Did Trump weaken SOE

[womanfish]

First thing - This thread is not for political discussion/arguing. Obviously politics will be referenced, but please keep it to the music and civil.

Ok.

So we all know that the band said they wanted to go back and revisit the SOE material in light of the Trump presidency. This seemed like BS, and they later said it was really more because of Bono's health, etc...

But from the material we've gotten thus far. 3 out of 5 seem to have been altered. TBT and Little Things remain personal tunes, and I love that.
Get Out starts as a personal tune and then part way thru the second verse we are talking about the face of liberty cracking and her getting a smack in the mouth....While the lyric actually flows quite well, it now seems tacked on or revised, and to me, i think that song would be even better if had been a consistent personal letter to his daughters...

The Blackout - Love this song, and this one has more possible political references throughout the entire thing. But i think lines like "Statues fall, democracy flat on its back - We had it all, and what we had is not coming back" isn't a tacked on part. It isn't as jarring as the Get Out political insertion, but does stand out as a likely revision.

American Soul - Well, this may have been this way from the beginning. Possibly this song wasn't even going to be on the album until Trump. Who knows.
I do know that I really like this song musically. I like the loose arrangement, it rocks out really well. But damn, the lyrics are so literal and direct the whole way through about refugees and grace and dreams and pilgrims and community, etc...

I really love the first section with "look around" parts and the bits with the Edge singing are really cool, and the last minute just rips.
Good song! I woke up singing that song out of all of them, stuck in my head, but its the song i least want to go back and listen to compared to the others.
And it's really because of a majority of the lyrics.


Now, I'm hoping that the rest of the album remains more personal, and we don't see so many obvious political inserts. But who knows.


Part of me just feels it takes away from the timelessness of an album or a song. It almost instantly dates it. A song like RBW - much more abstractly and cleverly talked about its subject matter. and what a great song it is.

Now maybe Trump will get goose-stepped out of the White House and money laundering and fraud charges and this album will be looked at as the band voicing a warning of what was about to come. But probably not.

Does anyone else feel this way? You find it good or bad?

 

[BVS]

Yes.

Trump has ruined everything he’s touched.

 

[Numb1075]

Yes.

Trump has ruined everything he’s touched.

LOL and true.

Well, without hearing 2/3 of the songs, i can't comment conclusively but i can say from what i've heard, if he hasn't weakened it, U2 certainly made it all about him. Almost every single line i've heard so far appears to be about him and America.

I thought it was supposed to be letters to his wife and children. It sounds more like letters to America to wake the f8ck up !

 

[Rachel D.]

Now, I'm hoping that the rest of the album remains more personal, and we don't see so many obvious political inserts. But who knows.

Part of me just feels it takes away from the timelessness of an album or a song. It almost instantly dates it.

I agree with this and am not a fan of the overly obvious political content. I hear enough about Trump everywhere else, so I don't need to hear more in a U2 song. It's not like they need to raise awareness about what's going on, everybody already knows because it's in our faces every day.

As for whether the album has been "weakened," we can't really know because we didn't hear what it sounded like before. But if it reminds me of Trump every time I listen to it, even ten years from now, then I would say that's a bad thing.

 

[BVS]

LOL and true.



Well, without hearing 2/3 of the songs, i can't comment conclusively but i can say from what i've heard, if he hasn't weakened it, U2 certainly made it all about him. Almost every single line i've heard so far appears to be about him and America.



I thought it was supposed to be letters to his wife and children. It sounds more like letters to America to wake the f8ck up !

I think that’s a bit much. RefuJesus is hands down a reaction to Dumbf. GOOYOW and Blackout slipped a few lines in about him.

 

[shineon]

Trump is just a stand-in for evil incarnate, which we'll always have with us in one form or another. So...I don't think the album will age once Trump shuffles off this mortal coil or exits the contemporary scene.

 

[DeVaul]

Blackout suffers as a result. A song focused on being an aging rock star losing a step but still finding meaning in the communal experience of the live show might've been more interesting than the stab at linking it to Trump.

 

[clerks]

We don't know for sure.
Do we even know what Bono's health scare was?
But it sure feels like they delayed the album and created a Joshua Tree tour because they didn't want to put out a happy go lucky record when they saw the Earth burning around them...

So it stands to reason, some of those lyrics and additions were probably a result of general feeling of dismay that a lot of the world feels these days....

