Alisaura
Blue Crack Supplier
I admit that my perceptions have been biased in the last couple of weeks, with the death of someone I worked with, but I have been listening to UF a lot in this time and the theme of death seemed to jump out at me in a lot of the songs. I'm not saying this was intentional on Bono's part, and my hypothesis has a lot of holes, but bear with me...
A Sort of Homecoming: It was in this forum that I recently learned that this song is apparently about a soldier who has been killed in a battle, and his spirit is making its way home. (Thank you to whoever provided this interpretation!) It makes so much sense listening to the lyrics, and it gives an already haunting song another dimension of depth and poignancy. I've been unable to get enough of this song... I've been repeating it 3 or 4 times on each run through the album.
"And your heart beats so slow, through the sleet and driving snow..."
It's beautiful... the only thing I wonder is how it might sound if those guitars were less jangling. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, or that I don't like it, but something about the music made it really hard for me to concentrate on the lyrics and what they might mean, how they fit into the theme of the soldier's spirit. This also isn't a bad thing - I love how U2's music can just unplug the rational, lyric-analysing part of my brain and take me away. But this is a lyrics forum.
(Incidentally, Bono begins not only a sentence, or a song, but a whole album with the word "And". Who needs grammar?)
Anyway, back to the point...
"See faces ploughed like fields that once gave no resistance"
I wondered for a long time exactly what Bono was getting at with this line. I thought he must have meant to say that the fields once DID resist, and now they don't, allowing them, and the faces, to be ploughed. But now I'm thinking that it was the faces that once gave no resistance, and when they did resist, in the form of a battle, whether voluntarily or drafted, they were ploughed under like the fields they fought on.
"On borderland we run... We run and don't look back"
I love this line. The theme echoes in other songs on the album, as well as reminding me of Drowning Man: "We run and not grow weary", which to me could be a description of heaven, the afterlife.
"Tonight, we'll build a bridge, across the sea and land"
That whole verse is probably my favourite in the song, and so eloquent in the spirit reaching out to his family far away.
"She will die and live again, tonight" ... Aside from being an incredible, spine-chilling vocal from Bono, I think this, together with the "Oh come away, oh come away say I" parts, says something about the dead soldier meeting one more time with his lover or wife, but they can only meet on his side of the borderland, the side of death. That's how I hear it, anyway...
"Oh don't sorrow, no don't weep,
For tonight, at last,
I am coming home."
Pride: For some reason, this sounds even better after several repetitions of ASOH. We all know that Pride is about Martin Luther King; it is also about his murder, the death of an icon of America and of civil rights. "They took your life, they could not take your pride."
That Bono wrote about the time and place of MLK's death (I know there was some confusion about the date and morning/evening thing on either side of the Atlantic when it happened, or when the news reached them) demonstrates that it affected them deeply, even though they were children at the time. I'm not sure, but it could have been the first time that a death had affected them, and they would also have seen how it affected their families and other adults that they knew.
Wire: I just found a website that opines that this song is "about a sort of fascination with death, and heroin use" (http://hem.bredband.net/steverud/U2MoL/UF/wire.html), quoting "Such a nice day to throw your life away". I admit I hadn't really looked very deeply into the meaning behind Wire until ten minutes ago (or the actual lyrics, many of which I couldn't make out), but the song always seemed very angry to me, and lines referring to "the longest sleep" and "here's the rope, now, swing on it" underline the theme of death, and a violent one at that. Well, a violent-sounding song about death... not necessarily a song about violent death.
Bono's little laugh after "place your bets" is oddly chilling, menacing. It might be hopeless resignation, it might be the devil chuckling at the mess humans can make of themselves without him having to lift a finger... it might be the devil lifting a finger and making things that much more amusing for him.
One thing I wonder about this song is, who is "I" when he sings "I'm no dope, I give you hope"? The drugs? That would fit with the rope line that comes next... I dunno.
The Unforgettable Fire: This is another song that I haven't really investigated before. There's a lyrical connection to ASOH with "Walk 'til you run, and don't look back" and the "going home" theme, and there's the fact that it's the title of the exhibition of art by Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors.
Looking at the lyrics now (which have always puzzled me), it could be possible to fit them loosely to one of the survivors of the atomic bombs, but I'm sure someone out there has found out the "real" interpretation that fits better.
It seems an exceptionally vague and open-to-interpretation lyric, obviously unless we know exactly what was going through Bono's head at the time.
Promenade: My hypothesis breaks down a bit here. I read somewhere that this song was partly inspired by Bono's then-new house with its spiral staircase, and I read a somewhat sexual theme into some of the lines. There's also that image of desolation and past destruction though, and if this had been written later in the 80s I might think it was about Bono being in a Central American warzone and wishing for home.
