inside the heart, and the kindness and goodness stay there, or better spread to all the people we hold near to our hearts.
“Oh you look so beautiful tonight”. -- repeated 3 times (with that delicious “oh!” that makes my mind turn and my heart dance…)
“The more you know, the less you feel
Some pray for others steal
Bless is not just for the one who kneel… luckily”
We’re coming back to the start -- with something added: there’s a hope that everyone can be blessed and
So, isn’t this one of the nicest love songs you can dedicate to someone for Valantine’s Day??
If you don’t agree, post your own suggestions!
Cheers
Lady Luck
