Achtung Baby – Bono’s Nod to C.S. Lewis

After years of sitting dormant in some forgotten crevasse of my mind, I believe it’s now time to jot down a long-held opinion and attempt to shape it into something close to a coherent theory. The idea that I’m referring to was born out of U2’s post-modern masterpiece, and second magnum opus, “Achtung Baby”, their outrageously successful follow up to their first magnum opus, “Joshua Tree”, four years earlier. The band literally conquered the musical world twice, with successive studio albums, an extremely rare feat. But more than simply finding their songwriting groove, Achtung Baby was a musical and multi-media supernova that shocked everyone, myself included, because they decided to take their unique artistic signature, the sound and authenticity they had spent years perfecting, and turned it inside-out by presenting a product to the musical public that no one could have imagined.

I clearly remember hearing the first single. We had the radio playing while getting ready for work one morning when the DJ announced that he was about to play “The Fly”. This was a first listen for everyone, so of course I immediately sat down to listen…. intently. But when the song ended, I remember being dumbfounded. I thought, “what the hell was that?” I simply didn’t know how to process it. This was not the same U2 that I had grown to love and didn’t fit in any musical category I could think of, certainly not coming on the heels of the simplicities of Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum. It was as if they had entered a time machine and came back looking and sounding like a band from “Bladerunner.” I remember even the DJ being equally confused and at a noticeable loss for words.

Now with thirty plus years of familiarity behind us, it’s impossible to describe just how disorienting it initially sounded. The change was radical and immediately apparent as the opening notes were meant to function as a slap to the face, a 220-volt jolt of artistic attitude that left no doubt about their intentions. The first thing we hear is Edge’s guitar belching out a thickly distorted note designed to rattle expectations. It was primal, and like nothing that we’ve ever heard from his guitar before. Then he is joined by Larry, whose drum kit sounded so abrasive that it was as if he was pounding on a trash can lid. Clearly by opening the album this way, U2 were announcing to the world that “Achtung Baby” would be a subversive response to the purity of “Joshua Tree.” In fact, Bono stated in an interview at the time that “Achtung was the sound of U2 chopping down the Joshua Tree”, and that is precisely how it sounded. And this was all before Bono even began singing, which was also heavily distorted and sounded nothing like the man who sang “Bad” or “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” This felt industrial, aggressive, and full of confidence. It was a bit trashy, yet warm to the touch. But it was those opening notes from Edge’s guitar that sounded the war-cry, the call to arms, the unmistakable sound of a new U2 epoch.

And their radical pivot didn’t stop at the music, because they also embraced an entirely new public persona. In fact, they took their po faced seriousness of Joshua Tree era and turned it inside out. If the media had mocked their sincerity before, U2, or more specifically Bono’s new alter-ego, the “Fly”, fought back by dishing out a media blitz of their own with a barrage amusingly irreverent irony, toying with the very cliché of rock and roll stardom. It all functioned as a type of Jujitsu move against their detractors, meaning they turned their opponents strength into a weakness; they flipped the table, in other words, and as a result even critics of the band had to nod their due respect to a hand well played.

Now that is the basic backdrop for this essay. U2 had already been my favorite band, boarding on obsession if I’m being honest, so once Achtung found a comfortable seat in my musical palette, I quickly began homing in on its lyrics, particularly hints of a theme that I detected scattered throughout the album. There is “Mysterious Ways” with the line, “she’ll be there when you hit the ground”, and from “Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World” with the line, “how far are you going go before you lose your way back home.” These and others were seeds planted that soon took root, which eventually bore a surprising basket of fruit. At some point all the seemingly random lines began to fit together into a rough theme, and from there a theory began to emerge.

So here it goes.

The Backdrop

Any fan who has failed to notice Bono’s utter obsession with God has clearly not been following the plot these past 40 years, because the man is utterly consumed with the idea. And to his considerable intellectual and artist credit, that passion has led to quite an impressive degree of texture and nuance expounding on most every facet of faith. I have read far too many interviews with him not to appreciate his articulation on the matter. The man can digress on the subject with the depth of a theologian. Perhaps due to growing up in a country violently divided along religious lines (Protestant, Catholic), he talks openly (as the Irish will do) about all aspects of Christianity, its tribal inclinations, its many contradictions, its difficulties, and even its failures. His lyrics approach the subject from every conceivable angle, even from the side of no faith at all….. which we will get to shortly.

