The most awe-inspiring U2 lyrics

[Basstrap]

this is completely pro U2...see?


anyway....at the elliott smith MB I frequent, they have a "awe-inspiring lyrics" thread.

Im always dropping mentions to U2 over there...and I think there is one who likes them.

but I will persevere

so what lyrics would be best? for fans of elliot smith.

hint: no cheesy lyics a la Elevation

we need something gold here!!

I was thinking Slow Dancing or maybe even Where the Streets...

 

[HelloAngel]

Awesome thread idea!!

 

[Strato Edge]

How aboot:

"And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if our way should falter
Along the stony pass

And if the night runs over / And if, and if the night runs over
And if the day won't last / And if the day won't last
And if our way should falter / And if your way should falter
Along the stony pass / Along that stony pass

It's just a moment
This time will pass"


and...



"And the battle's just begun
There's many lost, but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart"

 

[Basstrap]

"And the battle's just begun
There's many lost, but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart"

there ya go!!!

I forgot about Sunday bloody sunday!! that whole song

 

[kariatari]

I dunno if these are exactly "awe-inspiring", but I've always loved the lyrics from One Tree Hill and So Cruel. Both songs could have been printed as poems and I would have loved them because the words float from the tip of your tongue to your lips.

 

[Axver]

I don't know if they count as 'awe-inspiring', but I particularly love the lyrics to Gloria and Walk On.

'I forgot about Sunday bloody sunday!! that whole song'

Yes definitely, particularly;

'And it's true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die'

 

[Diemen]

And I don't know why a man
Search for himself in his lover's eyes
No I don't know why a man
Sees the truth but needs the lies

 

[Bono's shades]

You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should

One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers

One life
But we're not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other

One


If that doesn't knock 'em dead, nothing will.

 

[The_acrobat]

The line - "Let's see colours no one else has seen, let's go to places no one else has been" really spoke to me.

Also, the entire lyrics to Walk on are some of my favorite.

 

[Strato Edge]

Definately "Electrical Storm"

Killer

 

[bonosloveslave]

"Bad" - gives me chills.....

 

[Michael Griffiths]

This might be Bono's best lyrical couplet ever:

All I Want Is You

You say you'll give me
Eyes in a moon of blindness
A river in a time of dryness
A harbour in the tempest


This is a close second:

Running To Stand Still

(Actually, the entire song is amazing.)

You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice


Bad

True colors fly in blue and black
Bruised silken sky and burning flag
Colors crash, collide in blood shot eyes


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


Some of the best lyrics off Pop:

Please

September
Streets capsizing
Spilling over
Down the drain
Shards of glass
Splinters like rain
But you could only feel
Your own pain


October
Talk getting nowhere
November
December
Remember
Are we just starting again


If God Will Send His Angels

Nobody else here baby
No one here to blame
No one to point the finger
It's just you and me and the rain


Wake Up Dead Man

Listen to your words they'll tell you what to do
Listen over the rhythm that's confusing you
Listen to the reed in the saxophone
Listen over the hum of the radio
Listen over sounds of blades in rotation
Listen through the traffic and circulation
Listen as hope and peace try to rhyme
Listen over marching bands playing out their time


As a complete song, this is Bono at his most poetic:

A Sort of Homecoming

And you know it's time to go
Through the sleet and driving snow
Across the fields of mourning
Light in the distance


And you hunger for the time
Time to heal, desire, time
And your earth moves beneath
Your own dream landscape


Oh, oh, oh...
On borderland we run...


I'll be there
I'll be there...
Tonight
A high road
A high road out from here


The city walls are all come down
The dust, a smoke screen all around
See faces ploughed like fields that once
Gave no resistance


And we live by the side of the road
On the side of a hill
As the valley explode
Dislocated, suffocated
The land grows weary of its own


Oh, oh, oh...on borderland we run...
And still we run
We run and don't look back
I'll be there
I'll be there
Tonight
Tonight


I'll be there tonight...I believe
I'll be there...somehow
I'll be there...tonight
Tonight


The wind will crack in winter time
This bomb-blast lightning waltz
No spoken words, just a scream...


