salomeU2000
The Fly
Analysis : Images in U2 : Happy to go Blind
By Kimberly "hippy" Egolf
Over twenty years and dozens of songs, U2 has collected a body of work that is both stunning and incredibly revealing. Each month in this column, I'll be exploring an idea, a theme, a motif, or a phrase that is repeated throughout U2's music. As a caveat though, please remember that this is my opinion. My aim is to explore interesting ideas about the band we all love. I hope this column sparks interest in people to take a closer look at what U2 is saying through their music.
That said, let me dive right in...
"Blindness" is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a blind condition, a want of sight, or concealment; figuratively, it's defined as a want of intellectual or moral perception; delusion, ignorance; folly, recklessness.
The multiplicity of definitions for this one single word provides vast opportunity for interpretation. And "blindness" is one of Bono's favorite themes or suggestions. From the earliest days of the Boy album until the most recent All That You Can't Leave Behind, the band explores this theme, indeed, this one single word, which triggers so many different impressions.
It is precisely the ambiguity of such a word that makes it so appealing for the band. As with most artists, the ability to layer meanings has always been an important one for U2. Their songs support numerous readings depending on what you're looking for. And each person can interpret a song differently, yet they may all be correct. That is one of the beauties of this band's songs.
And dealing with one of the most ambiguous of all U2 topics leaves open a wide spectrum of interpretation.
The very first U2 studio album, Boy, opens with the song "I Will Follow." Within the first minute of the song Bono has introduced one of the overarching themes of the next two decades. He says:
I was on the outside when you said
You said you needed me
I was looking at myself
I was blind, I could not see
He speaks of being "on the outside," that is, able to look at himself from the outside; able to view the world from outside his own body; able to see himself through other's eyes. He then makes the ambiguous statement "I was looking at myself/ I was blind, I could not see." This can be interpreted two different ways. He might be saying that he can recognize his own blindness and the fact that his blindness constricts him to darkness in all matters. Or, the singer could be hinting that, even when he steps outside of himself, he remains blind and unable to view the world around him or even himself. This is simply a syntactical problem that adds to the elusiveness of a definite meaning. But it introduces the audience to a young man who is questioning himself, a young man who is unsure of the world and the body in which he lives.
Their next offering to the musical world remains firmly rooted and attached to a specific period of U2's history. While making the sophomore album October, the band was experiencing an intense emotional time. Bono, Larry, and Edge were questioning their faith and their friends who were telling them to give up the band they were intensely passionate about. At the same time, the band members were growing apart as a result of this religious questioning.
This pain and perturbation is evident on October. Indeed, it serves as the focus of the record in many ways. October is structured around this religious struggle with the worldly self. After a joyful salute to the creator ("Gloria") and a confession of fallibility as a human ("I Fall Down"), the song "I Threw A Brick Through A Window" appears. With a pounding drum, bass pattern and sparse guitar, Bono's vocals and lyrics really take precedence. And it's in this gem of a song that another reference to "blindness" occurs. The singer confesses in the first three verses that he cannot hear a word, that he's "gotta get out," and that he's "going nowhere." The bridge brings the climax of the song: the singer's realization that he's completely blind because he chooses not to see.
No one... no one is blinder
Than he who will not see
No one... no one is blinder
Than me
Given the theme of the rest of the album, the blindness referred to here is most likely a spiritual blindness. He's once again stepping outside of himself (as in "I Will Follow") in order to realize this spiritual truth about his own blindness, a blindness that doesn't allow him the eyes or the mind with which he can see himself and the world outside.
While not mentioning the word "blindness" specifically, the War album speaks of a moral blindness that Bono sees in the world. The song "Sunday Bloody Sunday," expressing the singer's anger over the destruction of war, shows the worldly blindness of people who can allow war to continue to the detriment and destruction of all things. The rest of the album also speaks to this moral blindness. The singer calls out repeatedly for an answer that he is unable to see. The lament that begins the album, "how long must we sing this song?" also ends the album, creating a circle from which there seems to be no escape.