How that all plays out in his lyrics is actually impressive, even for a lifelong heretic like myself to admit. Bono has a rare gift for metaphoric imagery, as well as a talent for employing dualistic or overlapping connotations. It’s there that he has the room to confront questions of faith while disguising the lyrical thread as a love song or some other relationship. What exactly does that mean? Well, he often sings about relationships in such way that exposes dual interpretations. Take a song like “All Because of You”, where the bridge consists of a single repeated line.

All because of you
All because of you
All because of you, I am

It’s a simple phrase, but it can be read from a variety of different angles, such as a child to a parent, a husband to a wife, or disciple to a guru. But it can also be seen as referring to God, since the Old Testament has Yahweh boldly state that he is the great “I Am”, which Bono would be well aware of. So, the implication is clear, because the phrase can be heard simultaneously as, “all because of “you” (God), I am (in the personal sense), but also as “all because is you, I am (God).”

In other songs, like “Staring at the Sun”, he uses his chosen metaphor to address non-believers.

I’m not the only one
Starin’ at the sun (son)
Afraid of what you’d find
If you took a look inside
Staring at the sun (son)
Not the only one
Who’s happy to go blind

Or Elevation, where Bono again alludes to Yahweh’s boast, “I Am the great I Am.”

Love, lift me out of these blues
Won’t you tell me something true
I believe in you

A mole, living in a hole
Digging up my soul
Going down, excavation
I and I in the sky
You make me feel like I can fly
So high, elevation

Or consider this from “When I Look at the World”, an underrated song, by-the-way, where Bono speak directly to Jesus.

So I try to be like you
Try to feel it like you do
But without you it’s no use
I can’t see what you see
When I look at the world

I’m in the waiting room
I can’t see for the smoke
I think of you and your holy book
When the rest of us choke

Tell me, tell me
What do you see
Tell me, tell me
What’s wrong with me

And I could include countless other examples of this obsession. If we consider his body of work as a whole, it’s clearly evident that his mind operates at a very particular frequency, one that can only see our human frailties through a God shaped lens.

Just as a personal curiosity as a non-believer I’ve often wondered if Bono, as intelligent as he is, truly believes in a literal God who lives up in the sky, who rewards or punishes our behaviors, who orchestrates or otherwise frets over our daily choices, or rather he is simply applying his own spiritual inclinations to the ultimate concept, to a deeply ingrained, ever-evolving cultural artifact from our distant past. It could be either, or both, in all honesty, since they are indistinguishable from one another; one is invisible, the other imaginary.

And I believe this is the terrain that Achtung Baby, as a whole, plants it’s narrative feet. With the radical change to their music, Bono perhaps felt the need to anchor the project to something grounded; to give the album a counterweight against their seeming embrace of Rock and Roll vise and excess. And I believe he realized that it offered him the opportunity to explore deeper themes of faith as a result. Gone are the simplicities of what I consider their “praise” music and is replaced instead with real life choices and consequences. Or to put it differently, the moment when the rubber of faith meets the reality of pavement.

To come straight out with it, I believe Bono is exploring the consequences of walking away from God, of “letting go of the steering wheel” as he exerts in Achtung’s opening song. At the beginning of this musical novel, our protagonist appears to conclude that the distant payoff for her obedience is not worth the price being paid to her life here and now. Of course, we know where Bono stands on the question. That precedent had been set years earlier, but with Achtung’s protagonist, Bono is entertaining the inconvenient truths of faith’s cost/benefit ratio.

With that framing in mind, I believe it’s worth mentioning the band nearly dissolved early in their career over that very concern. At the time, shortly after their first album “Boy”, had been meet with cautiously positive reviews and their future suggested a hint of promise, Edge experienced a spiritual crisis. They were all, except for the lone atheist, Adam, members of a highly devout Christian group in their home town called Shalom Fellowship, who denounced “worldly” ambitions. Suddenly with their marginal success in hand, pressure was exerted by the Fellowship to recognize the compromises their success will inevitably invite, therefore they should refuse to be a part of it by shutting it all down before the temptations appear. And Edge initially opted out, claiming that rock and roll success would come at too high a price when balanced against his faith. Fortunately for us in the music loving public, a level of adult reasoning stepped in as they came to realize that any potential issues could be navigated, and their dream to be a successful band was salvaged. Though in retrospect, it’s easy to view that early period in their career as igniting Bono’s fascination with the theme of faith under siege.

