Understanding Vertigo

[ShellBeThere]

I think there are so many interpretations of this song because its direction changes and is many layered. I feel it switches from temptations of a rock star, to war, back to sex, then on to other things. Add to that some ambiguity and great writing to the lyrics and it's almost like you are surrounded by a whirlpool of chaos, a jungle of mind with you in the center- suffering from full on Vertigo (which the music induces to full effect, from the syncopation to the effects).

Interestingly there sounds like there are two main guitar styles here: the aggressive, vertigo-inducing one and then the classic old-school sound. Vertigo-guitar and Salvation-guitar.

Bono's lyrical style during the verses is his Vertigo-lyrics (with run-ins and trip-ups like the jungle is / your head / can't rule your heart) while the "your love is teaching me" parts are the salvation-lyrics. And of course, love, humility, are the salvation- the way to center yourself from all the unbalanced energies out in the world and in our heads these days.

Of course Vertigo ends with both guitars playing over top of each other, hinting that the song hasn't resolved anything yet. It has firmly acknowledged the Vertigo as well as love's salvation, grace, and glory all of which leads you straight into.. Miracle Drug.

Can't wait to hear that one!

Oh my you guys are all great but I especially loved this one!
I'm gonna just lose my mind when we get Vertigo *followed" by Miracle Drug ...*followed* by...

I wasn't into the whole vertigo-as-message-to-fans idea, but I'm feeling more and more that even this first track is quite personal, as in this-is-what-it's-like-to-be-ME-up-there...

no wonder edge just hopes to avoid puking before doing that deal. I bet they didn't eat all that well when they were laying down some of these tracks either


they're clearly not hungry, they're asking for the check ( i keep hearing 'feast' instead of 'beats' somehow)

maybe that's why I was having this urge to breastfeed when I was first listening to vertigo...I was trying to stop myself and the boys from a nauseating fall into the void and to instead touch that salvation vibe! Bono even gets this baby-crying thing in the ho-ow-ow-ow-ow vocals...yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah! God almighty, that's it! I just can't stop being blown away by this song...it is the mother of all rock songs
it is the mother of all rock songs
it is the mother of all rock songs...
(i'll be mumbling this shortly as they take me away in a straightjacket)
I'm gonna have to have another baby now I think..
If they have tracks on this album that make that vibe happen I'm gonna be so fucking thrilled!!
I don't know all that the realdetail people know, but A Man & A Woman sounds promising on that count!!!!

And wasn't Edge's rhetoric on here about tracks having babies?!
My heads gonna explode again...

I'm just not reading very much sexual temptation in Vertigo though, to try and wade my way back to where elfyx was; power sure but I don't get a sex vibe at all.
it's too immaterial. head and heart don't evoke sex to me like skin and clothes all thru AB lyrics did (I'm talking out my bum here o'course, but just flashing on the hunter will sin for your ivory skin and see-thru dresses and such)...

Okay, I really need to stop coming here for a while..

many cheers all!

rock on!!

 

[elfyx]

it is the mother of all rock songs
it is the mother of all rock songs...
(i'll be mumbling this shortly as they take me away in a straightjacket)

Don't you mean a Full-Metal Straightjacket?

 

[ShellBeThere]

Don't you mean a Full-Metal Straightjacket?

yes indeedy...
and so now I'm noticing , on the sex issue, that the girl at the end with her crimson nails and jesus 'round her neck is decidely *not* sexy I think. scarily seductive, but only in the same way the void is.
and the void is what's left after the big bomb.

and I better gettoutta here again..

cheerio!

 

[elfyx]

yes indeedy...
and so now I'm noticing , on the sex issue, that the girl at the end with her crimson nails and jesus 'round her neck is decidely *not* sexy I think. scarily seductive, but only in the same way the void is.
and the void is what's left after the big bomb.

and I better gettoutta here again..

cheerio!

Good observation. I'll only add that I agree with the another poster here who said that the lines..

As the boys play rock and roll
They know that they can't dance
At least they know

..are double layered with meaning. Bono is known to be fond of using 'dancing' as a metaphor for sex and seduction. As the song is also clearly about temptation, I definitely see the temptations of being the world's biggest rock and roll stars and having every opportunity to have seductive affairs with everyone from young fans to super models.

girl with crimson nails, jesus round her neck, swinging to the music swinging to the music

definitely evokes this image of a seductive woman (crimson nails) whose soul can't be bought (jesus round her neck) totally immersed into U2. "Swinging to the music" also evokes, for me, the "swinger" lifestyle of swapping partners, etc...

 

[ShellBeThere]

Good observation. I'll only add that I agree with the another poster here who said that the lines..

As the boys play rock and roll
They know that they can't dance
At least they know

..are double layered with meaning. Bono is known to be fond of using 'dancing' as a metaphor for sex and seduction. As the song is also clearly about temptation, I definitely see the temptations of being the world's biggest rock and roll stars and having every opportunity to have seductive affairs with everyone from young fans to super models.

girl with crimson nails, jesus round her neck, swinging to the music swinging to the music

definitely evokes this image of a seductive woman (crimson nails) whose soul can't be bought (jesus round her neck) totally immersed into U2. "Swinging to the music" also evokes, for me, the "swinger" lifestyle of swapping partners, etc...