Confession here - I was convinced until today that he says "suicide town" at the end, but two different sources have told me that it's "sea side town" or something. There goes my one direct connection with death in this song. Can't win 'em all.
4th of July: Yes, I know there are no lyrics. But on the day that I learned that the coworker I mentioned earlier had died, in the afternoon after it had sunk in, all I could think about was this song, especially the bass line. I found the tab just so I could learn to play it and get it out of my system. I obviously have no idea what Edge and Adam were thinking when they were playing this, but there you have it. Not official, but a connection for me.
As has been mentioned in other threads, this piece makes a very good introduction to ...
Bad: Again, most of us know the story behind this - addiction, and the desperate wish to pull a friend back from the brink of, of course, death.
(Incidentally, did anyone else see the lyrics printed wrong in the Best of Propaganda book? Well, I suppose it was like that in the original issue as well, but it made me panic and listen to the song again.)
I don't think it's the accepted and obvious interpretation, but it has occurred to me that the path the object of the song could take (through the rain, into the half light, breaking away), is the path of death - surrender, dislocation, letting it all go. And thus leave the subject of the song wide awake, and not sleeping.
Indian Summer Sky: I really should have done more homework before I posted this thread.
I can draw a tenuous link between the aforementioned "longest sleep" and "the longest day" in this song, but I'm stretching it. Apparently this song is partly inspired by a book, which I haven't heard of and so can't comment on.
"The light that waits for I
The light ... waiting
Up towards the sky" .... this could be another allusion to heaven or the afterlife I suppose.
Elvis Presley and America: Another great icon of America, and also someone whose death would have affected U2 deeply, and more recently than MLK's.
(I'm looking at the lyrics now... this is another song that I never made out most of the words for.) I can't say much about the lyrics 'cos they're famously stream-of-consciousness, and naturally seem to jump all over the place. But there is clearly some reaction to Elvis's death that was propelling some of the words.
MLK: Quite simply, a eulogy to Martin Luther King.
Listening to UF after having listened to October, part of my brain expected MLK to follow Bad, the same way that October (the song) followed Tomorrow. The big, heart-wrenching number followed by the mellow, meditative track, to allow you to recover. But no, we get kicked straight into Indian Summer Sky on UF. Again, not saying this is a bad thing - it simply is. I could ponder an alternate track listing that went Bad, MLK, and EPAA/ISS either way around, but I have to trust that U2 knew what they were doing when they put the album together.
Anyway, I can't seem to stay on my own topic, so I'll leave it there. Thank you for your time.
A Sort of Homecoming: It was in this forum that I recently learned that this song is apparently about a soldier who has been killed in a battle, and his spirit is making its way home. (Thank you to whoever provided this interpretation!) It makes so much sense listening to the lyrics, and it gives an already haunting song another dimension of depth and poignancy. I've been unable to get enough of this song... I've been repeating it 3 or 4 times on each run through the album.
"And your heart beats so slow, through the sleet and driving snow..."
It's beautiful... the only thing I wonder is how it might sound if those guitars were less jangling. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, or that I don't like it, but something about the music made it really hard for me to concentrate on the lyrics and what they might mean, how they fit into the theme of the soldier's spirit. This also isn't a bad thing - I love how U2's music can just unplug the rational, lyric-analysing part of my brain and take me away. But this is a lyrics forum.
(Incidentally, Bono begins not only a sentence, or a song, but a whole album with the word "And". Who needs grammar?)
Anyway, back to the point...
"See faces ploughed like fields that once gave no resistance"
I wondered for a long time exactly what Bono was getting at with this line. I thought he must have meant to say that the fields once DID resist, and now they don't, allowing them, and the faces, to be ploughed. But now I'm thinking that it was the faces that once gave no resistance, and when they did resist, in the form of a battle, whether voluntarily or drafted, they were ploughed under like the fields they fought on.
"On borderland we run... We run and don't look back"
I love this line. The theme echoes in other songs on the album, as well as reminding me of Drowning Man: "We run and not grow weary", which to me could be a description of heaven, the afterlife.
"Tonight, we'll build a bridge, across the sea and land"
That whole verse is probably my favourite in the song, and so eloquent in the spirit reaching out to his family far away.
"She will die and live again, tonight" ... Aside from being an incredible, spine-chilling vocal from Bono, I think this, together with the "Oh come away, oh come away say I" parts, says something about the dead soldier meeting one more time with his lover or wife, but they can only meet on his side of the borderland, the side of death. That's how I hear it, anyway...
"Oh don't sorrow, no don't weep,
For tonight, at last,
I am coming home."
Pride: For some reason, this sounds even better after several repetitions of ASOH. We all know that Pride is about Martin Luther King; it is also about his murder, the death of an icon of America and of civil rights. "They took your life, they could not take your pride."