The Setup

Now allow me to steer this all back to the center lane and clarify that I do not believe Achtung Baby is a “concept album” in the purest sense, such as Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, their classic rock opera in which the songs and lyrics are laid out in a linear, autobiographical narrative with each song flowing into the next like chapters in a book. No, I don’t believe Achtung Baby fully belongs to that model, but I will make the argument that it comes damn close, albeit far more disguised. Where “The Wall” was explicit with its narrative intentions, Achtung’s is well hidden behind Bono’s nuanced use of metaphor and shifting narrative perspectives.

It is precisely those shifting perspectives that is crucial to understanding Achtung’s intentions, and to explain we I mean by that, we need to acknowledge the lyrical theme of Achtung is of an on-going disintegration of a relationship, with many of the songs sung from the perspective of the spurned lover. This is a crucial piece to absorb, because it allows Bono the opportunity to disguise another broken relationship alongside it, our protagonist’s relationship with God. The two run parallel to one another and covers much of the same emotional terrain.

Of course, I realize that conclusion may seem to be a stretch, so allow me to color that in a bit. In order to explain my thought process, a book needs to be discussed here at the outset, which is C.S. Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters.” It’s been over three decades since I first read it and the reason for mentioning it here is due to Bono’s apparent intention to position Achtung’s storyline as his own adaptation of Lewis’ classic. Not that he duplicated its storyline, but definitely its theme of faith under attacked.

In Lewis’ classic, “Screwtape” is something of a Lieutenant in the devil’s hierarchy, and the book consists of the letters between himself and his young apprentice, “Wormwood.” Throughout the book, Screwtape patiently counsels his young novice with advice on how to win the soul of his assigned subject, and the wisdom that he imparts is quite thought provoking. For instance, when Wormwood reports his despair that his subject is eagerly planning to attend church regularly, Screwtape slyly suggests that it could actually be a promising development and wisely councils Wormwood to encourage his subject to visit many different churches, all with the intent of turning him into a “connoisseur of faith”, thereby keeping him self-absorbed and focused only on what ‘works for him.’ He also suggests that Wormwood should concentrate on convincing his subject of his superiority and to make him feel set apart from everyone else, to strengthen his ego by giving more at the collection plate, dressing better than all the others, and even the pride of knowing all the best restaurants in town. All of which are intended to keep him on the surface of the thing, and too caught up in appearances to experience anything transformative, or what Screwtape describes as, “worshiping the enemy.”

Lewis’s classic presents an intriguing digression on how the devil and his minions (if you believe in such things) can manipulate believers away from the path to authentic faith, and Bono appears to pivot off Lewis’ story by picking up the thread downstream, after the devil had won the opening round, after our girl has dropped out of the religion game and begins to fully embrace her new life of freedom.

You may wonder why I believe Lewis’ classic inspired Bono in the first place. After all, what evidence is there for making that connection? Well, the answer comes in the form of a music video. Yes, an MTV music video, back when that was still a thing. The video in question comes from their single, “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me”, written for the “Batman Forever” movie in 1994 shortly after completing their ZooTV tour. In this animated video, there is a scene where Bono, in full “Fly” attire, is walking down an alley consumed in thought while reading a book, when suddenly the Batmobile zooms past, knocking him, and the book, into a trash heap. The camera then zooms in to show the book to be “The Screwtape Letters.” Clearly that particular book would not have been inserted by the video’s director, but by the only man who would have insisted on such an allusion. So, from this video we can acknowledge that Bono was thoroughly impressed with and even inspired by Lewis’ theme of “faith” under siege.

Now that is Achtung’s basic setup in my opinion; faith under siege, either by desire, temptation, curiosity, pride, or simply by the need to feel alive and relevant. Circling back to their near breakup twenty years earlier, we should realize this was still a concern for them, especially for a band that had just conquering the musical world with Joshua Tree. At that point in their career, they had it all, with enough money and fame to indulge their every whim, and that is precisely the place Bono and company would have recognized as trouble, and therefore the perfect time to revisit Lewis’ warning.

The Theory

Achtung Baby contains a cohesive narrative, there is no doubt in my mind about that, and it runs through the center of most every song. The storyline sets out to follow the downward path of our young protagonist after walking away from God. That is not entirely clear from a surface level view of the lyrics, but as you will see, Bono cleverly disguised Achtung’s story thread as a breakup with a lover, but intertwined with that is her breakup with God. There are no lyrics that directly suggests why she leaves her faith, but there are enough allusions in the opening song, Zoo Station, that offers the rationale. There, the lyrics provide enough clues to sketch-out that our young heroine leaves her faith because she simply wanted to experience “LIFE” (all caps), by throwing off all the pious restraints her faith had placed around her. Perhaps it was watching her peers having the time of their lives was just too much to swallow when balanced against being alone in her room with a prayer book. Or maybe she realized that her devotional prayers felt too much like a one-way conversation.

