kiwilad
Refugee
After listening to Bono's intro for this song at Hanover Quay, I was interested to know what he meant by 'the song switches in the middle'. I've since come up with this interpretation...
The song begins in a hospital room, where bono is watching his dad slipping away. This is the obvious bit that we have been told the song is about. It is bloody moving, the way bono opens up to his dad at that last moment. But then during the middle section things change...
We zoom back almost 30 years to another hospital room, but this time it is bono's dad with his wife (bono's mum) dying beside him. It is this character who sings 'you're the reason the opera is in me' and 'don't leave me here alone' and 'a house doesn't make a home' and 'it's you when I can't go on' etc (excuse lyrical simplifications!). This is bono's dad pleaing his wife to stay because he understands that he can't do the 'father' thing, especially for young Paul who he doesn't understand.
So while the song initially shows us Bono's dad as a hard, insensitive anti-father lacking compassion (although doing this in a non-critical way) it them spins around to show us the dad's point of view. He never wanted to be left alone, he never said he could raise a happy home.
And even more poignant, when someone dear to him lay dying, the dad sung his emotions to himself, his heartbreak manifested as an internal song. 30 years later, when faced with the same situation Bono does exactly the same thing, using similar phrasings and perspectives.
At one point Bono states how similar the two of them are. By flashing back 30 years he then SHOWS us how similar they are.
Obviously this is just an opinion, feel free to disagree!!! But I challenge anyone who hasn't been knocked over by this song yet to listen to it with this story in mind, because in terms of raw emotion and spine tinglingness SYCMIOYO has ONE beaten hands down.
The song begins in a hospital room, where bono is watching his dad slipping away. This is the obvious bit that we have been told the song is about. It is bloody moving, the way bono opens up to his dad at that last moment. But then during the middle section things change...
We zoom back almost 30 years to another hospital room, but this time it is bono's dad with his wife (bono's mum) dying beside him. It is this character who sings 'you're the reason the opera is in me' and 'don't leave me here alone' and 'a house doesn't make a home' and 'it's you when I can't go on' etc (excuse lyrical simplifications!). This is bono's dad pleaing his wife to stay because he understands that he can't do the 'father' thing, especially for young Paul who he doesn't understand.
So while the song initially shows us Bono's dad as a hard, insensitive anti-father lacking compassion (although doing this in a non-critical way) it them spins around to show us the dad's point of view. He never wanted to be left alone, he never said he could raise a happy home.
And even more poignant, when someone dear to him lay dying, the dad sung his emotions to himself, his heartbreak manifested as an internal song. 30 years later, when faced with the same situation Bono does exactly the same thing, using similar phrasings and perspectives.
At one point Bono states how similar the two of them are. By flashing back 30 years he then SHOWS us how similar they are.
Obviously this is just an opinion, feel free to disagree!!! But I challenge anyone who hasn't been knocked over by this song yet to listen to it with this story in mind, because in terms of raw emotion and spine tinglingness SYCMIOYO has ONE beaten hands down.
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