Corbijn: "I'm doing the cover for the new U2 album"

[Niceman]

Really? To each it's own, but some lines just don't make sense for a "love" song.

Which ones don't make sense to you?

 

[Utoo]

Really? To each it's own, but some lines just don't make sense for a "love" song.

LIB captures the magnificence of what Bono's good at---capturing the beauty and the pain of love and marrying the two together.

"Love is blindness
I don't want to see"

Love blinds me, I can't see the world for what it is, love sucks.....but I want it anyway.

That's the theme of the whole album to me----especially knowing what was going on in Edge's life at the time that the album was written. Read the Flanagan book--he presents a wonderful take on the album's themes. For LIB in particular, there's a part where Bono talks about how emotionally difficult it was for Edge to play that song...how he kept pushing and pushing until tears were in his eyes, and he ended up breaking a string..

To me, there may be hints about terrorism, etc., in the lyrics. But it's obviously a love song to me....and the singer's need for love even though it hurts him so, like a moth to a flame. It's the same way that Kite was about Bono's kids growing up, but is so obviously about his dad. Or how Walk On is "about" Aung San Suu Kyi, but is so obviously about dying and going to heaven, etc.

 

[BVS]

Which ones don't make sense to you?

"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"

^ Screams car bomb to me, I don't see anything else. I can understand the parked car steaming up the windows thing, but the rest of the lines don't make sense with love.

clockworks and cold steel, squeeze the handle, blow out the candle just are too obvious.

"A little death without mourning
No call and no warning
Baby, a dangerous idea that almost makes sense"

I can almost see death without mourning being about a breakup, but in context with "a dangerous idea that almost makes sense" makes it obvious to me what Bono was doing.

 

[Utoo]

"A little death without mourning
No call and no warning
Baby, a dangerous idea that almost makes sense"

I can almost see death without mourning being about a breakup, but in context with "a dangerous idea that almost makes sense" makes it obvious to me what Bono was doing.

I definitely see what you're saying...but....... "A little death" is an English translation of French slang for 'orgasm.'

I think that it's all designed to be more than one thing.

 

[last unicorn]

Utoo, I think you're right about that one, the band has also said so various times.

Love is Blindness is clearly not a "love" song, but Bono is - again - bringing romantic and sexual images into the lyrics and takes the meaning of the song to another level. I think it's intriguing. It's such a haunting song, mysterious and yet with such clear images.

 

[Niceman]

"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"

^ Screams car bomb to me, I don't see anything else. I can understand the parked car steaming up the windows thing, but the rest of the lines don't make sense with love.

clockworks and cold steel, squeeze the handle, blow out the candle just are too obvious.

"A little death without mourning
No call and no warning
Baby, a dangerous idea that almost makes sense"

I can almost see death without mourning being about a breakup, but in context with "a dangerous idea that almost makes sense" makes it obvious to me what Bono was doing.

I guess it's a rorshach test, like so much of poetry. It does make sense to me how that is a description of how conflicted and difficult love can be. That feels right. It's metaphor.
Your experiences may different, and so your interpretation will as well.....

And yes, "a little death" is a common expresion meaning orgasm.

 

[Dorian Gray]

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

could mean car bomb yes.
could refer to ripped clothes, and passionate, violent(?) sex too.

 

[david]

wow, anton doing the cover for the next album..

big surprise there.

 

[Irvine511]

i vote for the terrorist interpretation of LIB, but i think the point is that Bono is getting at the potential of violence within love, love for a country or a partner, and how easily that line can be blurred, and how you can blind yourself to think that an act of violence -- which could be a car bomb, or cheating on a partner (violence to the long term relationship) -- is an act of love.

it's all very slippery.

 

[coemgen]

I'm making the prediction it'll be another black and white pic for the album cover.

 

[The Sad Punk]

I predict it won't have the band members on the cover.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

the genius of achtung baby is that so many of the songs are layered in their meanings. one could very well assume that songs like until the end of the world, mysterious ways and love is blindness are about relationships, love, broken hearts, etc., while others can see the more subtle meanings of the passion play, faith in God and terrorism.

i for one always saw until the end of the world as being from the perspective of judas', mysterious ways as about faith and love is blindness as a song seen from the perspective of a car bomber, so dedicated to his cause that he's blind to the true ramifications of his actions. but the other interpretations are there, and that's what makes these songs so great.

until the end of the world and love is blindness, to me, have always been very much connected to one another... for they more or less tell of the exact same internal struggle, just with different historical contexts.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

"In a parked car in a crowded street

if one were to have hot, rough, passion filled sex in a parked car in a crowded street, one is likely to ge arrested.