With the more ethereal Unforgettable Fire, the band left the themes of their previous three albums, choosing instead to focus on music that created images. Their next album, The Joshua Tree, continued this new imagery and reintegrated the themes that the band had been exploring throughout their almost ten-year career. After "Where The Streets Have No Name," the rousing and inspiring opening song of the album, a quiet, driving gospel number sneaks up on the listener. The simple, tranquil opening notes belie the coming lyrical intensity and storm of a man driven spiritually blind by his quest to find what he's looking for. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" shows the singer in perhaps his most desperate stage of spiritual blindness. The song begins with a list of things that he's done in order to try to find this elusive something, about which he is singing. He seems disappointed that, after all he's done (listed throughout the rest of the song), he's "still running" and can't seem to find an answer. The song ends with the desperate cry of the singer confessing, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
While the song doesn't mention "blindness" by name, it still seems that "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" is the natural culmination of the spiritual blindness explored in previous albums. The song, while a desperate cry for relief from blindness, is also an uplifting assertion of the fallibility of being human. Despite all the things that the singer had tried in order to achieve spiritual enlightenment, none of them have worked. He acknowledges this and, in doing so, creates more room for faith and trust. In essence, the acknowledgement of his doubt and his searching provides it's own answer to the singer. He affirms that life is a constant search and, as a human, he can never find the answer by any action he can take. And thus, what starts out as a simple, pounding rhythmic song turns into a complex lyrical avowal of faith and understanding of his own failings. The song is both the lowest and the highest point in U2's search for relief from their human spiritual blindness.
But, as the story goes, on the very last night of the 1980s, Bono told the world that the band had ?to go away... and just dream it all up again;" and that they did, including the ideas that would appear on the next album. Achtung Baby marked a departure from any previous U2 work. They began to deal less in the purely spiritual, instead fusing the spirit with the flesh and creating a new sound and a new dimension for the band. But though they reinvented themselves, the underlying issues in their music remained the same. The album dealt with the theme of love: love of a woman, love of a man for his God, love of popular culture, love of a son for his father, etc.
The last song on the album is the culmination of this exploration of love. Beginning with a soft organ melody and a then picking up a rhythmic pounding, "Love Is Blindness" evokes an almost primal reaction. There's something lulling and intoxicating about the music. The listener feels a sort of lethargy and, almost involuntarily, the body begins to sway. Then Bono's vocals come in with an otherworldliness that adds to the dream quality of the song.
"Love is Blindness" sums up all the feelings of this tumultuous and searching album. Bono doesn't specify what type of love he's speaking of, and his lyrics remain sufficiently vague to encourage the kind of layering that is characteristic of U2's songs. All the loves he's spoken of thus far in the album (and, indeed, in U2's career) are captured in this song. The thesis of the album, and the song, is "love is blindness" - love is a kind of disability; a loss of spirit; a death; a relinquishing of power. Love is an inability to see anything but love itself. As stated above, love enters into any number of relationships.
But the crux of the song is the singer's response to the statement "love is blindness":
Love is blindness
I don't want to see
Won't you wrap the night
Around me
Since love is blindness, he wants to be blind. He wants to be blind to everything that isn't love. This song is an answer to every question U2's raised about "going blind". Even though it could be a disability, the singer would rather live without sight than without love. The singer makes it okay to be blind; in his view, it's not necessarily a disability. If one sacrifices such a dear sense as one's sight, there has to be a good reason. And those reasons are the relationships the singer has spoken of: love of a woman, love of a man for his God, love of popular culture, love of a son for his father, etc. These things are worth more to the singer than any physical sense like sight could ever be.
And thus, the song is a powerful affirmation of belief in love itself as a conqueror of any disability. Although one might not have sight, one can live without it rather than give up such a precious thing as love in any form.
Pop also answers the statement that "love is blindness." And the conclusion is the same as on Achtung Baby. "Staring At the Sun" contains the following lines that are a direct answer to the song "Love Is Blindness":
I'm not just deaf and dumb
Staring at the sun
Not the only one
Who's happy to go blind
Once again, when others call blindness a disability, Bono says that he would rather go blind than risk losing the benefits of understanding, of "staring at the sun." This song from Pop also adds another dimension to the issue of "blindness." The song seems to deal with the issue of being a rock star and being famous. If this is the case, then the singer is saying that being a rock star, "staring at the sun," may drive him to blindness, but it's worth it for the knowledge he gains.
So from the very earliest references until some of the most recent albums, we've seen the various ways the band uses the idea of "blindness" to explore their own spirituality and their own ideas about the world. Blindness can be a spiritual phenomenon or it can be a physical one. Blindness can mean a lack of direction or a necessary evil for understanding the world. But in whatever context the band uses it, it seems that they are always "happy to go blind," because only by going blind can you understand yourself and the world.