That or they just over produced an album?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Well, there's no song about getting pissed on

 

[clerks]

Well, there's no song about getting pissed on

that's because they already wrote LEMON

 

[BVS]

You know I like to get wet, Brett
The news you’re reading is fake, Blake
For theeeeeeere’s a golden shower
On the toooooooop of my tower

 

[DeVaul]

Freedom has a scent like a toilet wall

 

[U2freakboy]

Blackout suffers as a result. A song focused on being an aging rock star losing a step but still finding meaning in the communal experience of the live show might've been more interesting than the stab at linking it to Trump.

Couldn’t disagree more. The political lyrics work perfectly on this song. Trump is having a major impact on many Americans’ lives. No one cares about the perils of an aging rock star.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Yea I didn't even believe that it was anything other than autobiographical until Bono stated that he tweaked some lyrics to reflect Trump and Brexit. I still think the tweaks were mild and it has dual meaning.

 

[CosmoKramer]

U2 is smarter than that and they have delivered accordingly. If they had said "Trump says the people they don't want to be free for free"(he might do that live) then the song is weakened. But the "big mouth" could be Trump today or leader X tomorrow or maybe it's your boss or your coach or whatever. Blackout and GOOYOW both speak in parts to people in power who are bad and Trump is hardly the first, worst or last, so these parts will hold over time and can be applied to anyone.

Trump might have saved us from the "every door smells like fresh paint" line from TBT....ugh that was bad.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

U2 is smarter than that and they have delivered accordingly. If they had said "Trump says the people they don't want to be free for free"(he might do that live) then the song is weakened. But the "big mouth" could be Trump today or leader X tomorrow or maybe it's your boss or your coach or whatever. Blackout and GOOYOW both speak in parts to people in power who are bad and Trump is hardly the first, worst or last, so these parts will hold over time and can be applied to anyone.

Trump might have saved us from the "every door smells like fresh paint" line from TBT....ugh that was bad.

But Big Mouth could also be Bono, as it is in Little Things.

Maybe the original lyric was Big Mouth says the people want music for free

 

[chadmac81]

Interesting take. I suppose you could say that GOOYOW is about lady liberty as she represents America, but that second verse seems a little strange juxtaposed to the first. The Blackout sounds like they wrote it exclusively in response to Trump and the song works. Like someone mentioned before, American Soul is way too literal. Bono is better than portmanteaus.

I would have liked this album to stay how it was originally intended thematically, while they trickled out some non album political jams in response to the current state of affairs. I feel that it weakens the connection between Innocence and Experience by shoe horning in political references to personal songs. During that album delay they could've trickled out The Blackout and American Soul so they can speak their mind, but keep to the theme for the album.

I suppose only time will tell if it is not as bad as it seems or if it's a convoluted mess, but then again, we said that when Trump got elected.

 

[Rich79]

Just from the three tracks I've heard, the short answer is "yes". However, I don't think "Get Out" has strong enough music or vocal melodies to really be improved by better lyrics. "Blackout" isn't soiled by it, I don't think flows a little more unnoticed and seems a little less direct (could be about the erosion of democracy in general). I like it better when politics enters U2's music in a more ambiguously subtle way. You can still listen to "Pride", "Sunday Bloody Sunday", "Bullet" etc. and apply those songs to other situations than the ones they were originally written about. I agree that if we're listening to this collection of U2 songs years from now and still thinking Trump, then it was the wrong move. Makes the songs harder to have potential to be classics, I think. I also know a few Trump-supporting U2 fans who are starting to check out on this whole album because of it. I don't know if that's here nor there. It can't be surprising they're not fans of the guy.

 

[BVS]

How the hell is SBS considered ambiguous and subtle?

 

[Iggy Fizz]

Couldn’t disagree more. The political lyrics work perfectly on this song. Trump is having a major impact on many Americans’ lives. No one cares about the perils of an aging rock star.

No one cares about Bono's views of the American President. At least, not normal people who don't live in this forum.

It was a poor decision to blame the album delay on Trump. We all know that was BS. Should have just said they weren't happy with the material at that point, same as every other album cycle.

 

[CosmoKramer]

How the hell is SBS considered ambiguous and subtle?

Lol.....it's like if they named "The Black Out" something like "President Trump".... Sunday Bloody Sunday has the name of the event in the title.

 

[Iggy Fizz]

Lol.....it's like if they named "The Black Out" something like "President Trump".... Sunday Bloody Sunday has the name of the event in the title.