Now a careful reader may have noticed that I consistently single out our protagonist as “she”, which may not be entirely obvious when listening to the album. I’ve read a few commentators loosely refer to the protagonist as being male, but it’s obvious to me the center of this drama is a young woman, so allow me to explain why. First and foremost, Bono is a feminist, always has been, and deeply, down to the marrow in his bones appreciates the mysterious, almost mystical depth that women can bring to bear on matters of the heart. He would never trust a story of emotional depth to a man. Men simply don’t have the necessary software. There are a number of songs sung from a male perspective, certainly, but they were meant to be.

When I first began piecing this all together, the shifting perspectives confused me and it felt like I was playing a version of “Whack-a-Mole” while trying to pin them all down, but I came to realize that I was applying the wrong assumptions to the project. I was expecting a straightforward, linear narrative from a single point of view, but I soon understood those shifting perspectives were actually the key to unlocking the riddle. It occurred to me that interweaving a male perspective into the story thread gave Bono the perfect poetic juxtaposition to allow a single narrative voice to possess dual roles, both vying for her love and commitment: the voice of a lover and the voice of God, both weaving in and out of the dialogs in a brilliant conversational shell-game by our Mr. Hewson. As I’ll show shortly, the male perspectives coursing through the songs can be interpreted with dual connotations, particularly as the narrative moves closer to its conclusion later in the album. This allowed Bono an exquisite opportunity that he simply could not refuse, a stealthy way to sneak God into the decadent world of Rock-n-Roll.

So, when I take stock of the evidence, all the boxes are checked that “Achtung” indeed confronts the difficulties of faith that we know Bono was exploring at the time. Whatever the starting point may have been, a convincing case can be made that our girl walked out on God in a huff, and Achtung Baby is Bono’s attempt to present God’s response, or at least the countermove to Lewis’ “Screwtape.” The resulting story splits the album into two halves, the first describing her descent into the consequences of unrestrained freedom, while the second half presents God’s attempt to throw her a life-preserver…..if she’ll grab it?

So, without further delay, here is the album that I believe is hidden beneath the garish smokescreen presented to the public.

_____

Zoo Station

To my ear, the opening of this song is the sound of the door slamming shut behind her, as she leaves her faith and declares her freedom by stepping out of the straitjacket of pious rule-following and enthusiastically embraces a life of impulsive fun and pleasure. It seems she cannot wait to throw off the shackles fast enough.

I’m ready for the laughing gas
I’m ready for what’s next
I’m ready to duck, I’m ready to dive
I’m ready to say I’m glad to be alive
I’m ready for the push

And appears ready for the risks involved as she is ready to play whatever hand she is dealt.

Ready for the shuffle
Ready for the deal
Ready to let go
Of the steering wheel
I’m ready
Ready for the crush

And to suggest her reasoning, Bono offers us a compelling “why”, that she realizes life’s clock is ticking, and all the exciting things happening out there in the world have been happening without her. She has been living from inside the safety of the station (faith), watching as life passes by from behind a window pane of pious obedience.

Time is a train
Makes the future the past
Leaves you standing in the station
Your face pressed up against the glass

_____

Even Better Than The Real Thing

Immediately after her declaration in Zoo Station, “Even Better Than The Real Thing” describes her nights out looking for fun, and is sung from a male perspective, presumably at a nightclub, and is sprinkled with a few highly suggestive pickup lines from a would-be lover.

Give me one more chance
And you’ll be satisfied
Give me two more chances
You won’t be denied

You’re honey child to a swarm of bees
Gonna blow right through you like a breeze
Give me one last dance
We’ll slide down the surface of things

Then an interesting line jumps into frame as Bono gives us something of an Easter Egg, meaning a relatively benign spot on the canvas that when considered closer, exposes a hidden treasure. Here Bono gives a prophetic nod to a famous Greek myth in which Daedalus made wings of feathers and wax so that he and his young son, Icarus, could escape the Labyrinth, but Icarus becomes so mesmerizes by the experience of flying that he kept going higher and higher, not heeding his father’s advice, allowing the sun to melt the wax holding his wings, killing him in his fall back to earth. By introducing this simple verse, Bono is, whether consciously or not, foreshadowing our girl’s plight by poetically portraying that her escape from faith comes with dangers, and may be too much for her to manage alone.

