Just heard SYCMIOYO for like the 100th time. My muse has been inspired:
12/9/04
"Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" might very well be U2's most memorable ballad. A gut-wrenching, soulful lament about the death of Bono's father, the song skillfully defamilarizes the frustration, hopelessness, and desperation that accompany the death of a loved one. The poignancy is apparent in virtually every aspect of the song: the Edge's mournful guitar, Adam Clayton's haunting bass line, Larry Mullen's indifferent drum beats, and, of course, Bono's somber eulogy croon.
Unlike its sister ballad, "Stuck in a Moment," "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" is an epic journey. The ballad's first word is a defiant metaphor: "tough." Bob Hewson, Bono's father, is here strangely dehumanized; he's not a person in this song, but an idea (in fact, Bono originally considered calling this song "Tough). "You think you've got the stuff," Bono complains, "You're telling me and anyone you're hard enough." But there emerges an opportunity that Bono's father and Bono himself have heretofore ignored. Bono pontificates: "You don't have to put up a fight, you don't always have to be right." Beneath the stubbornness outwardly manifested in their lives lies the faded recognition that Bono himself could have been his father's armor and protection ("Let me take some of the punches for you tonight"). It's a recognition that Bono yearns to have felt when his father was alive; indeed, he cries for his father to hear this recognition now: "Listen to me now, I need to let you know, you don't have to go it alone."
The song then shifts tempo to a falsetto that is nothing short of majestic. The catharsis emerges in Bono's tender confession: "And it's you when I look in the mirror, and it's you when I don't pick up the phone." Bono next alludes to the essence of his relationship with "tough"--i.e., unending quarrel. But where before Bono may have considered his differences with his father to be insurmountable, he now proffers an easier explanation: "We're the same soul," he solemnly concludes. In fact, the strange reality is that it is Bono's peculiar similarities with his father that are the source of the unending quarrel, not the differences ("If we weren't so alike, you'd like me a whole lot more").
The song takes a dramatic turn when Bono confronts himself in the mirror and wonders why his father won't talk back, and why he couldn't tell his father what he meant to him. And what did Bono's father really do for Bono? The answer is captured in the most memorable line of the song, and possibly of any U2 song. "You're the reason why the opera is in me," Bono repines. Bono's father was an opera singer by profession, so this is a rare moment of humility for Bono (Bono's own nickname, "Bono Vox," means "good voice" in Latin, a nickname given to him by the kids he played with at home). But the line also refers to the frenzied beauty and meaning of opera itself, a medium of music that ironically encapsulates the substance of Bono's relationship with his father.
Attempting to bring closure to his father's death, Bono concludes by asking the fateful question: "Where are we now?" All that remains is the physical grave of Bono's father--a "tough," stone-cold exterior (an exterior probably not all too different from the exterior of Bono's own mansions). But "a house doesn't make a home," Bono reminds himself and his father. Weary, alone, and in despair, Bono can only deliver an adolescent cry: "Don't leave me here all alone!" Finally, as if attempting to regain courage, he comforts himself by deception. "The best you can do is to fake it," Bono reminds all those who believe they can live their lives comfortably without the help of a lost loved one. To Bono, it's simply an undeniable fact: "Sometimes you can't make it on your own."
--Amjad M. Khan
12/9/04
"Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" might very well be U2's most memorable ballad. A gut-wrenching, soulful lament about the death of Bono's father, the song skillfully defamilarizes the frustration, hopelessness, and desperation that accompany the death of a loved one. The poignancy is apparent in virtually every aspect of the song: the Edge's mournful guitar, Adam Clayton's haunting bass line, Larry Mullen's indifferent drum beats, and, of course, Bono's somber eulogy croon.
Unlike its sister ballad, "Stuck in a Moment," "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" is an epic journey. The ballad's first word is a defiant metaphor: "tough." Bob Hewson, Bono's father, is here strangely dehumanized; he's not a person in this song, but an idea (in fact, Bono originally considered calling this song "Tough). "You think you've got the stuff," Bono complains, "You're telling me and anyone you're hard enough." But there emerges an opportunity that Bono's father and Bono himself have heretofore ignored. Bono pontificates: "You don't have to put up a fight, you don't always have to be right." Beneath the stubbornness outwardly manifested in their lives lies the faded recognition that Bono himself could have been his father's armor and protection ("Let me take some of the punches for you tonight"). It's a recognition that Bono yearns to have felt when his father was alive; indeed, he cries for his father to hear this recognition now: "Listen to me now, I need to let you know, you don't have to go it alone."
The song then shifts tempo to a falsetto that is nothing short of majestic. The catharsis emerges in Bono's tender confession: "And it's you when I look in the mirror, and it's you when I don't pick up the phone." Bono next alludes to the essence of his relationship with "tough"--i.e., unending quarrel. But where before Bono may have considered his differences with his father to be insurmountable, he now proffers an easier explanation: "We're the same soul," he solemnly concludes. In fact, the strange reality is that it is Bono's peculiar similarities with his father that are the source of the unending quarrel, not the differences ("If we weren't so alike, you'd like me a whole lot more").
The song takes a dramatic turn when Bono confronts himself in the mirror and wonders why his father won't talk back, and why he couldn't tell his father what he meant to him. And what did Bono's father really do for Bono? The answer is captured in the most memorable line of the song, and possibly of any U2 song. "You're the reason why the opera is in me," Bono repines. Bono's father was an opera singer by profession, so this is a rare moment of humility for Bono (Bono's own nickname, "Bono Vox," means "good voice" in Latin, a nickname given to him by the kids he played with at home). But the line also refers to the frenzied beauty and meaning of opera itself, a medium of music that ironically encapsulates the substance of Bono's relationship with his father.
Attempting to bring closure to his father's death, Bono concludes by asking the fateful question: "Where are we now?" All that remains is the physical grave of Bono's father--a "tough," stone-cold exterior (an exterior probably not all too different from the exterior of Bono's own mansions). But "a house doesn't make a home," Bono reminds himself and his father. Weary, alone, and in despair, Bono can only deliver an adolescent cry: "Don't leave me here all alone!" Finally, as if attempting to regain courage, he comforts himself by deception. "The best you can do is to fake it," Bono reminds all those who believe they can live their lives comfortably without the help of a lost loved one. To Bono, it's simply an undeniable fact: "Sometimes you can't make it on your own."
--Amjad M. Khan