Okay, I'll call that (in a friendly way !) and say..

that I think the boys who can't dance are the field soldiers who can't screw their girlfriends and at least they know they are on the edge of the void, while the rest of us and bono are
Munsch's (I'm spelling that criminally wrong aren't I?) scream
instead and we *don't know* there's no more sex for us baby
but we feel that this is possible and SCREAM
for salvation..
and we want the check cause we can't stand the beats of war and the girls with crimson nails and jesus round their necks are *not* positive figures whose souls can't be bought but rather are swinging to that bloody war beat in a crusade to end them all!
And I love Bono too much to imagine him 'swinging' with those crimson-nailed girls, it's evil. 70s evil at that.

okay, now I gotta go pick up my kids so I get to listen in the car again!



cheers!

 

[ShellBeThere]

Forgive the one post after another (is that what post-whoring is?! I don't know what that term means )

But in today's version of my vertigo fever
I feel sure that the speaker of
"
all of this, all of this can be yours
all of this, all of this can be yours
all of this, all of this can be yours

Just give me what I want, and noone gets hurt
"

..instead of the devil..

Is either/both God telling tempted Jesus that
if He just gives Him what He wants, then
salvation for all will get gotten.

or/and Bono telling me, who was just killed by their brilliant
piece of noise, that if I just give him what he wants (what is it?! I know he wants to change the world, for one...) then he'll
end the song and let me breathe again.

and/or God/Jesus/saviour-of-your-choice telling us all
as we stand perched at the edge of the void that we don't
have to blow up the world, that there's an alternative, and we can have it if we just give what's being asked for...let our souls be saved?...let there be love?...

but the voice says it kinda nasty, sort of forcefully,
like a rock star. Maybe a rather devil-ish one.
So Macphisto is a rock star playing a preacher who is really the devil.
While this voice is a rock star playing temptation, but is really Goodness.
Humility dressed as Hubris.

Then Bono comes back to tell us that the voice's
(i.e., temptation/ jesus-god-goodness/ the people watching him play it all out and giving him so much...much)
love/power is teaching him how to feeeeel...
how to kneeeeel..
and it's just blowing him away..yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!

And it's blowing me away!!!

They're telling us about the dizzying trip they're on / dream they had and sharing it in these fantastic words and inducing it in these sounds and living it...it feels very 'lived' even on mp3...

so all those layers make the vertigo-as-dizziness even worse
and makes me feel like i can't delve too deep into what it might all really mean or I'll lose my ego/self to some sort of cosmic consciousness and start dissolving. So I'm desperately working at solving instead...

I still have trouble with the idea that a lot of folks think this song isn't about anything, but that's maybe part of the trip too.

I don't know if it’s the full harvest moon, or it's that asteroid making it's closest approach to earth in a long long time...

but if Vertigo isn't *about* shit in a way that few songs I've
ever heard are then
there's gotta be something in my water!

cheers all!

 

[MadelynIris]

Good observations Shellbethere.

I still think that bit about 'all of this can be yours' is Satan tempting.

 

[HowieB]

Conversely it could be about Mr Bush...oil, etc. "Give me what I want and no one gets hurt?". Its a possibility.
Perhaps a typical Bono double meaning? Personally I believe "all of this, all of this can be yours" is referring to heaven.

 

[PowerSurge]

I usually hate the over analyzing of U2 songs, but god dammit! This sh*t is peaking my interest. I like the devil/tempted jesus thingy, that really works for me. The Bush/Oil thing might be too specific. Remember, U2 is at a point in their careers where their music will be interpreted in so many ways that they can be less specific with their words at times and still hit all of the marks.

 

[Miggy D]

"Bullets rip the sky of ink and gold"

A dark night sky is black, like ink.

The stars shine bright yellow, like gold.

The bullets (in Iraq, supposedly) are ripping through the black, star-filled sky.

The soldiers are the ones playing the rock and roll music in their tanks or in their tents. And they're dancing to it to try and relieve the pressures of war. They know they can't dance, but they know they can't, and it doesn't matter.

 

[MadelynIris]

Looks like Bono confirmed the theory in the Vanity Fair article.

Cool.

Little to do with war, more to do with being exalted as a rock star.

 

[laurent24]

It's a song about redemption. Even in chaos there is always something to hold on to. Someone you love, god or maybe music. The lyrics are quiet universal and very deep. Great first song for hopefully an even greater record.

 

[Muggsy]

why are you trying to "understand" that song???

just turn the volume up and enjoy it!!

 

[PowerSurge]

anyone else hear the guitar sounds during the first two verses( i.e. the quick rythmic scrapes of Edge's guitar) and think they probably originated during Elevation performed live? You know the part where Bono sings "I'm a creep" and the lights go out.