 

[Dorian Gray]

if one were to have hot, rough, passion filled sex in a parked car in a crowded street, one is likely to ge arrested.

true! but that doesn't seem to stop some people...

 

[Niceman]

if one were to have hot, rough, passion filled sex in a parked car in a crowded street, one is likely to ge arrested.

Not if love makes everyone blind......

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

most people would be pissed that a post that they thought was deep and insightful was ignored in favor of the one about getting locked up for having nookie in a parked car on a crowded street.

not this guy

 

[Earnie Shavers]

If you want to serve the age, betray it. -Brendan Kennelly

Remember this quote was one of Bono's driving inspirations at the time of Achtung and into ZooTV. In the end so many songs in Achtung have betrayal in them, even if the surface level feeling or emotion being expressed is somewhat different. One, Until the End, Even Better than the Real Thing, Mysterious Ways, So Cruel, Trying to Throw Your Arms, the Fly - they all have it in there, and I think when it comes to Love is Blindness and terrorism, it's that quote. An extremist fanatical love of a faith or flag or cause is so often at the core of a terrorist act, and they believe that the wrong of what they doing is outweighed by the right of what it would bring about.

In a way, how it works as a final song on Achtung is sort of as a bookend to Even Better than the Real Thing. Zoo Station as an opener is more to me like the song over the opening credits. I'm ready to step out and take this journey. Then the first song on that journey is Even Better than the Real Thing. Lust over love. Instant satisfaction/gratification. Slide on the surface of things. A one night stand, the partner in this being nothing more than skin and flesh. Nothing more than a product to satisfy a need, scratch an itch. Making sex and everything associated with it just as shallow as a product like Coke. There's no love here, only lust. Then at the other end of the album is Love is Blindness, where the love is so deep and so extreme it has led to complete blindness and a complete loss of perspective and reality.

It is, in my opinion, as ridiculous a song to attach to your own 'regular' love for someone as having One or With or Without You played at a wedding is.

 

[ElectricalVoice]

People interpret lyrics differently, and that is the point, isn't it? I always get the image of a person in a parked car (I even think about rain covering the windows so nobody can look in), taking his/hers own life. Just images. Great lyrics.

 

[flowerchildH]

i think that this thread got a little off topic! anyways, i've been doing some looking about lately and discovered that peter rowan (guggi's little brother and boy from the war and best of covers) is a photographer now. a wedding photographer, but still. and that got me think how appropriate it would be for him to shoot some photos for the band, maybe even a cover. with as many artists and photographer friends and as interested as the band is in art, i'm surprised that we have never seen anything really creative, different, or unexpected. maybe their just focusing on making experimental music, but experimental cover art would be nice every once in a while too. just a thought. or two.

 

[david]

in the age of itunes, ipods and digital music i don't think album covers really mean much anymore.

 

[topplehatU2]

in the age of itunes, ipods and digital music i don't think album covers really mean much anymore.

But most music players now incorporate album art into their display, like Coverflow on iTunes. I for one appreciate album art even though I usually listen to music through my computer.

 

[Jdelbove]

all I know is HTDAAB was U2 worst album cover

 

[U2girl]

October ftw, actually.

 

[kennerado]

The Bomb cover was pretty average. I vote for a cover WITHOUT U2 on it.

 

[CrashedCarDriver]

its bound to be good

im not sure what anton's secret is, he just has this unusual dark visionary that i cant quite 'get' how he does

he thrives on shooting stuff in black and white, but when i shoot in black and white, on cloudy days my photos just turn out all mediocre

 

[the tourist]

U2, walking across Abbey Road. Adam without shoes and holding a cigarette in his left hand. Bono as the priest, Larry as the mortician, Edge as the undertaker.

 

[powerhour24]

I'd be for a more elaborate cover like Achtung Baby, or yes one without them on the cover, but if Corbijn is involved it'll be a photograph, not that he isn't ubelieveably talented.

But yes, October is the worst cover.