I don't get Mysterious Ways

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Zootlesque said:
Mysterious Ways = musical sex

Mysterious Ways (live) = multiple orgasms!

:combust:



Hope I made my opinion clear. :whistle:

The only problem I have with MW live is that the melody in the verses, especially the first verse is one of my favorite melodies. And really sings it on the record, but live he just sort of yells it in a sort of disjointed form of the melody....the best way I can explain it. I hope it made at least some sense.

Edge makes up for it live though :wink: :drool:
 
Yeah, what's there to get? I think this is one of the rare U2 songs that actually benefits from not over-thinking it. The vibe and the feel and the aesthetic are all that need to be grasped. And if you can't get that, then...well, you're just S.O.L. As George Clinton once said, "Free your mind and your ass will follow."

In my top 5 U2 songs of all time.
 
namkcuR said:

The only problem I have with MW live is that the melody in the verses, especially the first verse is one of my favorite melodies. And really sings it on the record, but live he just sort of yells it in a sort of disjointed form of the melody....the best way I can explain it. I hope it made at least some sense.

Yeah, it makes sense. I agree. But that's always the case with live versions... all singers take liberties like that.. they don't necessarily fit all the lyrics perfectly to the beat like in the album! :shrug:
 
I never much cared for it till I heard it on the Slane DVD. That version is now my most played U2 song...I just think the song has a groove and sensuality a lot of U2 songs lack. Plus its all pretty and groovy with the pink lights. I think the band, especially Bono enjoys singing it.
 
Whether you think Mysterious Ways has depth or not depends on what you are lining it up against. I think it's a great example of a song where U2 got the music and the message completely in harmony. Edge's guitar, starts out with just that 'throb', like the temptation in the back of the mind, kinda creeping forward. It just sounds like a dirty temptation, a distraction. It's fun, it's funky, it's definitely meant to sound like something you want to be a part of, something you can't help at least tapping along to, maybe moving along to, in a way that almost isn't by choice but by natural urge.... The throbbing builds, more of them, but it doesn't become smooth, really all connect, till the "one day you arrive" and then the part just plays, the temptation has taken over - or is it the other way around, the throb is the guilt that leads you back from the temptation to love, which soars and takes over at the end? It's a song about lust vs love, temptation and spirituality. It's heavy, it has great depth. The music stirs something in you right? Particularly some of those live versions where the Edge absolutely explodes. Line that movement up a little closer to the lyrics. Bono's ZooTV dance with the belly dancer, which starts with just a sideways glance from the other end of the stage and finishes with that "Do I/Don't I" struggle and him giving in and taking that symbolic cloth away. Listen to the It's Alright's from the beginning to the end of the song, they start off sounding like someone trying to convince themselves that something they shouldn't be doing is okay to do, then by the end they are cocky and confident. Particularly live, listen to the different delivery from start to finish live. You almost imagine at the start a guy ducking out of the nightclub for a breath of fresh air and a cigarette, fighting that mental battle about whether he's about to go home with someone "It's okay... you know you want to... it's not wrong.... is it? It's alright, it's alright..." then at the end the guy is in the act and "It's alright" sounds more like "This is fucking great!!!" OR he's done that right thing and gone home to love "THIS is what is alright".

Personally I think it's a great example of what U2 should be doing now. No, not 90's experimentation or some dream of Achtung part 2, but songs that are in a place that everyone can take something. There seems to be a belief that U2 must swing one way or the other, but no-one talks about the middle. The argument seems to always be "It's either Elevation 110% simple, accessible, radio friendly crap or far out weird Passengers experimentation and ideas and I just can't sing along to that". Mysterious Ways is a great example of a song that on the surface is musically catchy and unique, a song that at the time had HUGE radio play and is now one of U2s most instantly recognisable songs, a song that still to this day seems to be one of the most known and loved U2 songs among non-U2 fans (of that age or generation). At the same time lyrically and thematicaly it was probably the heaviest song on the Top 40 at that time, by a mile. It is most definitely not throwaway, it holds one of the single key thoughts of Achtung Baby and tells it perfectly.
 
Like several people have said already, it's pure sex. Adam's bass just makes me want to dance and do dirty things. :combust:

It's one of my favourite U2 songs.
 
Earnie Shavers said:

Personally I think it's a great example of what U2 should be doing now. No, not 90's experimentation or some dream of Achtung part 2, but songs that are in a place that everyone can take something.

There seems to be a belief that U2 must swing one way or the other, but no-one talks about the middle. The argument seems to always be "It's either Elevation 110% simple, accessible, radio friendly crap or far out weird Passengers experimentation and ideas and I just can't sing along to that".

Mysterious Ways is a great example of a song that on the surface is musically catchy and unique, a song that at the time had HUGE radio play and is now one of U2s most instantly recognisable songs, a song that still to this day seems to be one of the most known and loved U2 songs among non-U2 fans (of that age or generation). At the same time lyrically and thematicaly it was probably the heaviest song on the Top 40 at that time, by a mile. It is most definitely not throwaway, it holds one of the single key thoughts of Achtung Baby and tells it perfectly.

Great post, Earnie! :up:

I broke your post up into 3 paras so it's clear that I agree with those specific points you've made! Yes... Mysterious Ways is a great example of an unabashedly top40 song from 1992 that's actually good!
 
I can't live without it.

It's the song that made me a U2 fan in the first place

I listen to it at least two or three times every day without fail.

It drives my family nuts.
 
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