That Bono wrote about the time and place of MLK's death (I know there was some confusion about the date and morning/evening thing on either side of the Atlantic when it happened, or when the news reached them) demonstrates that it affected them deeply, even though they were children at the time. I'm not sure, but it could have been the first time that a death had affected them, and they would also have seen how it affected their families and other adults that they knew.
Wire: I just found a website that opines that this song is "about a sort of fascination with death, and heroin use" (http://hem.bredband.net/steverud/U2MoL/UF/wire.html), quoting "Such a nice day to throw your life away". I admit I hadn't really looked very deeply into the meaning behind Wire until ten minutes ago (or the actual lyrics, many of which I couldn't make out), but the song always seemed very angry to me, and lines referring to "the longest sleep" and "here's the rope, now, swing on it" underline the theme of death, and a violent one at that. Well, a violent-sounding song about death... not necessarily a song about violent death.
Bono's little laugh after "place your bets" is oddly chilling, menacing. It might be hopeless resignation, it might be the devil chuckling at the mess humans can make of themselves without him having to lift a finger... it might be the devil lifting a finger and making things that much more amusing for him.
One thing I wonder about this song is, who is "I" when he sings "I'm no dope, I give you hope"? The drugs? That would fit with the rope line that comes next... I dunno.
The Unforgettable Fire: This is another song that I haven't really investigated before. There's a lyrical connection to ASOH with "Walk 'til you run, and don't look back" and the "going home" theme, and there's the fact that it's the title of the exhibition of art by Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors.
Looking at the lyrics now (which have always puzzled me), it could be possible to fit them loosely to one of the survivors of the atomic bombs, but I'm sure someone out there has found out the "real" interpretation that fits better.
It seems an exceptionally vague and open-to-interpretation lyric, obviously unless we know exactly what was going through Bono's head at the time.Promenade: My hypothesis breaks down a bit here. I read somewhere that this song was partly inspired by Bono's then-new house with its spiral staircase, and I read a somewhat sexual theme into some of the lines. There's also that image of desolation and past destruction though, and if this had been written later in the 80s I might think it was about Bono being in a Central American warzone and wishing for home.
Confession here - I was convinced until today that he says "suicide town" at the end, but two different sources have told me that it's "sea side town" or something. There goes my one direct connection with death in this song. Can't win 'em all.
4th of July: Yes, I know there are no lyrics. But on the day that I learned that the coworker I mentioned earlier had died, in the afternoon after it had sunk in, all I could think about was this song, especially the bass line. I found the tab just so I could learn to play it and get it out of my system. I obviously have no idea what Edge and Adam were thinking when they were playing this, but there you have it. Not official, but a connection for me.
As has been mentioned in other threads, this piece makes a very good introduction to ...
Bad: Again, most of us know the story behind this - addiction, and the desperate wish to pull a friend back from the brink of, of course, death.
(Incidentally, did anyone else see the lyrics printed wrong in the Best of Propaganda book? Well, I suppose it was like that in the original issue as well, but it made me panic and listen to the song again.)
I don't think it's the accepted and obvious interpretation, but it has occurred to me that the path the object of the song could take (through the rain, into the half light, breaking away), is the path of death - surrender, dislocation, letting it all go. And thus leave the subject of the song wide awake, and not sleeping.
Indian Summer Sky: I really should have done more homework before I posted this thread.
I can draw a tenuous link between the aforementioned "longest sleep" and "the longest day" in this song, but I'm stretching it. Apparently this song is partly inspired by a book, which I haven't heard of and so can't comment on. "The light that waits for I
The light ... waiting
Up towards the sky" .... this could be another allusion to heaven or the afterlife I suppose.
Elvis Presley and America: Another great icon of America, and also someone whose death would have affected U2 deeply, and more recently than MLK's.
(I'm looking at the lyrics now... this is another song that I never made out most of the words for.) I can't say much about the lyrics 'cos they're famously stream-of-consciousness, and naturally seem to jump all over the place. But there is clearly some reaction to Elvis's death that was propelling some of the words.
MLK: Quite simply, a eulogy to Martin Luther King.
Listening to UF after having listened to October, part of my brain expected MLK to follow Bad, the same way that October (the song) followed Tomorrow. The big, heart-wrenching number followed by the mellow, meditative track, to allow you to recover. But no, we get kicked straight into Indian Summer Sky on UF. Again, not saying this is a bad thing - it simply is. I could ponder an alternate track listing that went Bad, MLK, and EPAA/ISS either way around, but I have to trust that U2 knew what they were doing when they put the album together.
Anyway, I can't seem to stay on my own topic, so I'll leave it there. Thank you for your time.
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