Tonight we'll build a bridge
Across the sea and land
See the sky, the burning rain
She will die and live again
Tonight


And your heart beats so slow
Through the rain and fallen snow
Across the fields of mourning
Light's in the distance


Oh don't sorrow, no don't weep
For tonight, at last
I am coming home
I am coming home


Another complete song:

Heartland

See the sun rise over her skin
Don't change it
See the sun rise over her skin
Dawn changes everything
Everything
And the delta sun
Burns bright and violet


Mississippi and the cotton wool heat
Sixty-six a highway speaks
Of deserts dry
Of cool green valleys
Gold and silver veins
Of the shining cities


In this heartland
In this heartland soil
In this heartland
Heaven knows this is a heartland
Heartland...heartland


See the sun rise over her skin
She feels like water in my hand
Freeway like a river cuts through this land
Into the side of love
Like a burning spear
And the poison rain
Brings a flood of fear
Through the ghost-ranch hills
Death valley waters
In the towers of steel
Belief goes on and on


In this heartland
In this heartland soil
In this heartland
Heaven knows this is a heartland
Heartland...heaven knows this is a heartland
Heartland...heartland
Heartland...heaven's day here in the heartland
Heart...

 

[~*Buffalo*~]

This might be Bono's best lyrical couplet ever:

All I Want Is You

You say you'll give me
Eyes in a moon of blindness
A river in a time of dryness
A harbour in the tempest


.[/i]

It's sung beautifully too. No one else could have the same effect as Bono singing it!

 

[stagman]

Walk on by, walk on through.
So sad to besiege your love oh hang on.


Stay this time, stay tonight in a lie.
I'm only asking, but I, I think you know.
Come on take me away, come on take me away
Come on take me home, home again.

And if you save your love, save it all, save it all
Don't push me too far, don't push me too far.
Tonight, tonight.

This is most of the lyrics from the end of Unforgettable Fire...which has almost driven me to tears many times!

Also From The Three Sunrises

In this love song, love song
Love song, love song
Sun shine on me
Bring it through to my heart
I would give you everything
I will give you my desire

Sun shine, sun shine on me
Sun shine, sun shine on me

 

[stagman]

My all time Favorite Lyrics are From Dancing Barefoot
The whole song is great, but the following bits are the best ever!!!!!!!

She is sublimation
She is the essence of thee
She is concentrating on
He who is chosen by she

She is recreation She intoxicated by thee
She has the slow sensation that
He is levitating with she

 

[stagman]

A great lyric during the perfect Guitar solo has to be:

I'll cut your roses
I'll buy you things
I'll show you places you have never seen!

Of course this can only be sung by an Irishman at the exact age of 31 and then never again

 

[BrownEyedBoy]

i think dancing barefoot is a cover...

 

[Michael Griffiths]

'Dancing Barefoot' is a cover. It's a Patti Smith tune. She is one of U2's biggest influences.

 

[iacrobat]

Definitely "Wake Up dead Man"

 

[adamswildhoney]

"Please"lyrics

 

[Swan269]

Hands that Built America

Last saw your face
In a watercolored sky
As sea birds argue A long goodbye

I took your kiss
On the spray of a new lined star
You gotta live in your dreams
Don't make them so hard

or

Gone

You hurt yourself
You hurt your lover
then you discover
What you thought was freedom just greed.

 

[Rafiennes]

STAY

Green light, Seven Eleven
You stop in for a pack of cigarettes
You don't smoke, don't even want to
Hey now, check your change
Dressed up like a car crash
Your wheels are turning but you're upside down
You say when he hits you, you don't mind
Because when he hurts you, you feel alive
Hey babe, is that what it is


Red lights, gray morning
You stumble out of a hole in the ground
A vampire or a victim
It depends on who's around
You used to stay in to watch the adverts
You could lip synch to the talk shows


And if you look, you look through me
And when you talk, you talk at me
And when I touch you, you don't feel a thing


If I could stay...
Then the night would give you up
Stay...and the day would keep its trust
Stay...and the night would be enough


Faraway, so close
Up with the static and the radio
With satellite television
You can go anywhere
Miami, New Orleans
London, Belfast and Berlin


