"Sometimes I feel like I don't know, sometimes I feel like checking out"

I think one of the most interesting things that we, as consumers of art in all its forms (music, film, books, etc etc), experience is how we come to really love a certain piece or work. It's not always the same process. Sometimes we know instantly, as we're reading or watching or listening to something that it is going to be a favorite of ours and connects to who we are in some essential way. But what I find more far more interesting is how our opinions about a piece of art can change and grow, shifting from the apathetic (or negative) to the more positive (and vice versa of course). It's interesting to see how one grows and changes, and thus how something that didn't have meaning in the past gains greater meaning in the future.

As someone who consumes a lot of art, I've seen this happen to me. Books take on different meanings if I read them after time passes (this happened when I revisited Hemingway at the beginning of my masters degree), and movies I did not like when I was younger are now amongst my favorites.

This happens a lot with music too, and I think it's the realm where these transitions are the most pronounced. It's interesting to think about the bands I've liked for long periods of time and how my favorite song by that given band shifts. My favorite Bob Dylan, or Beatles, or Bruce Springsteen song has all shifted over the years, as one that I thought was my favorite a few years ago often becomes one I play less frequently. But this whole process is perhaps the most pronounced with my favorite band, U2, and the songs that I play the most frequently by that band.

To be honest, this has all been a rather roundabout way of getting to talk about one of those songs of which my opinion changed as the years went on and is now one of my favorite. When I first heard it, it was a song about which I didn't have any strong feelings. I would listen to it if I was playing the album it was on all the way through, but if I was just skipping around from song-to-song it wouldn't be one I would actively seek out. But sometime during 2009, all this changed as I began to hear this song with fresh ears and it quickly became one of my favorite U2 songs, and one I would put forth as one of the best overall by any band or artist. The album was Achtung Baby, and the song was "Ultra Violet (Light My Way)."

Maybe it was because I needed to get older and have my musical tastes mature and grow, but this song that I initially passed over and didn't take super seriously is now something I would put forth as being one of the best songs I know and an example of how great a rock song can be. What was fitting, with this song becoming one of my favorites, is that it was also a song that would make a comeback on U2's latest tour, having not been played since ZooTV in 1992-1993, so it was a song that was being presented to a new group of fans as I was independently reconsidering the song. But what I really wanted to do was break the song down and look at the specific points, parts and pieces that make it so great and this blog seemed like a good place to do that.

Like so many of the great U2 songs, there is a certain urgency and tension to it. In the case of "Ultra Violet" it is projected outward and driving rather than the inner tension of a song like "With or Without You" or "One," both much more restrained and quieter but also very urgent. Sonically, the song reminds me a bit of "In God's Country" from The Joshua Tree, with the very rhythmic guitar line played by The Edge. But while "In God's Country" comes out of the very organic and earthy world of The Joshua Tree, "Ultra Violet" takes that guitar style and adorns it with the electronic and futuristic trappings of the world of Achtung Baby. Larry Mullen Jr.'s drumming also gives the song a great beat and contributes to the frenzy of the song itself. But the bass, played by Adam Clayton, is responsible for one of my favorite moments in the song. It's a very, very brief one but it's something that I really love. Right before Bono sings the third verse, Adam has a small bass... flourish (?) in the short interlude between the chorus and verse. It's not something I noticed initially, or even after a few repeated listens, but as I listened to it more and more it became my favorite part. Sometimes I feel like it's those little things, the flourishes or nuances , that make songs great and stand out to us as listeners.

The frenzy and passion that sonically runs throughout "Ultra Violet" is probably the main thing that makes this song special for me. It was so much energy and power to it, but it's not energy for the sake of energy nor is it out of control and just raw power. There is a tremendous amount of emotion, energy and power yet it is controlled and released in appropriate waves. This is particularly the case in Bono's singing, as he starts out singing in a very deep and controlled voice for the first verse and then building to a frenetic and emotional tone by the third verse, before the ending chorus that is a full release of energy that is unbridled and out of control. You really see the way this builds and how Bono's mood and the tone shifts throughout the song to build towards a powerful conclusion in the live performance of the song. In particular, the ZooTV performances of this song really emphasize this, so I'll point you towards this YouTube video:



The flashing lights, the way the drums and Larry Mullen's rhythms overtake the song, and then how Bono's singing is out of rhythm and not synced up with the beat, it's really a masterful performative act. It's easy (or relatively easily) to stay in control the whole time, and it's easy to just be out of control. But to start out in control and gradually let the sound get out of control and let emotion and power win out? Now that, to me, is the hallmark of a great song.

But the song isn't just about the sound, as the lyrics are quite good as well. The song itself is a love song, which is... strange, in some respects, for U2. I mean, the band has songs about love but it's love in a bigger sense, rather than merely the interpersonal man-woman love on which so much rock music has been based. But this is a song about that kind of love and thus is filled with that kind of passion. Though there's some interesting imagery being used, I absolutely love the final verse of the song:

I remember when we could sleep on stones.
Now we lie together in whispers and moans.
When I was all messed up and I heard opera in my head
Your love was a light bulb hanging over my bed.

Then you follow that with the repeated "Baby baby baby, light my way" and you can really understand the passion and the love that the narrator (ostensibly a "he") feels for his beloved (ostensibly a "she"). It is a love that is overpowering, in which he needs her to "light [his] way" and be the one who saves him.

[NOTE: I say narrator because I think we too often do with singers and songs what we do with poets and their poems-- assume the speaker of the poem is the poet, rather literally. We can certainly and safely assume that this song's lyrics are imbued with Bono's own experiences and feelings, but it would be silly to assume it is based on a specific experience in his life. Anyways, sorry for that tangent...]

It is highly devotional and that's where the power really comes from. It's not just about wanting, it's about needing someone and a love that is more powerful than anything else. This is where we get the lines The Edge sings in his falsetto after the second and third verses before the chorus: "ultra violet love." It's something different, that can't be seen but is there and remarkably powerful. Also, and apropos of nothing, I absolutely love that line about "[lying] together in whispers and moans." It's a very physical and sensual, and I think "whispers" and "moans" play well off of each other. OK OK, I don't want to turn this into a literary analysis paper... I mean post, but the lyrics are definitely a big part of this song for me as well and make it such a great one.

Well, this has quickly become one of those posts that I've lost control of and I don't really know the point I was trying to make. To be honest, I don't really know if there is one, besides the fact that "Ultra Violet (Light My Way)" has claimed a spot near the top of my list of favorite U2 songs and that's something that is a bit of a surprise to me. While many of the songs I think of as being the best or my favorite were the ones that jumped out upon first listen (or listens), "Ultra Violet" was a song that flew under the radar for me. But seeing as how I've written around 1,500 words about this one song I think it's safe to say my opinion of it has changed to the point where I would put it forth as one of my favorite songs to listen to. I guess the point I want to make is that one should keep an open mind with art, particularly with music and songs, because your preferences can change and shift to the point where something will sound new upon a repeated listen. Don't be afraid to re-visit things and try them again, and more importantly to allow yourself to change your mind and opinion and to let things shift and change as you grow. Yeah, that seems like the driving force behind this post.

And, oh yeah, go listen to "Ultra Violet (Light My Way)" because it's really really good.