HTDAAB: Has Bono's songwriting hit rock bottom...

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jick

jick

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... or is he just making one cohesive album with a unifying theme?

A few words are repeated a number of times in the album. Here are some of the oft-repeated words. (The numbers next to the words are the corresponding song numbers in the album on which they appear. It would be too much of a pain to write the complete song titles):

HEART - 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11
LOVE - 1, 2, 4, 7. 10, 11
BABY - 2, 4, 8, 10
CHILD - 6, 10, 11
BEAUTIFUL - 5, 6 -- plus "Are You Gonna Wait Forever?"
TEACH - 1, 11
CITY - 5, 11
ROMANCE/ROMANTIC - 2, 7

Has Bono's vocabulary gone downhill? It seems like U2 indiscriminately uses the words love and heart more often than your regular balladeer or mushy boyband. What has gone on with U2?

Ironically, the song about one of the people Bono loves the most - his dad - doesn't have either love or heart.

If you ask me, I don't think Bono's songwriting has hit rock bottom. I think he is just tying up this album with a nice unifying theme - heart and love. And if you think about it, those are what you need to dismantle an atomic bomb.

Cheers,

J
 
:hyper: :applaud:
You really have to have your comedy show, man, at least on this forum. I'm laughing my ass off!
 
Um, I think I remember suggesting a while ago that you should maybe think about reading your messages before you post them and editing them if they reek of negativity.
I think maybe you should concider this for your thread titles as well...
 
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Jick, you've gone from my least favorite person around here to near perfection. You remind me of the late great " multiple deathbears" with more numbers and less spacy wierdness...

Jeers!

-T
 
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Jick - I agree with you that this album has a running theme of love and hope. The songwritting here is more universal/more real/much more gutwrenching and therefore simply beautiful. This album is a true album - not just 11 songs that the band like the most.
 
U2dork said:
Um, I think I remember suggesting a while ago that you should maybe think about reading your messages before you post them and editing them if they reek of negativity.
I think maybe you should concider this for your thread titles as well...
Click to expand...

If you check out how America is run, Dubya takes a "preventive" stance against terrorism. Get rid of them before they can strike us. That is how he goes about business and he gets criticized for that. Here in Interference, I felt the need to take a preventive approach. Before "fake" U2 fans start dissing Bono for repeating words song after song, I feel the responsibility to take the initiative and do the explaining as a preventive measure. Before overly negative people will start accusing Bono of hitting rock bottom in songwriting, I will take the cudgels and respond prematurely.

And back to the irony, while this band uses "love" and "heart" in this album more indiscriminately than Barry Manilow and Air Supply and Richard Marx put together (Bono even used the phrase "romantic love" -- eeew!) - Bono's song for his dad uses violent words like "fight", "tough", and "punches." I guess Bob Hewson truly is the atomic bob Bono was referring to.

Cheers,

J
 
jick said:


If you check out how America is run, Dubya takes a "preventive" stance against terrorism. Get rid of them before they can strike us. That is how he goes about business and he gets criticized for that. Here in Interference, I felt the need to take a preventive approach. Before "fake" U2 fans start dissing Bono for repeating words song after song, I feel the responsibility to take the initiative and do the explaining as a preventive measure. Before overly negative people will start accusing Bono of hitting rock bottom in songwriting, I will take the cudgels and respond prematurely.
Click to expand...

:lmao:

Oh, thank you so much!
 
jick said:


Ironically, the song about one of the people Bono loves the most - his dad - doesn't have either love or heart.
Click to expand...

One. Step. Closer. "A heart that hurts is a heart that beats."

That'd be about his daddy, too.
 
Re: Re: HTDAAB: Has Bono's songwriting hit rock bottom...

UnforgettableLemon said:


One. Step. Closer. "A heart that hurts is a heart that beats."

That'd be about his daddy, too.
Click to expand...

Obviously I was referring to Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own.

Cheers,

J


PS: Woohoo! I got 1000 posts! Perhaps I can retire from this forum now!
 
Re: Re: Re: HTDAAB: Has Bono's songwriting hit rock bottom...

jick said:


Obviously I was referring to Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the implication was that SYCMIOYO was the only Bob Hewson song. So, clarification is always beneficial. :)
 
This is dumb.

I remember back in 1987 when a few critics were complaining that Bono overused certain words and images in The Joshua Tree, such as fire, rain, stones, etc. Today the album is considered a classic.

The reason Bono tends to repeat the same words in various songs on an album is because he wants the album to have a unified theme or mood.
 