And if you listen I can't call
And if you jump, you just might fall
And if you shout, I'll only hear you


If I could stay...
Then the night would give you up
Stay...then the day would keep its trust
Stay...with the demons you drowned
Stay...with the spirit I found
Stay...and the night would be enough


Three o'clock in the morning
It's quiet and there's no one around
Just the bang and the clatter
As an angel runs to ground


Just the bang
And the clatter
As an angel
Hits the ground

------------------------------------------------

This song works for me for three reasons:

1. It completely paints the pictre in my mind, right down to the rain slicked streets with red neon reflected, right up to the cloudy night sky over the city.
2. It compliments the Angel watching someone (in this case, IMO, a prostitue)
3, It's the first song that ever made me cry while listening to it.

 

[popacrobat]

Wake Up Dead Man

Listen to your words they'll tell you what to do
Listen over the rhythm that's confusing you
Listen to the reed in the saxophone
Listen over the hum of the radio
Listen over sounds of blades in rotation
Listen through the traffic and circulation
Listen as hope and peace try to rhyme
Listen over marching bands playing out their time

 

[~*Buffalo*~]

Drowning Man ~


Take my hand
You know I'll be there
If you can
I'll cross the sky for your love
And I understand
These winds and tides
This change of times
Won't drag you away
Hold on, and hold on tightly
Hold on, and don't let go
Of my love

 

[theSoulfulMofo]

ULTRAviolet (ligth MY WAY)

When I was all messed up
And I had opera in my head
Your love was a light bulb
Hanging over my bed

Acrobat

And you can dream
So dream out loud
And you can find
Your own way out
You can build
And I can will
And you can call
I can't wait until
You can stash
And you can seize
In dreams begin
Responsibilities
And I can love
And I can love
And I know that the tide is turning 'round
So don't let the bastards grind you down

Zooropa

Don't worry baby, it's gonna be alright
Uncertainty can be a guiding light
I hear voices, ridiculous voices
Out in the slipstream
Let's go, let's go overground
Take your head out of the mud baby

The First Time

My father is a rich man
He wears a rich man's cloak
Gave me the keys to his kingdom coming
Gave me a cup of gold


He said I have many mansions
And there are many rooms to see
But I left by the back door
And I threw away the key

The Wanderer

I went out there
In search of experience
To taste and to touch
And to feel as much
As a man can
Before he repents

I went out searching
Looking for one good man
A spirit who would not bend or break
Who would sit at his father's right hand

North and South of the River

'Cause there's no feeling that's so alone
As when the one you're hurting is your own
North and south of the river
North and south of the river
North and south of the river

Some high ground is not worth taking
Some connections are not worth making
There's an old church bell no longer ringing
Some old songs are not worth bringing
North...
(Higher ground is not worth taking)
North and south of the river

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

"I don't believe in painted roses or bleeding hearts
While bullets rape the night of the merciful
I'll see you again when the stars fall from the sky
And the moon has turned red over one tree hill"

Yeah. Um...wow.

Talk about poetic.

Also, I'd share the lyrics to "The Fly". Every single one of them.

Angela

 

[Billie Midol]

Hard to choose but here's a few I like...

I can't change the world
but I can change the world in me
if I rejoice...


In my dreams I was drowning my sorrows
my sorrows they learned to swim



Did you come here for forgiveness?
Did you come to raise the dead?
Did you come here to play Jesus
to the lepers in your head?



Set me alight
we'll punch a hole right through the night
every day the dreamers die
to see what's on the other

 

[meital]

"I don't believe in painted roses or bleeding hearts
While bullets rape the night of the merciful
I'll see you again when the stars fall from the sky
And the moon has turned red over one tree hill"

Yeah. Um...wow.

Talk about poetic.

every time i hear this part i get shivered.....

yeh this is poetry!!

 

[pop marter]

I've always liked these lines from Luminous Times (Hold On To Love):

I love you cos i need to
not because i need you
i love you cos i understand
that god has given me your hand
it holds me in a tiny fist
but still i need your kiss
hold on to love............

 

[intedomine]

The glorious gloria chorus

GLORIA IN TE DOMINE