Love Is Blindness / Can’t Help Falling in Love with You (U2)

Love is blindness, I don’t want to see
Won’t you wrap the night around me?
Oh, my heart, love is blindness.

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.

Love is blindness, I don’t want to see
Won’t you wrap the night around me?
Oh, my love,
Blindness.

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

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

Love is blindness, I don’t want to see
Won’t you wrap the night around me?
Oh, my love,
Blindness.

————————————————-

Wise men say only fools rush in
But I can’t help falling in love with you
Shall I stay?
Would it be a sin?
If I can’t help falling in love with you.

Like a river flows surely to the sea
Darling so it goes
Some things are meant to be
Take my hand, take my whole life too
For I can’t help falling in love with you

Like a river flows surely to the sea
Darling so it goes
Some things are meant to be
Take my hand, take my whole life too
For I can’t help falling in love with you
For I can’t help falling in love with you.

At the conclusion of their performance in Sydney on the Zoo TV Tour, U2 performed the two songs listed above in sequence. The first song is Love Is Blindness from U2’s Achtung Baby Album. The second song is a cover of Can’t Help Fall in Love with You, which is a song by Elvis Presley. This live performance can be viewed at YouTube.com. It is impossible to understand these songs just through the lyrics. One has to hear the music to really experience it. There is simply no way to verbalize it other than to say that it has to be one of the most powerful musical performances that I have ever seen.

On the Zoo TV Tour, U2’s musical project can be best expressed by one word, which is irony. As part of their ironic performances, Bono plays various characters including the devil (MacPhisto). Bono is a fan of C.S. Lewis, and he adapted the underlying idea behind the Screwtape Letters into his performances on the Zoo TV Tour by making fun of the devil. In the performance of Love Is Blindness, Bono is playing the role of MacPhisto, and he is attempting to persuade us that love and human existence in general are meaningless. The devil in the song tries to persuade us that we will find completion through meaningless sex, pursuit of money, and infliction of violence. He also seems to suggest that suicide is the answer to the pointlessness of human existence. The thing that is so amazing about the song is that it allows you to experience nihilism. There are few other performances of a song that I think have more of an emotional impact on a person than this song.

Then Bono follows up Love is Blindness with I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You to provide the alternative to nihilism. While nihilism is a meaningless existence, love symbolizes the purpose driven life. Love is the answer to nihilism. Love is what provides us with hope. Love gives us a reason to live. We exist to love God with all of our being and to love our neighbor as ourself. Like the song Everlasting Love, in performing this song U2 takes a song that was to previous music artists merely a love serenade between a man and a woman, and U2 directs the song to God. God is love. God is our groom. God is our ultimate source of meaning. God provides us with hope and brings us out of the pits of nihilism. Is there any better description of what God wants from every human being than this: “Take my hand, take my whole life too / For I can’t help falling in love with you.” This is all God asks from us. He simply wants our undivided love.

So through two songs, U2 presents to us an existential choice that every human being must deal with. Every life has two options. There is the wide path. It is the nihilistic path. It is the rudderless existence that is adrift and simply moves from temptation to temptation seeking meaning from things that are incapable of providing meaning. No amount of promiscuous sexual relationships, money, or power will ever offer a person even the slightest bit of meaning. Following the nihilistic path is like a ship trying to navigate the seas without a map or navigational devices. Such a ship will inevitably find itself crashed upon the rocks. There is also a narrow path. It is the path of love. It is the purpose driven life. It is a life lived for God and others. Love is the map and compass that should guide our lives as human beings.

(Posted by Trask)