HEART
LOVE
BABY
CHILD
BEAUTIFUL
TEACH
ROMANCE/ROMANTIC


well, at least the repeated words are positive w/ good messages. it could be worse, he could have used the word bitch or ho 10 times an album !!
:wink:
 
the only thing that concerned me was the back/track rhyme which is both in in LAPOE and ABOY

PS: please stop the overly negative posts!
 
jick said:


If you check out how America is run, Dubya takes a "preventive" stance against terrorism. Get rid of them before they can strike us. That is how he goes about business and he gets criticized for that. Here in Interference, I felt the need to take a preventive approach. Before "fake" U2 fans start dissing Bono for repeating words song after song, I feel the responsibility to take the initiative and do the explaining as a preventive measure. Before overly negative people will start accusing Bono of hitting rock bottom in songwriting, I will take the cudgels and respond prematurely.

And back to the irony, while this band uses "love" and "heart" in this album more indiscriminately than Barry Manilow and Air Supply and Richard Marx put together (Bono even used the phrase "romantic love" -- eeew!) - Bono's song for his dad uses violent words like "fight", "tough", and "punches." I guess Bob Hewson truly is the atomic bob Bono was referring to.

Cheers,

J
Click to expand...


I have no problems with your posts Jick, just don't mention "Dubya" so much. I'm still in agony. :wink:

Your point is valid - Bono does "re-use" words a lot.

HOWEVER...

This has always been true. In fact, I recall a comment (I believe from Edge) that stated Bono is banned from using certain words again. LOL! I doubt that ban held up for long, but it may have forced Bono to use other images (like "the top of a newborn babie's head"). Such favorite words of Bono's past (and present) are "sky", "kneel" and "feel". Part of the reason is that these words create tremendous imagery and they all have a heavy vowel sound that lends well to vocals (i.e., notes can be easily carried).

So while Bono does use quite a few words again and again, I do think they flow with the overall image he's trying to create. And, of course, the theme of love/heart has long been dominant in U2's writing, as has been peace. Therefore, instead of saying that Bono has reached a new low, you might ask if he's being too repetitive. I'm sure you'll save that question for another spine-tingling post! :D :drool:
 
Jeez Jick...why are you such a grumpmonster. Are you really this much of a curmugeon in real life or is being the Wet Blanket of Interference your schtick? Come on, Jick--there has to be something that makes you smile...


picture of Jick-----> :grumpy:



:p
 
Jick strikes me as a frustrated public servant in real life. Someone forced to keep a constant positive face up in his public life. The Id only comes out on the Internet.
 
im not gonna lie...if bono never ever said or sang the word "soul" again, i'd be more than happy.
 
"Some people get squashed crossing the tracks"

This is about the only line I've had a problem with with the new songs I've heard from HTDAAB. It makes me think of someone I knew who was killed on a railway track. I hadn't noticed it until a friend mentioned it to me. It's really put me off this tune.

I have friends who have only heard a few U2 songs and take the piss out of Bonos songwriting abilities and like to sing (badly) lines like "I'm a mole diggin in a hole". Some people might say negative things about U2, it doesn't mean you have to jump down their throats.

Jick :up:
 
What's interesting about the use of the word "romantic" / "romance" is that both songs that he sings about it, it is about it being worth less than something else.

I did notice though that Bono's use of "Baby" is way up. Still not Achtung Baby levels, where i think it's in nearly every song and the album title.

But I'll grant his "baby", "soul" and "love" references b/c I think his lyric writing is really creative and well-directioned on this album.

My favorite so far: "Intellectual Tortoise"
 
Defamiliarization

Defamilarization

"Art exists so we may recover the sensation of life as it is seen, perceived, not as it is known. The artist must increase the difficulty and length of the experience of perception. The role of art is to defamiliarize: to make things seem unfamiliar rather than automatic; to make us see things as if we were seeing them for the first time."

--Viktor Shklovsky, Russian Formalist movement in the early 1920s.

Bono is a master at defamiliarizing what we've grown accustomed to: love, family, politics, education, etc. His repeated use of cliche terms is in my view a part of his persistent effort to redefine what we already now. He succeeds beautifully in doing so on this album.
 
Bono doesn't write the lyrics! Larry does. Shhh... nobody is suppose to know.

Oh, by the way, this is not the Edge.
 
God Jick, you are so boring and predictable.

The only thing that has hit rock bottom are your ideas and your posts.
 
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