We’re free to fly the crimson sky
The sun won’t melt our wings tonight

Here she comes
Take me higher
You take me higher

_____

One

This classic tune begins a narrative thread that extends through the next several songs, ending with “So Cruel”. Each is sung from the perspective of a current lover, or possibly a series of lovers, in which our girl appears to be gradually losing her moral bearings. I have no intent to examine each of them individually because they are all variations of the same drama unfolding, but with “One” we get our first glimpse at her state of mind as a lover is forced to deal with her emotional baggage. And as mentioned earlier, a number of these dialogs can be interpreted from overlapping perspectives.

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus?
To the lepers in your head

Did I ask too much?
More than a lot.
You gave me nothing,
Now it’s all I got

You say love is a temple, love a higher law
Love is a temple, love the higher law.
You ask me to enter, but then you make me crawl
And I can’t be holding on to what you got, when all you got is hurt.

_____

Until The End of the World

Last time we met it was a low-lit room
We were as close together as a bride and groom.
We ate the food, we drank the wine
Everybody having a good time except you.
You were talking about the end of the world.

In my dream I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows, they learned to swim
Surrounding me, going down on me
Spilling over the brim
Waves of regret and waves of joy
I reached out for the one I tried to destroy
You, you said you’d wait
‘Til the end of the world

_____

Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses

You’re dangerous ’cause you’re honest
You’re dangerous, you don’t know what you want
Well you left my heart empty as a vacant lot
For any spirit to haunt

Ah, the deeper I spin
Ah, the hunter will sin for your ivory skin
Took a drive in the dirty rain
To a place where the wind calls your name
Under the trees, the river laughing at you and me
Hallelujah! Heaven’s white rose
The doors you open I just can’t close

Who’s gonna ride your wild horses?
Who’s gonna drown in your blue sea?
Who’s gonna taste your salt water kisses?
Who’s gonna take the place of me?

_____

So Cruel

I want to pause here with “So Cruel,” because it marks the lyrical end to the first half of the story thread, which is presented almost entirely from the perspective of her lover, with references aimed at God sprinkled in. Sung from a lovers perspective, the mood here is somber and reflective, and works as a type of mirror exposing our girl’s spiritual and moral decline. Her apathy toward love or any sort of emotional obligation is on full display and appears to have lost her moral compass. Also, note the underlined phrase below with “Heaven” and “Mire”, which is an analogy that also turns up later in “Acrobat” with the line, “how can I talk like this and act like that.”  It implies that God is still heavily on her mind, even while fully caught up in a decadent lifestyle.

We crossed the line, who pushed who over?
It doesn’t matter to you, it matters to me
We’re cut adrift, but still floating
I’m only hanging on to watch you go down, my love

She wears my love like a see-through dress
Her lips say one thing
Her movements something else
Oh love, like a screaming flower
Love, dying every hour

And you don’t know if it’s fear or desire
Danger the drug that takes you higher?
Head of Heaven
Fingers in the mire

Oh love
You say in love there are no rules
Oh love
Sweetheart
You’re so cruel

Before moving on, I want to highlight a verse that I feel is a clear example of the dualistic connotations mentioned earlier. On its surface, it appears to be sung from a lover’s perspective, but a different voice and implication can easily be applied here, given Bono’s objectives, and it opens up this broken relationship to a far deeper well of meaning. It also sums up where we stand within this little melodrama. Believe me, I am not overreaching here by attempting to create implications that don’t exist. As this little story continues to unfold, we will see how the narrative voice flips completely away from that of a spurned lover to one that lands fully into the lap of God as he attempt to reach her.

(our Girl)
I disappeared in you
You disappeared from me

(God)
I gave you everything you ever wanted
It wasn’t what you wanted
The men who love you, you hate the most
They pass right through you like a ghost.
They look for you, but your spirit is in the air
Baby, you’re nowhere

_____

The Fly

For the longest time I considered “The Fly” an only outlier on the album. The one song that just did not fit, certainly not lyrically, and due to that I removed it from consideration with this running theory of mine. Here I don’t want to be accused of conflating suppositions, but this song is difficult to pin down….so stay with me. Within the scope of the album up to this point, the bizarre attitude this song unleashes is a complete aberration and doesn’t appear to belong anywhere near the albums established narrative. Don’t misunderstand me here, I love it, and it’s actually my favorite Achtung number, but if we pan out and consider it against the preceding story thread, the song makes absolutely no sense.

