lazarus said:
I find it odd that the lyrics are being pointed to as the weakness of this track, when apparently they meant enough to Bono to put them in the special edition book of HTDAAB.
Personally, I think the section of "we're binary code/a one and a zero/you wanted violins/and you got Nero" is the best thing he's written so far this decade. Just because it's one of his "list" songs doesn't mean there isn't some weight there. You think the metaphors are lightweight, but how can you truly say so without knowing the man's mind. Some of the best art and lyric writing is the stuff that makes you think for a while. I can't say that about the band's recent output except for a few songs, this being one of them.
Also, I don't know how you can accuse them of getting lost in the music to the point of diffusion and not say the same thing about the studio recordings of not only Elvis Presley & America (a common complaint) but Bad as well. Personally I think Mercy builds more along the lines of Bad's live version, which has a payoff to the build. A song can wander without meandering.
Aren't you tired of the poppy verse chorus verse structure? I don't know how anyone can hear this and not find it refreshing, regardless of how much you like the last two albums.
While the band appears to be exploring even newer directions with the Morrocco sessions, I don't know that we've heard the last of this song. Why would Bono call it "the best b side" and then let it escape into the ether? Yeah, he may know the song as leaked, but if he thinks it's so great he'd rather have millions of fans hearing it than, what, 10 or 20 thousand? It has to still be one of the least-heard U2 song in existence.
Perhaps the lyrics have meaning for Bono, deep enough to write in the book and deep enough to use in the song. But, after hearing this song enough times (it actually used to be on my iPod) the lyrics still don't give way to something deeper for me personally. And that's what I love about U2 songs: I can explore them by repeated listening, and find something new and find something to which I can relate every time. To me, these lyrics smart of something I can't put my finger on, but because of the lyrics I can't get deeper into the song than the superficial (ie. the literal meaning of the lyrics). The lines of the song are incongruous to one another in the sense that, for some lines, some lyrics are stretched to meet the meter of the song whilst others are squashed in to try and keep the rhythm regular. While not every song needs to have a regular beat to it, what stands out for me in this song is the aparentness with which the lyrics are trying to fit into the metre, so much so that they stand out when they don't. On the same note (no puns intended), I must admit I like the verse chorus verse chorus middle eight etc, but yes, I do find it somewhat refreshing when a song that doesn't do this comes along. But what with the sheer length of this song, it sounds more a cluster of ideas that haven't been catalogued properly rather than a sort of 'free verse' song. It actually sounds like it should be in the standard pop song format but it hasn't been tweaked about yet. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, because they can take this idea and work on it until they find a form that works better, it shouldn't be an album song. I state again, I believe it's better suited as a template and a song that can provide a great learning experience for the band, but the fact that it's going to be on the new album (a fact that I've known and resented for about a month or so now) means it's a snippet of what the new album will sound like. And I can't think of this song sounding anything else but lost. True, there's a difference between wandering and meandering, but it does sound to me like it has veered off course by the second verse and doesn't actually get back 'on track', so to speak.
The difference between Bad and Mercy (because I can't dispute Elvis Presley and America - it's one of the weaker songs of UF, in my opinion) is Bad's climax. Instead of the almost palpable desperation in the screams of, "I'm wide awake" (aided as well by the crescendo in the music) before coming down into, "oh no, no", Mercy has the block of "Love is justice, not charity," to, "I'm alive again," and because it sounds so much like the rest of the song, there's no impact before the repetition of, "I'm born again, and again and again," ad infinitum. This, to me, sounds like Bono doesn't know where the song should go next, even if this was not his intention, and so just lets it wander around a bit before leaving.
And no, I'm not an egomaniac. I know I've referred to myself a lot, but it's merely to stress that this is just my opnion. I might be wrong, I might be right. But whatever it is, I just can't bring myself to like Mercy. It works as a b-side, yes (though not the best b-side ever, I've heard him say this before and I do think there are better ones out there), it works as a starting point or somewhere from which to advance, yes. But not as an album track, in my opinion.