March 2003
By Kimberly "hippy" Egolf
Over twenty years and dozens of songs, U2 has collected a body of work that is both stunning and incredibly revealing. Each month in this column, I'll be exploring an idea, a theme, a motif, or a phrase that is repeated throughout U2's music. As a caveat though, please remember that this is my opinion. My aim is to explore interesting ideas about the band we all love. I hope this column sparks interest in people to take a closer look at what U2 is saying through their music.
That said, let me dive right in...
"Blindness" is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a blind condition, a want of sight, or concealment; figuratively, it's defined as a want of intellectual or moral perception; delusion, ignorance; folly, recklessness.
The multiplicity of definitions for this one single word provides vast opportunity for interpretation. And "blindness" is one of Bono's favorite themes or suggestions. From the earliest days of the Boy album until the most recent All That You Can't Leave Behind, the band explores this theme, indeed, this one single word, which triggers so many different impressions.
It is precisely the ambiguity of such a word that makes it so appealing for the band. As with most artists, the ability to layer meanings has always been an important one for U2. Their songs support numerous readings depending on what you're looking for. And each person can interpret a song differently, yet they may all be correct. That is one of the beauties of this band's songs.
And dealing with one of the most ambiguous of all U2 topics leaves open a wide spectrum of interpretation.
The very first U2 studio album, Boy, opens with the song "I Will Follow." Within the first minute of the song Bono has introduced one of the overarching themes of the next two decades. He says:
I was on the outside when you said
You said you needed me
I was looking at myself
I was blind, I could not see
He speaks of being "on the outside," that is, able to look at himself from the outside; able to view the world from outside his own body; able to see himself through other's eyes. He then makes the ambiguous statement "I was looking at myself/ I was blind, I could not see." This can be interpreted two different ways. He might be saying that he can recognize his own blindness and the fact that his blindness constricts him to darkness in all matters. Or, the singer could be hinting that, even when he steps outside of himself, he remains blind and unable to view the world around him or even himself. This is simply a syntactical problem that adds to the elusiveness of a definite meaning. But it introduces the audience to a young man who is questioning himself, a young man who is unsure of the world and the body in which he lives.
Their next offering to the musical world remains firmly rooted and attached to a specific period of U2's history. While making the sophomore album October, the band was experiencing an intense emotional time. Bono, Larry, and Edge were questioning their faith and their friends who were telling them to give up the band they were intensely passionate about. At the same time, the band members were growing apart as a result of this religious questioning.
This pain and perturbation is evident on October. Indeed, it serves as the focus of the record in many ways. October is structured around this religious struggle with the worldly self. After a joyful salute to the creator ("Gloria") and a confession of fallibility as a human ("I Fall Down"), the song "I Threw A Brick Through A Window" appears. With a pounding drum, bass pattern and sparse guitar, Bono's vocals and lyrics really take precedence. And it's in this gem of a song that another reference to "blindness" occurs. The singer confesses in the first three verses that he cannot hear a word, that he's "gotta get out," and that he's "going nowhere." The bridge brings the climax of the song: the singer's realization that he's completely blind because he chooses not to see.
No one... no one is blinder
Than he who will not see
No one... no one is blinder
Than me
Given the theme of the rest of the album, the blindness referred to here is most likely a spiritual blindness. He's once again stepping outside of himself (as in "I Will Follow") in order to realize this spiritual truth about his own blindness, a blindness that doesn't allow him the eyes or the mind with which he can see himself and the world outside.
While not mentioning the word "blindness" specifically, the War album speaks of a moral blindness that Bono sees in the world. The song "Sunday Bloody Sunday," expressing the singer's anger over the destruction of war, shows the worldly blindness of people who can allow war to continue to the detriment and destruction of all things. The rest of the album also speaks to this moral blindness. The singer calls out repeatedly for an answer that he is unable to see. The lament that begins the album, "how long must we sing this song?" also ends the album, creating a circle from which there seems to be no escape.
