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I posted this on the U2 NewZooland forums and thought I’d reproduce it here. I just liked writing it so much, I had to share.
Someone posted a comment about what we thought the lyrics on Achtung Baby and Zooropa were all about, and I posted a bit of a spiel about U2’s writing in general (which you can read on the forums in the ‘Music and Lyrics’ section), and then I proceeded write what you can read here…
Zooropa: Technology, surface, no place, no direction. And in this I’m hiding; what am I hiding from?
Babyface: Sexuality and intimacy from images, TV, artificial beauty, love by remote control.
Numb: A massive array of don’t’s, essentially ‘don’t live’ – retain the numbness. My favourite line ‘don’t check just balance on the fence’.
oh, and don’t leak.
Lemon: At this point the perspective changes from ‘I and me’ mode, to more of a narrative, the only point the person in the song talks about himself is the line ‘I feel like I’m slowly slipping under, I feel like I’m holding on to nothing’. But the song seems to been hinting at a little hope – hope in love personified – in a yellow dress. These are the days where we search for something other.
Stay: A fallen and tired angel in the modern day wilderness. If you (or I) stay in that place of love, perhaps you will be alright. An angel hits the ground.
There’s starting to be a sense that life is in the ‘real’ not the plastic, even if you are ‘hitting the ground’. (If you are aware of the story of the movie this song was written for, it adds a little light too… an angel falls in love with a woman, and while an immortal being, the angel chooses to fall to earth in order to experience the realities of love and mortal life – and with that – pain.)
Daddys gonna pay: Another song which is someone else’s story. A tale of someone caught up in the excess and comfort of life, without necessarily the reality and responsibility. Again, things are a little messed up.
Some days are better than others: A great song lyrically, and hope is rising. Lots of life’s circumstances, the everyday stuff. There’s a hint of the Screwtape-foe in the line ‘Some days it’s the enemy’. There’s vulnerability too. There’s the search for God. And then there’s a couple of closing lines as the song goes on that make the listener think things are getting better; ‘Some days you make sense of what she (the Spirit? a lover?) said…’ some days I hear a voice taking me to another place… some days are better…’
Of course, you could argue that there’s a little of the “half-empty, half-full” thing going on here.
Now here’s where from out of the impersonal and the ‘other stories’ things appear to get more personal:
The First Time: There is beauty, brotherhood, love, salvation, and yet, somehow, the singer still finds himself on the outside again. But, he does feel love.
Dirty Day: The last song of the main ‘dialogue’ of the ‘person of/in Zooropa’ There is a loss here, just as the character in the song/album is beginning to get there… he recognises in himself (rather than everything else around) the darkness and lostness. Guilt. And everyone is guilty (throwing stones in the air and all).
But… there is a turning of sorts: there is talk of redemption: ‘From Father to Son, in one, life has begun’. As I read it over again, I think this last verse could be seen as Jesus talking… love, and that kiss in Gethsemane again…
I hear Jesus talking to the those who would tell his story, or hear it.
Get it right, there’s no blood thicker than ink
(ie blood is shed but if you tell the wrong story…)
Hear what I say, nothing’s as simple as you think
(Hear the truth…)
Wake Up, some things you just cant get around
(you cant do this on your own, without me…)
I’m in you, more so when they put me in the ground
(it’s my death that is the means to be being with you/in you)
And then life is fleeting… running away…
(This dead man wakes up on the ‘Pop’ album…)
So this ends the Zooropa in one sense, but then you have the great postscript of Johnny Cash, clergyman of rock and roll and hard knocks…pretty much retelling the story of Zooropa…
The Wanderer: This sums up the whole album, moulding it into a spiritual search… and yet, it, too, leaves us hanging, leaves us with a question mark at the end. The words of the wanderer hint at so much; religion, life, wealth, church without God, and experience – all these things will not fill the God shaped hole…
I went out looking for all these things, but in the end, I was just looking for You.
(Jesus I’ll be home soon)
I’ve bought a few CD’s lately, but the one I just have to rave about is one we were given: Herbie Hancock’s ‘Possibilities’.
Awesome!
Herbie Hancock playing with Sting, Paul Simon, Annie Lennox, John Mayer… and of particular note; Joss Stone and Johnny Lang playing ‘When love comes to town’. They take a great U2 song and take it to another place all together. Brilliant stuff!
Big thanks to Emma, Sara’s cousin, for such a well chosen present!
Just give it a listen, you just might love it!
