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Talking about a band like U2 is always challenging. Praised and criticized at the same time due to various factors, the only path to judge them is to adhere to the sole musical truth. In the group's most successful works, content and music have become one. It is also difficult to try to separate these two aspects. After the group's naturally youthful phase, the pinnacle of which is "War" that consecrated them to worldwide attention, this perfect fusion of soul and music materializes in this fourth album.
"Unforgettable Fire" is a complex work, but one of the most accomplished by the Dublin group. Turning to Brian Eno for production demonstrates U2's desire to renew themselves, to break free from a musical formula that with "War" had already borne its greatest fruit. One could say that U2 wanted to partly abandon the direct and accusatory tone of the previous album, shifting towards a more poetic approach to music and lyrics. They realized that, while not renouncing their commitment at all, it could be expressed in a more veiled; and even more romantic way. What is "The Unforgettable Fire" about? Answering this question and talking about the album is the same thing: It is the great existential questions that dominate the work.
The opening is entrusted to "A Sort of Homecoming", where Bono's voice is one with the phrases he utters, and dominates a rhythm of immense expressiveness; the images of the wind, the storm, and the snowy fields are images of the mind. The homecoming of the title means many things: rediscovering childhood innocence, a more sincere world, a lost love... it is remarkable U2's ability to never fall into rhetoric and the already heard. If we wanted to find a flaw in the album, perhaps it is its overly decisive idealism manifested in the celebration of Martin Luther King, entrusted to what is perhaps the emblematic track of the album: "Pride (In the Name of Love)" represents the main path of U2's musical epic. But ideals are often not true art: in fact, the strengths of the album are to be found elsewhere; we must read "Pride" in the context of the album as an important but not necessary piece. After it, in fact, "Wire" returns to tackle existential themes, in this case, drug addiction. A tumultuous and suffocating track, it paves the way for one of the album's peaks: "Keep going, don't look back, because I am here"... The title track of the album, "the unforgettable fire", is the synthesis of the soul of the work. Never regret what we have believed in even if they tell us we have failed. But any description of the meaning of the tracks is perhaps useless in the face of the pure poetry of "Promenade". The expressive power of this piece is devastating. The unforgettable fire is also this: "Slide projection, seashore city, Coca Cola, football, radio radio"... the simplicity of small things.
But "The Unforgettable Fire" is above all an album about redemption: after the brief instrumental interlude of "4th of July", we reach the true pinnacle of the album, that "Bad" destined to become one of their favorite pieces in live performances. Simply "Male" is the literal translation of "Bad". Yet the translation that perhaps comes closest to the spirit of the piece is "Ruin". It is not just a track about drugs; it is much more. In its images of sleepless nights, metropolitan nightmares, abandoned factories, there is perhaps the synthesis of everything that disturbs our lives... perhaps few tracks have depicted the dramas of contemporary life like "Bad". All supported by a musicality that transmits a mix of epic and dramatic. But with "Bad" redemption is completed, and the album can now slide, exhausted, towards the conclusion. Two more tracks, perhaps of lesser importance like the long ride of "Elvis Presley and America", and the concluding and liberating rain of "MLK" which seals a work perhaps not perfect, but of undeniable poetic and expressive power.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 A Sort of Homecoming (05:28)
And you know it's time to go
Through the sleet and driving snow
Across the fields of mourning to a light that's in the distance.
And you hunger for the time
Time to heal, 'desire' time
And your earth moves beneath your own dream landscape.
On borderland we run.
I'll be there, I'll be there tonight
A high-road, a high-road out from here.
The city walls are all come down
The dust a smoke screen all around
See faces ploughed like fields that once
Gave no resistance.
And we live by the side of the road
On the side of a hill as the valleys explode
Dislocated, suffocated
The land grows weary of it's own.
O com-away, o com-away, o-com, o com-away, I say I
O com-away, o com-away, o-com, o com-away, I say I
Oh, oh on borderland we run
And still we run, we run and don't look back
I'll be there, I'll be there
Tonight, tonight
I'll be there tonight, I believe
I'll be there so high
I'll be there tonight, tonight.
Oh com-away, I say, o com-away, I say.
The wind will crack in winter time
This bomb-blast lightning waltz.
No spoken words, just a scream
Tonight we'll build a bridge across the sea and land
See the sky, the burning rain
She will die and live again tonight.
And your heart beats so slow
Through the rain and fallen snow
Across the fields of mourning to a light that's in the distance.
Oh, don't sorrow, no don't weep
For tonight at last I am coming home.
I am coming home.
02 Pride (In the Name of Love) (03:49)
One man come in the name of love
One man come and go.
One man come he to justify
One man to overthrow.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed up on an empty beach
One man betrayed with a kiss.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
Early morning, April four
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky.
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
05 Promenade (02:34)
Earth, sky, scenery.
Is she coming back again?
Men of straw, snooker hall.