With the more ethereal Unforgettable Fire, the band left the themes of their previous three albums, choosing instead to focus on music that created images. Their next album, The Joshua Tree, continued this new imagery and reintegrated the themes that the band had been exploring throughout their almost ten-year career. After "Where The Streets Have No Name," the rousing and inspiring opening song of the album, a quiet, driving gospel number sneaks up on the listener. The simple, tranquil opening notes belie the coming lyrical intensity and storm of a man driven spiritually blind by his quest to find what he's looking for. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" shows the singer in perhaps his most desperate stage of spiritual blindness. The song begins with a list of things that he's done in order to try to find this elusive something, about which he is singing. He seems disappointed that, after all he's done (listed throughout the rest of the song), he's "still running" and can't seem to find an answer. The song ends with the desperate cry of the singer confessing, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
While the song doesn't mention "blindness" by name, it still seems that "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" is the natural culmination of the spiritual blindness explored in previous albums. The song, while a desperate cry for relief from blindness, is also an uplifting assertion of the fallibility of being human. Despite all the things that the singer had tried in order to achieve spiritual enlightenment, none of them have worked. He acknowledges this and, in doing so, creates more room for faith and trust. In essence, the acknowledgement of his doubt and his searching provides it's own answer to the singer. He affirms that life is a constant search and, as a human, he can never find the answer by any action he can take. And thus, what starts out as a simple, pounding rhythmic song turns into a complex lyrical avowal of faith and understanding of his own failings. The song is both the lowest and the highest point in U2's search for relief from their human spiritual blindness.
But, as the story goes, on the very last night of the 1980s, Bono told the world that the band had ?to go away... and just dream it all up again;" and that they did, including the ideas that would appear on the next album. Achtung Baby marked a departure from any previous U2 work. They began to deal less in the purely spiritual, instead fusing the spirit with the flesh and creating a new sound and a new dimension for the band. But though they reinvented themselves, the underlying issues in their music remained the same. The album dealt with the theme of love: love of a woman, love of a man for his God, love of popular culture, love of a son for his father, etc.
The last song on the album is the culmination of this exploration of love. Beginning with a soft organ melody and a then picking up a rhythmic pounding, "Love Is Blindness" evokes an almost primal reaction. There's something lulling and intoxicating about the music. The listener feels a sort of lethargy and, almost involuntarily, the body begins to sway. Then Bono's vocals come in with an otherworldliness that adds to the dream quality of the song.
"Love is Blindness" sums up all the feelings of this tumultuous and searching album. Bono doesn't specify what type of love he's speaking of, and his lyrics remain sufficiently vague to encourage the kind of layering that is characteristic of U2's songs. All the loves he's spoken of thus far in the album (and, indeed, in U2's career) are captured in this song. The thesis of the album, and the song, is "love is blindness" - love is a kind of disability; a loss of spirit; a death; a relinquishing of power. Love is an inability to see anything but love itself. As stated above, love enters into any number of relationships.
But the crux of the song is the singer's response to the statement "love is blindness":
Love is blindness
I don't want to see
Won't you wrap the night
Around me
Since love is blindness, he wants to be blind. He wants to be blind to everything that isn't love. This song is an answer to every question U2's raised about "going blind". Even though it could be a disability, the singer would rather live without sight than without love. The singer makes it okay to be blind; in his view, it's not necessarily a disability. If one sacrifices such a dear sense as one's sight, there has to be a good reason. And those reasons are the relationships the singer has spoken of: love of a woman, love of a man for his God, love of popular culture, love of a son for his father, etc. These things are worth more to the singer than any physical sense like sight could ever be.
And thus, the song is a powerful affirmation of belief in love itself as a conqueror of any disability. Although one might not have sight, one can live without it rather than give up such a precious thing as love in any form.
Pop also answers the statement that "love is blindness." And the conclusion is the same as on Achtung Baby. "Staring At the Sun" contains the following lines that are a direct answer to the song "Love Is Blindness":
I'm not just deaf and dumb
Staring at the sun
Not the only one
Who's happy to go blind
Once again, when others call blindness a disability, Bono says that he would rather go blind than risk losing the benefits of understanding, of "staring at the sun." This song from Pop also adds another dimension to the issue of "blindness." The song seems to deal with the issue of being a rock star and being famous. If this is the case, then the singer is saying that being a rock star, "staring at the sun," may drive him to blindness, but it's worth it for the knowledge he gains.
So from the very earliest references until some of the most recent albums, we've seen the various ways the band uses the idea of "blindness" to explore their own spirituality and their own ideas about the world. Blindness can be a spiritual phenomenon or it can be a physical one. Blindness can mean a lack of direction or a necessary evil for understanding the world. But in whatever context the band uses it, it seems that they are always "happy to go blind," because only by going blind can you understand yourself and the world.
March 2003
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good job
the blindfold is good enough
