namkcuR
ONE love, blood, life
Great conversation going here.
I personally love Mercy. It evokes both the anthemic nature of JT(and albums thereafter) and the atmospheric, abstract nature of UF. It's the latter I think that resonates so much to some of us. 21st century U2 works so hard to polish everything, overthink and overcook everything, but the 2004 Mercy sounds messy and rough around the edges and unpolished and spontaneous and spirited and inspired and beautiful. The emotions are allowed to breathe. Their attempt during 360 to condense it into a tidier, more polished 4 minute pop song eliminated so much of what made it great. I don't know if it's the best song they've done since Pop, but it's probably in the top 20 if not top 10.
I do think the history of the song is a bit confounding though. I for one have always been skeptical about the story of Bono handing a CD to a fan. I remember, before Bomb came out, a working copy of it that belonged to Edge was misplaced, in France I think, and the band put the cops on it. But I'm supposed to believe Bono just handed over a copy of an unreleased album with an extra non-album track on it?
And then there's the issue of why it's never been released. It's one thing to decide not to put it on the album, however wrong you might think that decision was. But if it was really that close to being on the album, why wasn't it ever released as a b-side, or a bonus track, or a stand-alone single, or a future album? Bono called it the best b-side you've ever heard, but it was NEVER A B-SIDE. And if he really thinks the song is that good, why hasn't it ever seen the light of day? Perhaps we will never know the answers.
As for lyrics, I've said this before - if I dig the music, they lyrics could be la la la da da da for all I care. I mean, I appreciate, love, and find great meaning in great lyrics as much as any of you, but the music comes first, always, and if the music is great, there's no lyric bad enough to sink it. I know some of you don't agree with me on that, but that's my feeling.
I personally love Mercy. It evokes both the anthemic nature of JT(and albums thereafter) and the atmospheric, abstract nature of UF. It's the latter I think that resonates so much to some of us. 21st century U2 works so hard to polish everything, overthink and overcook everything, but the 2004 Mercy sounds messy and rough around the edges and unpolished and spontaneous and spirited and inspired and beautiful. The emotions are allowed to breathe. Their attempt during 360 to condense it into a tidier, more polished 4 minute pop song eliminated so much of what made it great. I don't know if it's the best song they've done since Pop, but it's probably in the top 20 if not top 10.
I do think the history of the song is a bit confounding though. I for one have always been skeptical about the story of Bono handing a CD to a fan. I remember, before Bomb came out, a working copy of it that belonged to Edge was misplaced, in France I think, and the band put the cops on it. But I'm supposed to believe Bono just handed over a copy of an unreleased album with an extra non-album track on it?
And then there's the issue of why it's never been released. It's one thing to decide not to put it on the album, however wrong you might think that decision was. But if it was really that close to being on the album, why wasn't it ever released as a b-side, or a bonus track, or a stand-alone single, or a future album? Bono called it the best b-side you've ever heard, but it was NEVER A B-SIDE. And if he really thinks the song is that good, why hasn't it ever seen the light of day? Perhaps we will never know the answers.
As for lyrics, I've said this before - if I dig the music, they lyrics could be la la la da da da for all I care. I mean, I appreciate, love, and find great meaning in great lyrics as much as any of you, but the music comes first, always, and if the music is great, there's no lyric bad enough to sink it. I know some of you don't agree with me on that, but that's my feeling.
