Lyrics for One as interpreted by spitfirek7

One Lyrics
Is it getting better
Or do you feel the same
Will it make it easier on you
Now you got someone to blame

You say
One love
One life
When it's one need
In the night
It's one love
We get to share it
It leaves you baby
If you don't care for it

Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without

Well it's too late
Tonight
To drag the past out
Into the light
We're one
But we're not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other
One

Have you come here for forgiveness
Have you come tor raise the dead
Havew 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
We're one
But we're not the same
We hurt each other
Then we do it again

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

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should

One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers

One life
But we're not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other

One

One.

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allioop
09-29-2006

Rated 0 
did i just enter some totally crap chatroom? no?
the song... i always felt it translate as someone wanting the person they love to stop screwing it all up. Like the final plea to value what they have, but i just re-read it on the basis of gay-father to son and it soooo works that way too.

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Dressed2Depress
09-30-2006

Rated 0 
Yep, great song...

fav lines are:

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

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jerseychick
10-05-2006

Rated 0 
I dont care what people say, but i love this song. It is the ultimate 'i love you, but why do you hurt me?' song. Its great!

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dhatteriki
10-18-2006

Rated 0 
Bono dedicated this song to Michael Hutchence in the mexico POP tour concert..

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hagmatinus
10-26-2006

Rated 0 
I think it's about his bitter relationship with his parents. He feels he was the black sheep of the family and that his parents often blamed him. The phrase "did I disappoint you..." is a question directed to his parents.

He feels they lack the ability to give love, probably because they never got it from their own parents. Therefore he rejects his parents and believes it's to late to heal the wounds of the past. He accepts that they are of the same blood and there is an invisible bond between them, they carry eachothers burdens. Inspite of this he feels apart from them.

As a reaction to his rejection his parents ask to be forgiven, but he feels they are condasending towards him. They pat him on the head like jesus treated the lepers in the bible. He feels they weren't capable of giving him what he needed. There is no hope for change, it's an endless circle of hurt.

His parents speak the right words but do not act by them. When he feels they're going to embrace him they instead humiliate him.
He can't stay on that path any longer. But he still can't escape the invisible bonds of blood.

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chillio
12-15-2006

Rated 0 
this is a song i heard on a radio one day. ive heard it befor, but just when u2 sang it.. on the radio Mary J Blige was with u2 too.. I fell in love with the song!!! I have heard it almost every day, and I still love it!!!!

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Macphisto12
12-20-2006

Rated 0 
D'you hear us coming lord?
D'you hear us call?
D'you hear us knocking,
We're knocking at your door!

D'you hear us coming lord?
D'you hear us call?
D'you see us scratching,
Will you make us crawl?

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Answergirl
12-30-2006

Rated 0 
What it means to me: it reminds me so much of my family, especially my sister!

What the band meant: I saw it in a documentary. The band was mad at each other and about to break up, then they wrote this song and realized that you can be different and still be together, and respect each other. This song probably saved U2, the band that has been together the longest with no lineup changes!

PS the idea that it's about a gay guy with AIDS making up with his rich dad who shunned him is only a rumor based on one version of the video for the song. (the black and white crossdressing one, not the one in the bar or the buffalo verisons)

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shanimal_cat
01-09-2007

Rated 0 
i saw u2 live a few weeks ago, it was awesome. i love this song so much, probably because its a song i can so relate to. the whole crowd was singing along to this song, you havent really felt the song until theres thousands of peole around singing their heart out, their emotion, into this song, and the makers of it only a few feet away from you

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pmac52188
01-24-2007

Rated 0 
They play this song at all their charity concerts,so I think it's about being genourous and giving to the less fortunate.

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punkchris55
02-08-2007

Rated 0 
oh my NO NO NO! this song is about breaking up! not just a fault in a relationship - this is the END of the relationship! and certainly not about brotherhood or the like... but yes, this is the reasoning why bono is always so surprised to hear that people play it at their wedding. he is always sure to ask them why they'd choose a song about breaking up at a ceremony of bonding love. strange how they didnt see it eh?

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byebyebirdie58
02-08-2007

Rated 0 
I always thought it was about God's love being the only one.

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wizzy
02-13-2007

Rated 0 
It's about the relationship between man and jesus. Bible says man is part of god, hence both entities are one, however 'they're not the same'. Both have to 'carry each other' or both wouldn't exist. 'You asked me to enter' into the gates of god's kingdom and yet 'you made me crawl' means although man has been invited to join god, he has been imposed with human desires and trials causing him to sin - an irony.

