Please interpretions

[Joshua_Tree_Hugger]

Here's what I think Please is all about:



You had to win, you couldn't just pass,
The smartest ass, at the top of the class,
Your flying colours, your family tree,
And all your lessons in history.

Please, please, please, get up off your knees!



The above lines for me suggest that the the person Bono's singing as has been tormented all his life by the person who he's "talking" to in the song. Not strictly physically but in a lot of ways.

"Bono" has spent his whole life putting up with this guy and now, after he's finally got free, settled down and got on with his life, he's at his doorstep again, begging him for help, dragging him back into the pain, while Bono only wants him out of his life ("Please, please, please, get up off your knees").

Both the "you had to win" and the "Catholic blues" part suggest that this guy was as it says, "the smartest ass at the top of the class". The rich boy who paraded around while "Bono" had nothing. And now Bono's character, who has only now made a life for himself, just wants this guy out of what he has left. But the tables have turned. The one who so tormented him has wasted everything and is begging "Bono" to help him - all he had had has been squandered. "Bono" just wants to get on with making the most out of the rest of his life, and not be tormented any longer.



That is my interpretaion anyway. Feel free to comment.

 

[FallingStar]

It's a song between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland.

Please get up off your knees! ------>
Please, stop praying all the time and simply do something against all this shit happening around here!

Cool interpretation, JT Hugger!

 

[Joshua_Tree_Hugger]

It's a song between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland.

Please get up off your knees! ------>
Please, stop praying all the time and simply do something against all this shit happening around here!

Cool interpretation, JT Hugger!

Is that what Bono says?

Oh well, I guess I'll have to take it as that so!


You never know, in some twisted fashion my interpretation might be some kind of semi-meaning of the song (...or maybe not - maybe I'm just a positive person!)

Thanks for replyin' anyways!

 

[FallingStar]

Is that what Bono says?

Oh well, I guess I'll have to take it as that so!


You never know, in some twisted fashion my interpretation might be some kind of semi-meaning of the song (...or maybe not - maybe I'm just a positive person!)

Thanks for replyin' anyways!

Please is officially a song about conflicts between North and South Ireland, that's a fact sorry.

But I like your interpretation nevetheless. You know, I never really got the grip on the Ireland interpretation...I can follow the song with thinking about the real interpretation up to about half the song and then it doesn't go any further........You're interpretation makes sense.

Don't thank me, I thank YOU for bringing up a new way of thinking.

 

[daisybean]

I thought about it the same way JT_hugger did when I first heard it too.

Perhaps that is an underlying message.... that darker side of fame, where people are your "friends" for the wrong reasons. The whole "When I was nothing, you treated me as nothing, now that I am someone you all of a sudden like me." *edited to add* That theory would also make sense given the overall tone of the album. Mofo, Gone and Disco, are Bono's ponderings of his own fame and celebrity. He's torn between the polar aspects of his life, Bono, the megastar who no one can say no to; and Bono, the family man, with (at the time) two little girls. One part of him wants to stay that meglomaniac star with the ego gratifications (Gone) and the other part of him, wants to be a father and family man (Mofo). He's trying to find a way to be both in a world that only seems to allow one or the other.

That is why I love their music....it's so open that you can get what you need out of it, even if it wasn't the intended or official message.

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

That is why I love their music....it's so open that you can get what you need out of it, even if it wasn't the intended or official message.

who knows...he may not have even realized at the time that he was writing "please" as such...for it to be about northern ireland but also about himself. i dunno...