When I consider it from outside the fence line of the album, the thrust of the song strikes my ears as someone crashing a party. Certainly, coming on the heels of “So Cruel”, with its solemn melancholy. Here, Edge’s chaotic riff takes the lead as the song bursts into the room. Just listen to his early playing, there is a disjointed flow to the riff that is a bit disconcerting. It’s rude and arrogant. The shift in attitude is clearly evident as Bono comes in sounding smug and conceited, which I believe he uses to introduce a new character onto the scene. This is not our spurned lover, and certainly not our girl, so who is it? Bono’s voice is heavily processed, distorted, and delivered with an attitude that is unconcerned, it’s above-the-fray, separate from the drama at hand. He spews a barrage of truisms and musings with the confidence of a revival preacher. This character is clearly gloating. Just listen to it and feel the vibe……and that’s when it hit me.

What came to mind is that “The Fly”, at least in outline, could be Bono circling back to Lewis’s book. Here he is giving us the key to unlock this little melodrama, that it was the Devil all along who initiated this on-going train wreck and he is bringing Screwtape (or the devil if your prefer) on stage to gloat at having won his victim. “The Fly” strikes me as Screwtape doing a victory lap. Just check out this devilish smile of Bono from the original video…..that smirk is clearly meant to imply a devilish intent.

Now you may ask what makes me feel so confident about that assertion, and it’s a fair question. For me it boils down to its placement on the record, which is sandwiched between “So Cruel”, the song that frames our girl completely lost in the shadows, and “Mysterious Ways”, the song that introduces God onto the scene. That cannot be a coincidence. I believe that is why Bono chose to tell us in a rush at the very end of the song, “look, I gotta go”, ‘I’m out of time’, because he understood that his enemy is about to step on stage.

It’s no secret that the stars are falling from the sky
The universe exploding ‘cos-a one man’s lie (Judas?)
Look I gotta go, yeah, I’m running outta change  (for the parking meter)
There’s a lot of things if I could I’d rearrange

_____

Mysterious Ways

As I alluded to earlier, I consider this song to be the lyrical turning point of the entire album. If we can acknowledge that up to this point the album has described our girls flight from faith into the inevitable train wreck that ensues, then “Mysterious Ways” can easily be seen as a mid-album pause to properly frame the larger picture and redirect our attention toward the finale.

With our girl lost in hedonistic pleasure, with the scattered debris of broken relationships in clear view, a simple question easily comes to mind; why God allowed this to happen to her in the first place? For if she was a child of God, deep in the arms of her faith, then how could God allow her to walk away without putting up a fight? It’s a thought-provoking question, and one that many a believer has struggled to reconcile. It’s also one that I believe Bono is attempting to address with “Mysterious Ways” by implying that God understood his weak hold on our girl and perhaps allowed her dive into the deep in of the pool in order for her to hit bottom, as if to say, “you say you want freedom, fine, here you go, now let’s see where you land with it.” It implies that God, in his “mysterious way,” required her to be broken before he could play his hand, or as this song states, “she’ll be there when you hit the ground.”

And we should not be confused by Bono addressing God as “she” here. That is simply a necessary pivot for popular radio. Had he sang “He moves in mysterious ways”, it would have surely been too much for rock radio to deal with and Bono would have been scorched in the media for being excessively preachy. By simply shifting the pronoun, Bono had the perfect disguise for his intentions.

Allow me to digress on a related point for a moment, particularly with how this played out in concert. I remember it well, sitting in the Georgia Dome when this song began, and a Belly Dancer appeared from beneath a separate stage in the middle of the audience, and there she danced during the entire song while cameras captured her every move on screen. It was a stunning visual for this particular song, to be sure, but far more interesting was how its ending was portrayed.

As the song began to reach the homestretch, our belly dancer had slowly worked her way toward the stage so that in the final 30 seconds or so, she was dancing just a foot or two away from Bono, who was still on the main stage, stretching in earnest to touch her belly while she slyly danced just out of his reach. It was a spellbinding moment, I can assure you, as the drama was presented on the massive screens. Well, I came to find out that what Bono was attempting to touch was a jewel embedded in her belly button but he could never quite reach. She would dance just inches away, only to slip away when he got too close. (See the whole clip here).