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Indieluver
02-18-2007

Rated 0 
people said to u2 ' I played this at my wedding' and they were like ' Whoops, its really not that kind of song...'
its a sad, sad song about breaking up and relationships and yes its an 'I love you but you hurt me' sort of song (see first post)

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spmoose
02-27-2007

Rated 0 
This song is about everything yet "situationally" singular. The song is brilliant simply for this general applicability to any one event (note, 1 event may be the grouping of many subevents). All of the previous post are correct if they connect with the song as they percieve it. It's lyrics are a metaphor for any relationship/battle/bond/arguement/disillusionment... namely, any situation involving at least one person. This one person? ...wait for it ... YOU!
Ex. how about I say it is about me vs. my angst, maybe for having lived a life of regret.
Bitter/sweet love relationships, bitter/sweet plutonic relationships, father/son, man/God, man/nature, kinsmanship ...

This song isn't meant to be taken literally unlike pundits claim for some popular texts. Doesn't mean if you've got not siblings, well, this just doesn't apply to you. Or "...Jesus..." bounds this song to religion.

The whole piece is a poetic way of saying we are each responsible for owning our own wellfare-ness; don't pass the buck on responsibility and so don't be misguided in your lifes' acts. Other entities, human, material, spiritual, are there for support and vice versa but they don't define you, you them, or the nature of reality. They don't validate you. You validate you!

Note, this song has no equals that I know of.
The opening stix/melody subtly draw you in. Brilliantly the early cyphers of the song personalize it as if the song was written for you, sung to you, and about whatever situation may float across your mind when you hear it. For some unknown reason the odd yet perfectly harmonious music is comforting and throughout on par with the lyrics and mood.

Inexplicably this masterpiece doesn't get stale with exposure. Conjecture; this song will be revered as a classic by postarity.

Bono et al may have authored it but it has become more than even Their notions champion. That is to say that their "interpretation" is what it represents for them. It is even bigger than them ie your opinion on its meaning is a relevant as theirs.

One word: Transcendant!

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ilikeursleevs
03-03-2007

Rated 0 
wow, i think everyone is under the impression that this song is a love song. it is in no way a love song. this song is about the corruption in the world and the hate of the human race toward each other.

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GrungyBeatle
03-16-2007

Rated 0 
i would like to think its about humaity, would seem cooler if it was...

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rattle and hum
03-27-2007

Rated 0 
the song is about a convosation between a son and dad about his sexuallity. and how they have to help each other because they are one but not the same.

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greenday+u2=me
04-14-2007

Rated 0 
wow ilikeursleevs , your quite the smartass arent you

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FSU Kelly
04-14-2007

Rated 0 
I can see this song as a love song or about a gay son but I actually felt it was more about the corruption in the world too. Esp the lines..
"One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers"

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Abeman
04-24-2007

Rated 0 
I feel this song has a lot of meanings as in love, could be for a couple, between families, friends, etc, but the thing is that love isn't never an easy thing, in order to be happy one must suffer so therfore this song is really about trying to relive memories, to express love through somebody's eyes, but it really is a great song to try to say one last goodbye or rely on hope or simply say I love you even though one might not be completly happy. Gotta love U2 for these kind of moments though, their music has been with me througout so many years and I never get tired of trying to live love throgh their music with the one person I love!!!

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rattle and hum
04-26-2007

Rated 0 
i think that the key line in this song is ''we GET to carry each other'' because it's like we choose to care for one another. i hate it when people sing it like ''we GOT to carry each other'' because it's not something we are forced to to but we choose to look after one another

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corami
06-28-2007

Rated 0 
I really don't understand why it's so important for me (and others, as I saw) to know exactly what was in Bono's head when he wrote the lyrics for One, but it is...
I don't want to go again on the line with the multipe meanings of these lyrics, because that's obvious from what most of the people here wrote and also from what the band members have said about this song.
One thing puzzles me from the version saying that the song is about a gay son talking to his father about what he is - and it's these lines:

"You say/One love/One life
When it's one need /In the night
It's one love /We get to share it
It leaves you baby /If you don't care for it"

and especially the "baby" word - I wouldn't talk like that to my father nor would he talk like that to me (but then, English language is not my mother tongue). So, please, can anyone explain that?

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realU2fan
07-20-2007

Rated 0 
Any U2 fan should know this.
A few years ago I saw this in the paper..

"I never saw the song as something hopeful or comforting," he said at the time. "To me, it was a very bitter song. It's saying , 'We are one but we're not the same.' It's not saying we even want to get along, but that we have to get along in this world if it is to survive. It's a reminder that we have no choice."

its a major misinterpretation of the song. Bono made this comment after finding out that Los Angeles radios were playing the song after the LA riots [for Rodney King] as a symbol of unity.

so there.

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FullDevilSoccer
07-25-2007

Rated 0 
It's quite easy to see how it's about N. Ireland and speaking directly to terrorist in a very bitter tone

"it's too late Tonight To drag tha past out into the light" "all you got is hurt"

But after watching the Berlin video for this song It's also very possible that the song was inspired by the unification of Berlin and Germany - "we're not the same We get to carry each other"

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