Never heard this theory about Surrender and Red Light before

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Axver

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I've never heard any theories before about Surrender and Red Light being linked, but this one happens to come straight from Bono himself:

Usually we just keep playing because we're much better at playing music than talking about it. But this song I want to talk about, because this song was in some ways the key to our last record and everone was talking about the violence on our last record and this song is .. not about that at all. This song is about somebody, somebody on top of a tall building in New York. There's two songs on the LP War which are about this person, a song called called Surrender, a song called Red Light. This song is Surrender.
- Before Surrender, 17 September 1984, Melbourne

That doesn't say anything new about Surrender, but I've normally seen Red Light said to be about a prostitute, not the same woman in Surrender. Seems that's not actually the case and the two songs are very much connected.

Maybe this quote is already known, but it was new to me. Thought I'd share it. :shrug:
 
In my head I always thought those were the same person. I also always thought the girl in Running to stand still was the same character, a few years later. I don't have any evidence to say that's true, but my mind always put those 3 together...
 
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Interesting quote. But anyway, this thread made me listen to the songs again after quite a while. And I realised something... I don't care what anybody says. I really really like Red Light, at least musically. Never paid attention to the lyrics.
 
Also Surrender immediately follows Red Light on the tracklisting....

coincidence, I think not:wink:
 
Zootlesque said:
Interesting quote. But anyway, this thread made me listen to the songs again after quite a while. And I realised something... I don't care what anybody says. I really really like Red Light, at least musically. Never paid attention to the lyrics.

Lately, I've actually started to find myself enjoying it. :reject: I've been playing War a lot and ... I guess it's finally started to grow on me. Though Bono's singing still isn't exactly spectacular in the song!
 
I've always enjoyed those two songs. Other than NYD and SBS, they are my favourite War tracks. War is perhaps my favourite album right now.
 
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