So, you may ask what does that mean?  Well, that was all choreographed to depict how our girl, or believers in general, attempt in earnest to touch and feel the essence of God as they perceive him, but he’s always just out of reach. As hard as believers may try, the connection is always illusory, which is echoed by the line in “So Cruel” that, “I disappeared in you, you disappeared from me.”

To sum it up, I believe Bono is tightening up his focus here and has clearly shifted the narrative to address what is actually at stake. In other words, he is pulling out the Christian sales brochure. Here we get the ever-present gaslighting; that she’s running away from what she doesn’t understand. We get the parental safety net of knowing that we’ll be picked up if we fall, and our deeply ingrained need to feel loved. All three are fully in play here…..God is making his pitch!

Johnny, take a walk with your sister the moon
Let her pale light in, to fill up your room.
You’ve been living underground, eating from a can
You’ve been running away from what you don’t understand

She’s slipping
you’re sliding down.
She’ll be there when you hit the ground

It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways

One day you’ll look back, and you’ll see
Where you were held now by this love
While you could stand there
You could move on this moment
Follow this feeling

It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways

_____

Trying to Throw Your Arm Around the World

Now that Bono has opened up his true agenda, from this point forward I believe the lyrics take on a very distinctive and escalating narrative thrust. By using “Mysterious Ways” to focus our attention on the issue at hand, Bono uses the rest of the album to present a near one-on-one conversation between our girl and God…..seriously, just step back and watch it unfold.

To my ears, “Trying to Throw Your Arm Around the World” is the sound of a whisper in her ear, a gentle reminder that he is nearby. It’s a soft lullaby intended to quietly inform her that he is there and ready to be invited back into her life, which the lyrics clearly confirm.

Sunrise like a nosebleed
Your head hurts and you can’t breathe
You been tryin’ to throw you arms around the world
How far you gonna go
Before you lose your way back home
You’ve been trying to throw your arms
Around the world

Gonna run to you, run to you, run to you
Woman be still
Gonna run to you, run to you, run to you
Woman I will

_____

Ultraviolet (Light My Way)

With “Ultraviolet” God has not gotten through to her yet and appears to be attempting a more direct approach. The whisper in her ear didn’t work, so with this song there begins a direct conversation between the two of them as God tries to talk sense to her. Her life has been slowly fallen apart and he is pleading for her to show him the way back into her heart, to light his way back.

(our girl)
Sometimes I feel like I don’t know
Sometimes I feel like checking out  (suicide?)
I wanna get it wrong
Can’t always be strong
And love it won’t be long

(God)
Oh sugar, don’t you cry
Oh child, wipe the tears from your eyes
You know I need you to be strong
And the day is as dark as the night is long

(our girl)
Feel like trash, you make me feel clean
I’m in the black, can’t see or be seen

(God)
Baby baby baby light my way
Baby baby baby light my way

 (our girl)
You bury your treasure where it can’t be found

(God)
But your love is like a secret that’s been passed around

 (our girl)
There is a silence that comes to a house
Where no one can sleep

(God)
I guess it’s the price of love, I know it’s not cheap (referring to the crucifixion?)

Baby, baby, baby…light my way
oh, come on now
Baby, baby, baby…light my way

(God)
I remember when we could sleep on stones (a clear conscious)
Now we lie together in whispers and moans

(our girl)
When I was all messed up and I had opera in my head (Opera is based on tragedy)
Your love was a light bulb hanging over my bed

(God)
Baby, baby, baby…light my way

_____

Acrobat

With Acrobat, emotions are running high, because this song is angry, as signaled by Larry’s drumming, which is pounding with an urgency that we have not seen before. There is a clear escalation occurring as Edge’s guitar is also swirling around the room in a heightened sense of desperation. In other words, God has not been able to get through to her and is getting frustrated. He seems to sense the urgency of the situation and is dialing up the intensity.

(God)
Don’t believe what you hear
Don’t believe what you see
If you just close your eyes
You can feel the enemy (the devil)
When I first met you girl
You had fire in your soul
What happened your face
Of melting in snow

The next verse provides an interesting tactic, because God is giving his advice with a “take it or leave it” finality but frames it by mentioning some of her less wholesome activities.

