WTF, U2?

[blogofstench]

You're nice to listen to on occasion, despite your sick views of heterosexual love, but sometimes I really don't get you. For example, in So Cruel, you sing:

Oh love, like a screaming flower
Love, dying every hour

Seriously? What does that even mean? I assume you're talking about Bob the Angry Flower, but that really doesn't make much sense.

...Oh. I

Comments

[sugar_for_sugar]

I have always liked One, though that's as much for the general overall sound as it is for anything contained in the lyrics. I'm not sure if I know more of their work.

I can sorta kinda see where they're going if what they're on about is "flower" as wuv symbolism and "screaming" as expression of distress, and love is something that happens at the junction of the two... buuuut it is the kind of metaphorical phrasing I'd expect to find in a high school goth's poetry.

Then again, music is highly prized by angsty high schoolers so maybe U2 is just pandering to a demographic. XD

[blogofstench]

Their lyrics are actually consistently stupid, very heteronormative and hung up on the "love is torture, objectification and estrangement" trope. And yet, somehow, I like them. I can't tell whether they actually believe what they're singing, but they're so damn consistent about it that they're either doing an amazing job of pandering, or they really do believe that "love is clockwork and cold steel, fingers too numb to feel."

I admit, though, that I do like their All That You Can't Leave Behind You. It gets rather squishy and maudlin toward the end, but, overall, I find it a hopeful album, good for sustaining an expansive, confident mood.