This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was
Lying still
Said I gotta do something
About where we're going
Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night
Singing ha, ah la la la de day
Ah da da da de day
Ah la la de day
Sweet the sin
Bitter than taste in my mouth
I see seven towers
But I only see one way out
You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
You know I took the poison
From the poison stream
Then I floated out of here
Singing ha la la la de day
Ha la la la de day
Ha la la de day
She runs through the streets
With eyes painted red
Under a black belly of cloud in the rain
In through a doorway she brings me
White gold and pearls stolen from the sea
She is raging
She is raging
And the storm blows up in her eyes
She will
Suffer the needle chill
She's running to stand
Still
Woke up from where she was
Lying still
Said I gotta do something
About where we're going
Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night
Singing ha, ah la la la de day
Ah da da da de day
Ah la la de day
Sweet the sin
Bitter than taste in my mouth
I see seven towers
But I only see one way out
You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
You know I took the poison
From the poison stream
Then I floated out of here
Singing ha la la la de day
Ha la la la de day
Ha la la de day
She runs through the streets
With eyes painted red
Under a black belly of cloud in the rain
In through a doorway she brings me
White gold and pearls stolen from the sea
She is raging
She is raging
And the storm blows up in her eyes
She will
Suffer the needle chill
She's running to stand
Still
Lyrics submitted by yuri_sucupira
Running to Stand Still Lyrics as written by Dave Evans Adam Clayton
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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i heard this song and realized i was exactly where the song described. Ive been wanting to quit all my life and i know there's only one way out.
and when it says: You got to cry without weeping Talk without speaking Scream without raising your voice
It is exactly how my life is with my surrounding because maybe thats what my addiction led me to. i couldnt speak the truth anymore to anyone.
For a non-native English speaker like me in the far-eastern culture, it had never occurred to me that this song has something to do with drugs until I read the previous posts. I was deeply touched by the lines "You gotta cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising your voice." Before I read the previous comments, I interpreted as a kind of resistance to social norms or some sort of dominance that one wants to break through, as a strategy to resist not through protests or violence, but through influencing others in a moderate, or a less radical way. Clamor does not speak as loudly and powerfully as a hushed voice. But I have to admit that I didn't and couldn't see the whole picture of the meaning of this song as an "outsider" of a culture that I'm not familiar with. It's great to learn how people "in" the culture read this song. :-)
Interesting that some people feel the song is ruined for them when they find out it's about heroin. I feel the opposite -- I would be disheartened to find out it's about something other than drugs. Addiction is more powerful than love, and if you don't believe me, you're awfully naive.
This song and "Bad" are my favorite U2 songs.
@sharkycharming Imagine a song about some other disease - say hypertension. Yes, people who have high blood pressure might find it interesting, but it's totally boring to everyone else.
weeell buttofmalmsey i dont know Bono personally but the lyrics seem to suggest a drug addiction - "i took the poison from the poison stream, then i floated out of here."... and... "she will suffer the needle chill." the lyrics in general seem to articulate some sort of hopelessness - some kind of desire to escape from something that you know you really cant (addiction) - hence the term 'running to stand still'.
also, "step on a steam train" cooould be a reference to what people call taking heroin, 'riding the H-train'. or that could be looking too far into it.
anyway i think this song communicates hopelessness and dependence beautifully.
"I took the poison from the poison stream" Could also be the singer's adulterous meanderings, allowing him to float out of a bad relationship and be held in some loving arms too.
not to be pedantic - they are the Ballymun towers in North Dublin, they have just been demolished Ballymena is in northern Ireland and the only thing there are addicted to up there is bigotry.
These sensitively written lyrics are about the observance of a junkie; also, about her environment, which creates a social commentary as secondary to the primary subject of heroin addiciton. "You gotta cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising your voice" - this is what addiction is...it's crying without weeping, talking without speaking, and screaming without raising your voice. Being a junkie is such a quiet thing. And addiction, especially to heroin, which is a repetitive, consistent addiction, is "running to stand still".
For me it means my spirit cries out. My home was abusive and I couldn't cry. But inside, I sure was crying. That's what cry without weeping, talk without speaking means to me as well as scream without raising your voice. It can mean different things to different people. Sometimes the tower locking us in is our own home. I think that God got me through all that and he was the one who heard my screaming. I was suicidal and he kept me going. And Bono is right, each person is addicted to something.
the only other thing u can cling to is that it is about addiction itself- not necessarily heroine. bono vox says we are all addicted to something. "In an interview, Bono talks about this song and how it is about a woman who lived in the Ballymena Seven Towers, an area in Dublin which is like the projects in the states. I see seven towers/but I only see one way out The drug use there is very widespread, and the one way out which he speaks of could be canning the habit, stopping the heroin, which the woman he sings about could not do." (Annie D mrs_chanandler_bong@hotmail.com 2001 07 03)
The song takes place in Dublin, with the reference to the 7 towers.
there were also 7 towers in Thebes, the city Oedipus tried to escape his fate in being King of, I think.
Yes it is the seven towers are the seven tower blocks of flats in Ballymun the tallest flats where called the towers though they where surrounded by multiple other small blocks of flats built in like a fortress
I didn't realize this song was about drugs until a few years ago, and needless to say it ruined my vision of it. But it is still one of the best U2 songs, and my most listened to on The Joshua Tree.
Hopefully it didn't ruin your vision of the song in a negative way. I don't think the message is promotion of drug use or even glorifying it in any way. Just a very powerful message of addiction (which could be addiction to anything, really).
@jarokai A song, regardless of the meaning by the author, can be about whatever it means to you. Words speak to us in different ways, and if a song about drugs isn't something you need, you'll find what you do need and it can speak to that. It can easily be about sin, in general, and our desire to leave it behind. We become addicted to a lot of things...money, power, a person...but letting go of those things can lead us to the freedom to choose and become our best selves.