Try this the next time you listen to Achtung Baby

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pax

ONE love, blood, life
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Anyone else ever think that the order of songs on Achtung Baby is weird? I do. And by this I do not mean to assail the artistic genius of my FAVORITE U2 album. But I thought about this long and hard, and there's a logical way to re-order them...

1.) Zoo Station
2.) Even Better Than the Real Thing
3.) The Fly
4.) Until the End of the World
5.) Mysterious Ways
6.) Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World
7.) Acrobat
8.) Love Is Blindness
9.) Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
10.) So Cruel
11.) One
12.) Ultra Violet (Light My Way)

I might get flamed here, but it's kind of interesting...what do you all get out of this order of songs? Do you notice a pattern emerge?

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If you cannot live together in here, you cannot live together out there, let me tell ya. --Bono

You've got to cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising your voice... --Bono
 
I lovelovelove AB, and it's one of the few things in music I am willing to get huffy over..

When I look at the original pattern of songs, I see, much like the Star Wars plot device - the rise, fall and redemption of a broken man. But in AB, there isn't so much of a redemption as there is possible resolution or revelation.
 
I dont think too much about song orders and historically have been known to rearrange the song orders when I recorded them on to cassette or burned them onto CD.

I think Zoo Station and Love is Blindness are classic opener and closers.
 
I'll mix it up just because I've listened to AB sooooo much. But I do thinkt he song order is perfect the way they have it.

Like HelloAngel pointed out, it has a plot. I can listen to that album and really feel a story in it and an emotional journey.

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Steve
SAME OLD STORY- Hardcore American Comedy
 
I don't think any song on AB is more fit to be a closer than Love Is Blindness. It so perfectly fits the mood of the album, and also the recurring themes of love and betrayal. Maybe it just sums up that we can be stronger than those petty differences.

What's that quote from Bono regarding AB? Something about the album beginning with birth and ending with conception. I think it makes perfect sense. Love Is Blindness seems pure, like that love that leads to conception. That's why I think it manages to rise above all the muck and leave us feeling satisfied.

(My God, its already 3:07 AM. I reeeealy need to get some sleep)

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Change is the only constant
 
I think it's balanced out pretty evenly. But back then I think bands made it a concious effort to make both sides of the album and tape somewhat similiar to each other.

IE both sides have a upstart opener, a second song that follows through, something soft, more rocking, etc etc.

I don't think bands care anymore though, I think tapes are done with and albums are only made by bands that still support vinyl I suppose.

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The more of these I drink the more Bono makes sense.. - Bean from the KROQ Breakfast with U2.
 
Personally I prefer this order:

Acrobat
Even Better Than the Real Thing
Love is Blindness
Mysterious Ways
One
So Cruel
The Fly
Tryin To Throw Your Arms
Ultraviolet
Until The End of the World
Who's Gonna Ride
Zoo Station

Nothin' beats good old alphabetical! :)

Okay, seriously, pax, what's so special about your arrangment?
 
Interesting. I think Love is Blindness is a perfect closer, but unlike many people seem to, I don't find it to be a very hopeful or uplifting song. It's gorgeous -- but I feel a lot of pain and regret in it. It is a resolution of sorts, but not really a happy one. At least that's how I've always heard it.

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"The minute anybody starts telling you what God thinks, or exactly why he does such and such, beware. People should never try to make God in man's image, and that's what they're constantly doing." - Madeleine L'Engle, 1963

"True to form, Edge's promise of 'just the one' turns out to mean just the one bottle of vodka." - Q Mag interview

"don't give up, you've got the music in you..."
 
Interestingly enough, Achtung Baby is one of the only U2 albums I feel has that mythical *perfect* track order (Boy is the other one). I wouldn't change a thing. ATYCLB on the other hand...well don't get me started
wink.gif
.

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The Tempest
 
Originally posted by Michael Griffiths:
Interestingly enough, Achtung Baby is one of the only U2 albums I feel has that mythical *perfect* track order (Boy is the other one). I wouldn't change a thing.

Gotta agree with you here, Michael. I wouldn't move a single note.
 
Remember that (if I'm not mistaken) the "album break" between side 1 and side 2 on the AB cassette (and probably vinyl) version came between "So Cruel" and "The Fly," so those two songs are necessarily meant to "flow" together. Though it feels "right" to listen to them on the CD as they are now, it also makes sense (to me, at least) to view "So Cruel" as a "mini-closer" (for side 1) and "The Fly" as the opener for side 2.


[This message has been edited by rcoleman15 (edited 12-06-2001).]
 
I'm sorry...I should have stated my case more clearly. I was all insomnia'ed out when I posted that too. Truly I hope it didn't come off like that is how AB *should* be ordered or something.

Allow me to explain...

When I was on a huge AB kick a few months ago, I kept thinking that "Love is Blindness" was a weird way to end it. An album that, to me, is all about confusion, amazement, and being at a turning point in one's life (which is what I get from AB)...it was odd, to me, that it has a rather unequivocally pessimistic and dark song to close it out.

I just wondered if anyone else ever thought this about AB, and thought perhaps I would share one of my favorite song-orders that I came up with. Surely the band had their own MO as to how they put the songs together, and I do not mean to suggest that my order is somehow "better." But it makes sense to me.

When I listen to it in the order I stated, each song has a part of the day that it matches up to. It follows a twenty-four-hour progression through the day of a lonely, confused person, so to speak. I guess perhaps it has something to do with the overall feeling you get from the album, and I will admit that that feeling could be tampered with by listening to the album out of order.

So if I upset anyone--and I fear that I may have--I'm sorry. Didn't mean to overstep anyone's boundaries. But it is interesting, and if you re-order the tracks on any album, you may see it in a different light.



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If you cannot live together in here, you cannot live together out there, let me tell ya. --Bono

You've got to cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising your voice... --Bono
 
AB has a great track order, but I think Zooropa has the best "flow" of any U2 album.

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"Good men die unhappily. Bad men die unluckily. THAT's tragedy." --Tom Stoppard

Adam: Look guys, I got a Springfield spoon for my spoon collection.
Edge: Oh boy, here we go...
Bono: Wow, how many is that now Adam?
Adam: Nine. If I didn't have my spoons, I'd go insane.
Bono: Can I see it?
*adam gives bono the spoon, bono throws it away*
Adam: My spoon!
 
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