True. But you could argue that the core message of pacifism can be broadly applied to many situations. Perhaps that is not considered vague so much as malleable...

 

[BVS]

No one cares about Bono's views of the American President. At least, not normal people who don't live in this forum.

Spot on!

The response they got at iHeart and the Salesforce gig spoke volumes. I think that’s why they completely avoided Trump on the JT tour.

The truth is, no one outside of here cares about his views on love, God, equality, or war either. They really just want to hear his view on moles and think he’s sexy as fuck in those pink glasses.

 

[kiwilad]

They really just want to hear his view on moles and think he’s sexy as fuck in those pink glasses.

So does David Furnish

 

[Rich79]

How the hell is SBS considered ambiguous and subtle?

I knew as I was typing it was poorly worded. I mean it from the perspective that they sort of reinvent what the song is about every tour and it works (for example, the Iran stuff during 360). I don't even know that the casual U2 fan even has much knowledge of what Bloody Sunday references, historically. I guess that's where the point lies (lay?). If years down the road they can still play these SOE songs and feel like they're still relevant, like w/SBS, then cool. If not, then yeah, it was probably a misstep.

I'd personally rather hear songs about gasoline for your submarine than U.S. politics. I have to see more than enough of that when I open my FB feed on a daily basis.

 

[Tim Wallach]

womanfish, I do think the Trump obsession has the ability to weaken it. For what was a cool little letter to his daughters in Get Out, the American-slanted lyrics detract in my humble opinion.

They'll suggest all their songs are nuanced and have multiple meanings, but in reality, it muddies the message.

 

[redhill]

U2 is smarter than that and they have delivered accordingly. If they had said "Trump says the people they don't want to be free for free"(he might do that live) then the song is weakened. But the "big mouth" could be Trump today or leader X tomorrow or maybe it's your boss or your coach or whatever. Blackout and GOOYOW both speak in parts to people in power who are bad and Trump is hardly the first, worst or last, so these parts will hold over time and can be applied to anyone.

Trump might have saved us from the "every door smells like fresh paint" line from TBT....ugh that was bad.

What about "the top of a newborn baby's head"?

 

[Montrose]

My only real worry is that lyrics containing 'liberty' and 'democracy' will become obvious insertions throughout the rest of the songs, and become this album's 'kneel/feel'.

I don't mind U2 being overtly political, I don't mind them being ambiguous either. I just find that if there are too many 'tells' of working the lyrics to be more one way or the other, then I can get pulled out of the song.

'Big mouth' works for me because it could be applied to Bono or Trump, and sort of gives me the idea that Bono dislikes the man not solely based on his policies and beliefs, but because he might see Trump as an example of his own sort of megalomania gone bad, rather then how he sublimated it for good. For the most part. Bizarro, orange Bono, maybe.

But songs that are, at heart, letters to his family, friends, loved ones, and fans can become distracted if there's too much finger-pointing outside the topic. It would be like Achtung baby songs, aching over separation and heartbreak, had a lyric referencing Bush, and trying to make it sexual.

So far, though, so good. The Trumpish references work in Blackout because of the more aggressive tone of the song, and the aging rock star/out-of-step politician transition is not at all bumpy. They get taken along in the gentle stream that is TBT, if there are any at all, and I'm only finding the liberty/smack in the mouth reference in GOOYOW a little jarring, but I haven't given it enough listens - mainly through a visual read through.

American Soul, well, it's overtly what it is.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

womanfish, I do think the Trump obsession has the ability to weaken it. For what was a cool little letter to his daughters in Get Out, the American-slanted lyrics detract in my humble opinion.

They'll suggest all their songs are nuanced and have multiple meanings, but in reality, it muddies the message.

Why is the second verse automatically not still a letter to his daughters? Even if it is about world politics?

 

[Gonna Run 2 U]

I think the bands quest for relevancy weakened the album. Artists are opportunists and Trump was a perfect vehicle to tie themselves in with. The Joshua Tree celebration/tour was a smart way to begin tying things together or come full circle leading into the political unrest themes on SOE. I do feel it weakens the album because admittedly they said it was one of the reasons they “paused” it. We will never know if Bono’s health issues or that had more weight in delaying it. All of the new songs so far seem to be conflicting in message of personal and political and it distracts me while listening trying to attach my own feelings to what’s going on in my life right now. What I’m saying is that I think since the songs have became political they are becoming less relatable because of their sometimes obvious context. I hate politics.