Words that build or destroy
Dirt dry, bone, sand and stone.
Barbed wire fence cut me down.
I'd like to be around in a spiral staircase
To the higher ground.
And I, like a firework, and explode.
Roman candle, lightning, lights up the sky.
In cracked streets, trample underfoot.
Side-step, sidewalk.
I see you stare into space.
Have I got closer now, behind the face?
Oh, tell me, tell me you'll dance with me
Turn me around tonight
Up through the spiral staircase to the higher ground.
Slide show, seaside town.
Coca-cola, football radio, radio, radio, radio, radio, radio.
07 Bad (06:08)
If you twist and turn away.
It you tear yourself in two again.
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would let it go.
Surrender, dislocate.
If I could throw this lifeless life-line to the wind.
Leave this heart of clay, see you walk, walk away
Into the night, and through the rain
Into the half light and through the flame.
If I could, through myself, set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away, see you break, break away
Into the light and to the day.
To let it go and so to fade away.
To let it go and so fade away.
I'm wide awake.
I'm wide awake, wide awake.
I'm not sleeping.
If you should ask, then maybe
They'd tell you what I would say
True colours fly in blue and black
Blue silken sky and burning flag.
Colours crash, collide in blood-shot eyes.
If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would let it go.
This desperation, dislocation
Separation, condemnation
Revelation, in temptation
Isolation, desolation
Let it go and so to find away
To let it go and so to fade away
To let it go and so to fade away
I'm wide awake, I'm wide awake, wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh no, no, no.
09 Elvis Presley and America (06:22)
(Black flash)
Black flash over my own love
Tell me of my eyes
Black flash come though my own life
Telling these things
And I believe them
And I believe in you
White flash sees the sky
And it turns its side from you
She won't turn my back
And I know you turn so blue
And you know
And your sky is feeling blue
And your heart
So cold when I'm with you
And you feel
Like no one told you to
And your time is your side
And your time with me
Ah, don't talk to me
Ah, don't talk to me
Don't talk to me
You know
Like no one told you how
But you know
Though the king that howls has howled
But you feel like sentimental
But you don't care
If I just share it in your heart
(heart...)
Hopelessly
So hopelessly
I'm breaking through for you and me
And you don't
Though no one told you to
And you found out
Where you were going, where to
You're through with me
But I know that you will be back
For more
You know
And though no one told you so
And you know, blue sky
Like a harder shade of blue
And you walk
When you want
To let go
Me, I'm the outside, tell me fade away
Drop me down but don't break me
In your sleep
In your sleep, inside
It's in your heart and mine
Whole sea is dark
It's in your heart and mine
Sweetly, those will come
Loving is on your side walking through
So let me in your heart
Your beat is like something...
They...
Run...
See say you're sad and reach by
So say you're sad above beside
Oh stay you're sad over midnight
So stay sad above we said
You know I don't
No one told you how
(and you don't)
(and you wipe sweat off your white brow)
And you care
And no one told you tried
And your heart
Is left out from the side
And the rain beats down
And the shame goes down
And this rain keeps on coming down
And this sky
Tonight...
You know "S" "O" "N" "G", why
You're going go join to God
You know "S" "O" "N" "G", why
Give away some him no lie
Give away some my de day no
You know
And though no one told you sky
And you feel
Like you pretend you can
You say go, you live
Go live outside of me
Don't you leave
Don't leave out part of me
Then can feel
Like I feel before
Like I hurt now
And I see the floor
If you pick me up
Bits and pieces on this floor
10 MLK (02:34)
Sleep
Sleep tonight
And may your dreams
Be realized
If the thunder cloud
Passes rain
So let it rain
Rain down on me
Mmm...mmm...mmm...
So let it be
Mmm...mmm...mmm...
So let it be
Sleep
Sleep tonight
And may your dreams
Be realized
If the thundercloud
Passes rain
So let it rain
Let it rain
Rain on me
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Other reviews
By QbProg
In this album, there is more U2 soul than in all the others combined.
The first thing you notice is the evolution of The Edge’s sound — from distortion to a clean, delay-rich tone.
By Alevox
"One of their most beautiful pages is called 'The Unforgettable Fire.'"
"Certainly, the highest moment of the album, and without exaggeration, perhaps also of the band’s entire career."
By Sabinide
The immense vocal performance of Bono Vox, moving and perfect in singing but at the same time raw and introspective in the lyrics.
The Unforgettable Fire must be considered the trademark of the band, socially engaged and able to transform thoughts, emotions, and sincere feelings into music.
By Rax
"Spirit of novelty, spirit of stupidity."
"A missed masterpiece that does not reach 'War' in terms of great songs and lacks the care seen in 'Joshua'."
By DeArlo
The Unforgettable Fire is a masterpiece, from the melodies to the lyrics to the cover.
Bono himself described the album as 'beautifully blurred,' like an impressionist painting.
