bugo
Acrobat
I was reading Bill Flanagan's U2 @ The End of the World last night and the first couple of chapters are an amazing account of U2 arriving at the fall of the Berlin Wall (an event that juxtaposes somewhat with their expectations) and the ensuing tensions between the band during the writing process of Achtung Baby.
Achtung Baby is a deep album - no doubt about it. Reading Flanagan's interpretation of the album as "full of romantic and spiritual anguish, of the bargains made between couples and the recriminations they throw at each other when those deals are breached", made me think it would be a great idea to find out how the many U2 fans out there interpret this work.
While in the past I simply felt the album was an exploration of love rusting into hatred, last night I felt inspired by Flanagan and now see it as the manifestation of the falling Berlin Wall into a fictional metaphor for a relationship.
The idea is, that the two sides of Berlin pre-1989 longed for each other, shielded from their lover for many years. Once the wall falls, the sense of joy is intense but soon evaporates as the reality of desire set against unrequainted love sinks in. Their excitement and lust was guided by blindness and with the reality of the relationship failing to meet such high expectations, disappointment creeps in and grows into bitterness.
I don't mean this as an interpretation of how East and West Berlin feel about each other, just of how U2 translated their feelings about a trip to a unified Berlin that somehow mutated into division.
Now... Your turn!