(God)
Now it looks like this
And you can swallow, or you can spit
You can throw it up, or choke on it (his advice)
And you can dream, so dream out loud
You know that your time is coming ’round
So don’t let the bastards (her lovers) grind you down

(our girl)
And I’d join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah I’d break bread and wine
If there was a church I could receive in
‘Cause I need it now
To take a cup, to fill it up
To drink it slow, I can’t let you go
I must be an acrobat
To talk like this and act like that

The final passage to this incredible song is red hot with poignancy. With the music laying down an existential urgency, together with the spiritual showdown taking place in the lyrics, it all blends together to create an incredibly powerful piece of musical theater.

(our girl) – And I must be an acrobat to talk like this, and act like that

(God) – And you can dream, so dream out loud
And you can find, your own way out

(our girl) – You can build, and I can will

(God) – And you can call, I can’t wait until

(our girl) – You can stash, and you can seize

(God) – In dreams begin responsibilities

(our girl) – And I can love

(God) – And I can love

(our girl) – And I know that the tide is turning ’round

(God) – So don’t let the bastards grind you down

_____

Love Is Blindness

With this finale, Bono clearly decided not to end the album with a predictable “Hollywood” ending, which I find particularly interesting, given his position on the matter, and in doing so, appears to imply that faith alone is not enough, just as “Acrobat” stated, “in dreams begins responsibilities.” 

Here the lyrics imply that she is a step away from prostitution, having sex in a car parked on a crowded street. I can picture this scene playing out with the devil back on the scene whispering in her ear throughout, telling her that “love” is the enemy and can never to be trusted.

In a parked car, in a crowded street
You see your love made complete.
Thread is ripping, the knot is slipping
Love is blindness.

Love is clockworks and cold steel
Fingers too numb to feel.
Squeeze the handle, blow out the candle
Love is blindness.

Then with the verse below, it’s obvious that she is contemplating suicide, and to drive that point home, Edge creates a stunning piece of expressive art. After delivering that last line, we hear Edge’s guitar let out a gut-wrenching wail that seems to escape from the depth of her soul, then just as quickly, falls into the soft whimper. I implore you to hear it and feel that emotional release, because it’s a stunning example of art imitating life.

A little death without mourning
No call and no warning
Baby, a dangerous idea
That almost makes sense

Then, after this last verse in which prostitution appears to be in play, Edge begins an intense inner battle that our girl is emotionally caught up in. Presumably with all parties desperate for our her devotion, the song, and therefore the album, ends with the resolution clearly unresolved.

Love is drowning in a deep well
All the secrets, and no one to tell.
Take the money, honey…
Blindness.

_____

Conclusion

Hopefully a compelling case has been made with this fresh look into the classic Achtung Baby, and hopefully a surprising piece of narrative art has emerged that may not have been considered before. Clearly Bono’s intentions are exposed by his methodical escalation of tensions during the second half, both musically and lyrically. Then add my opinion that “The Fly” was conceived as an ingenious way to circle back to Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters”, by pointing to the devil’s meddling in our girl’s life. Add it all up and we have quite an audacious album. The only curiosity for me is the open-ended finale that leaves our girl’s fate in a very precarious spot.

If we fast-forward to their next album, “Zooropa”, which was written, produced, and release while on a short break from their Achtung tour, we find a song that appears to pick up our girl’s thread further down the road. That song, “Stay (Far Away, So Close)”, the title itself is an allusion to our girl’s mixed feelings about God, is anything but comforting, for here we find her lost even further into the shadows. The song even ends with a guardian angel crashing at their failed attempt to reach her.

Dressed up like a car crash
Your wheels are turning but you’re upside down
You say when he hits you, you don’t mind
Because when he hurts you, you feel alive
Is that what it is

Red lights, gray morning
You stumble out of a hole in the ground
A vampire or a victim
It depends on who’s around

Three o’clock in the morning
It’s quiet and there’s no one around
Just the bang and the clatter
As an angel runs to ground

Just the bang
And the clatter
As an angel
Hits the ground

Looking at all of this at face value, it’s difficult to understand why Bono chose to end Achtung Baby, and “Stay” with such a negative conclusion because it seems to undermine his goals as a Christian evangelist….and he is that. Right on the surface we are forced to see that God is a bit powerless to our girl’s temperament, which undermines the notion of an all-powerful deity who can cause any outcome he wants. It suggests is that it is always the individual who must perform the heavy lifting when times are rough. God may be pointed to as inspiration in retrospect, but it is always the individual who has to put in the hard work…..and our girl just doesn’t show the interest for it.