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Green light - Seven Eleven
You stop in for a pack of cigarettes
You don't smoke, don't even want to
Hey now - check your change
Dressed up like a car crash
The wheels are turning but you're upside down
You say when he hits you, you don't mind
Because when he hurts you, you feel alive
Is that what it is?
Red lights, grey morning
You stumble out of a hole in the ground
A vampire or a victim
It depends on who's around
You used to stay in to watch the adverts
You could lip synch to the talk shows
And if you look, you look through me
And when you talk it's not to me
And when I touch you, you don't feel a thing
If I could stay - then the night would give you up
Stay, and the day would keep its trust
Stay, and the night would be enough
Far away, so close
Up with the static and the radio
With satellite television you can go anywhere
Miami, New Orleans, London, Belfast and Berlin
And if you listen I can't call
And if you jump, you just might fall
And if you shout I'll only hear you
If I could stay - then the night would give you up
Stay - then the day would keep its trust
Stay with the demons you drowned
Stay with the spirit I found
Stay, and the night would be enough
Three o'clock in the morning
It's quiet and there's no one around
Just the bang and the clatter
As an angel runs to ground
Just the bang and the clatter
As an angel hits the ground
You stop in for a pack of cigarettes
You don't smoke, don't even want to
Hey now - check your change
Dressed up like a car crash
The wheels are turning but you're upside down
You say when he hits you, you don't mind
Because when he hurts you, you feel alive
Is that what it is?
Red lights, grey morning
You stumble out of a hole in the ground
A vampire or a victim
It depends on who's around
You used to stay in to watch the adverts
You could lip synch to the talk shows
And if you look, you look through me
And when you talk it's not to me
And when I touch you, you don't feel a thing
If I could stay - then the night would give you up
Stay, and the day would keep its trust
Stay, and the night would be enough
Far away, so close
Up with the static and the radio
With satellite television you can go anywhere
Miami, New Orleans, London, Belfast and Berlin
And if you listen I can't call
And if you jump, you just might fall
And if you shout I'll only hear you
If I could stay - then the night would give you up
Stay - then the day would keep its trust
Stay with the demons you drowned
Stay with the spirit I found
Stay, and the night would be enough
Three o'clock in the morning
It's quiet and there's no one around
Just the bang and the clatter
As an angel runs to ground
Just the bang and the clatter
As an angel hits the ground
Lyrics submitted by jt
Track duration: 04:58
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"And if you jump, you just might fall"
This could mean that she might jump off a building
"If I could stay - then the night would give you up
Stay - then the day would keep its trust
Stay with the demons you drowned"
I think this means that if he could stay, she wouldn't be haunted by the night. "Stay with the demons you drowned" - he is saying that she is fighting with her demons (self-destructive or suicidal thoughts), and he is urging him to "stay", or stay alive.
However as time passes on, the woman, who wants something better, feels she is unable to leave her abusive boyfriend. Thus explaining the character's observations about how withdrawn and outwardly desensitized this woman is becoming. He knows something is very wrong and he would do anything to save her but ultimately knows only the woman can save herself.
Finally the woman can't go on living any longer, torn between her attachment to the character and sticking it out with her abusive boyfriend, she decides to kill herself.
It's unclear in the last few lines whether the character is with the woman or if is she is on her own. But that 'angel' reference is how our character sees the woman; someone with a nice personality who deserves so much better. Finally the 'just a bang and a clatter' refers to how she killed herself; she pulls the gun to her head, pulls the trigger and afterwards she falls while the gun falls to the ground with a clatter.
Perhaps because it would be wrong, perhaps because it would be bad, but most surely because it just can't be... someone that for some reason is far away yet so close... always around, always coming back, no escape from hering their name or their voice or their deeds. So close that you know their smell, so close that you can read their riddles... so close that you can see when tears form in their eyes or the short blink before each smile... and yet they see through you, they don't hear you and they just live their lives and you're just not a part of the story..
... and so it goes.. we're humans all right, we get tired, we get sad but you try to live you own life... close your eyes and convince yourself that it will be one day gone away, but you degrade yourself in suffering and cry while nobody is looking, wrecked but still rolling, wake up in palaces that feel like caves, wander around and nothing nothing calms the pain, switch the channels on the tele until you go back to 1 and then repeat it until you turn it off.
well.. the song is about some angels movie I guess... all of you guys can't be wrong.
Three o'clock in the morning
It's quiet and there's no one around
Just the bang and the clatter
As an angel runs to ground (perhaps the guardian angel hits the ground to cover her head)
Just the bang and the clatter
As an angel hits the ground (here the woman is alluded to an 'angel' and she hits the ground)
So the angel is protecting her. but feels helpless that she is not helping herself to get out of the situation, she watches television and escapes in the house. but he hits her at 3am in the morning.
try screaming STAY at the last part with “and the night would be enough”. Therapeutic.
Anyway I definitely agree with achtungbaby02, I think this song is about a love triangle - involving a messed-up girl in an abusive relationship, and this other guy who'd like to be her guardian angel and sees her not for all the things society would stigamatise her as, but as a victim of her circumstance ("a vampire or a victim, it depends on who;s around")
I love the imagery painted with the "cirgarettes...don't smoke...don't even want to", and "dressed up like a car crash....bla bla"...so poignant, so insightful, such a heartwrenching and powerful picture of a lost soul with an appetite for torture...The personality he describes of the woman in those few lines is that of someone who is subserviant and lives believing that's who they are destined to be.
To me the last stanza is cryptic, but I have in my mind an image of the man (bono's character) being too late in stopping the girl from jumping from somewhere. To me bono used the word "angel" in two different sense - first to describe his role as a guardian angel, and a second time to say that the girl was like an angel in his mind's eye.
My favourite favourite part probably comes in from the middle of the song on - because it is just too heartwrnching from here on:
Far away, so close
Up with the static and the radio
With satellite television you can go anywhere
Miami, New Orleans, London, Belfast and Berlin
And if you listen I can't call
And if you jump, you just might fall
And if you shout I'll only hear you
The next stanza immediately after this is such a typical proclamation of love. (slash infatuation?) My favourite line from the bridge: "And if you jump, you just might fall." -- totally begging to give him a chance. You can just imagine him on his knees, and yet saying "only if that's okay with you."
Fantastic song. Paints movies in my mind with every play....magnificent.