What's the meaning behind love is blindness ?

[ShellBeThere]

VertigoGal and ThatGuy, you're blowing me away again!
I wish I had more time to roll your posts over right this very second, but I gotta go get the girl and bring her to her gymnastics class. I wish I had a laptop so I could read this all while she's in there with her little mates, because I don't feel comfortable watching her somehow it's so her own trip...

cheerio!

 

[U2Soar]

The great thing about many U2 songs is the availability of 2 (or more) credible interpretations! How about a compilation album of U2 songs written specifically about the experience of “The Troubles” in Ireland?

U2 & IRELAND: “THE TROUBLES” ALBUM

1. Sunday Bloody Sunday (Live version from Rattle And Hum DVD)
2. Van Diemen’s Land (Rattle And Hum album)
3. Love Is Blindness (Live version from the Stay single)
4. North And South Of The River (Live version from Omagh Tribute for 1998 bombing victims)
5. Please (Live from PopHeart single or Hasta La Vista Baby CD?)
6. Peace On Earth (ATYCLB album)
7. Sunday Bloody Sunday (Live acoustic version by The Edge on If God Will Send His Angels single)

BONUS TRACKS (hidden tracks after 10 seconds of silence)
7. Don't Let Me Down / Give Peace a Chance (Bono and Edge) or One / Give Peace a Chance (U2) or Stand By Me (U2 with Ash's lead singer) or all 3 songs? (Live version from the 1998 Yes Concert [vote for peace in Northern Ireland])
8. Peace On Earth / Walk On (Live from Tribute To Heroes CD – 9/11 Terrorist Attack) I thought I’d add this one in that it ties in this particular Irish suffering to a similar suffering experienced not only in America but was experienced by the whole world in a sense.

In The Name Of The Father (co-written & co-performed by Bono)?

 

[stammer476]

From Niall Stokes' Into the Heart: the Stories Behind Every U2 Song

It takes us back - again - to the shadowy world of deceit, infidelity, and betrayal. It depicts love at the end, the very end, of its tether. It is as bleak and as despairing a view of the world as you're likely to get, reflecting the emotional climate in which the entire album had been made. "All one's relationships, with your family, with your friends, with the members of a band - everything started to disintegrate with that record," Adam Clayton told John Waters. In terms of its mood, Love Is Blindness had the dark, sensual and decadent feel of pre-war Berlin. But its sentiments made it the perfect conclusion to Achtung Baby. "Love is blindness/I don't want to see," Bono sang - a desolate acknowledgement of the terrible reality that it is sometimes not better to know. The Edge plays a mournful, ejaculatory guitar solo, stabbing out thick emotional blues notes that linger and then fall away like tears. "A more eloquent prayer than anything I could say," Bono reflects. And then darkness falls.

Personally, I think it's about many things, in usual style with U2's works and Bono's inablity to nail down a single thought into one song.

If I had to put it into one meaning, though, I would lean towards the idea that it is about a relationship falling apart. That's what the entire album is about, and considering the state of Edge's marriage at the time, it's the theory that makes the most sense. Basic literary rules state that context is the best platform to interpret meaning. And the context of AB is pain, heartache, and a relationship's end.

BTW, great album to listen to when you're breaking up with someone!

 

[ShellBeThere]

There's something really nasty about describing a guitar solo as 'ejaculatory' somehow...don't know why but it makes the rest of that piece feel really cheap to me.

cheers anyway...

 

[stammer476]

Yeah, Niall says some strange things at times. He's rather, um, blunt, but he puts out good stuff!

 

[Rachel D.]

For some reason I always thought the whole thing about the parked car and seeing love made complete was about cheating. You know, like having sex in the car and cheating on your spouse in doing so. The next line about the knot slipping is what makes me think that. I never though of it as being about a car bomb, but that sounds like it fits, too.

 

[ShellBeThere]

For some reason I always thought the whole thing about the parked car and seeing love made complete was about cheating. You know, like having sex in the car and cheating on your spouse in doing so. The next line about the knot slipping is what makes me think that. I never though of it as being about a car bomb, but that sounds like it fits, too.

Yeah, and it feels to me as though it really *could* be about both at once...with a "Love is.." frame, you could much more consciously add a little sex and a little death. very berlin torchsong. sadistic shit. and so very fly.
but what's sooo bloody amazing to me about U2 is that they can take a sadistic vibe and mix it with a benificence vibe.
it truly scares me. I don't think they're the only band to try this, but they succeed brilliantly.

 

[U2Fan101]

From "Into The Heart"

It was Gavin Friday who interested Bono in Jascues Brel. Gavin had run the Blue Jaysus club in Dublin's Waterfront cafe and for a few glorious months, it became one of the city's most celebrated nights-out with Agnes Bernelle, Gavin Friday, maria McKee and Bono, among many musicians and comedians, likely to show up with something new to perform, in the spirit of Cabaret.
'Love is Blindness' had been written during the Rattle and Hum period. It was Blue Jaysus material, a song that could have been performed with the accompaninment of a lone piano. In Bono's head, it might have been sung by Nina Simone, one of his all-time favorite singers.

It takes us back - again - to the shadowy world of deciet, infidelity and betrayal. it depicts love at the end, the very end, of its tether. It is as bleak and as despairing a view of the world as you're likely to get, reflecting the emotional climate in which the entire album had been made.
"All one's relationships, with your family, with your friends, with the members of the band - everything started to disintegrate with that record," Adam Clayton told John Waters. In terms of its mood, "Love is Blindness" had the dark, sensual and decadent feel of pre-war Berlin. But its sentiments made it the perfect conclusion to Achtung Baby. "Love is blindness/I don't want to see," Bono sang - a desolate acknowledgement of the terrible reality that it is sometimes better not to know. The Edge plays a mournful, ejaculatory guitar solo, stabbing out thick emotional blues notes that linger and then fall away like tears. "A more eloquent prayer than anything I could say," Bono reflects.
And then darkness falls.

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Not that this may or may not answer your question, but it might help.