I love this song. I'm not sure what Bono meant when he wrote it. One theory is that it's about being drunk, but I doubt it's literal. I think the song is leaning more toward being crazy in love. To me it's about being at a state where you're so in love with somone that it transcends wanting and needing and longing and it reaches sort of a crazed, psychotic, angry, addiction for that person. Clearly from the lyrics, it isn't a pure and sweet love, but rather an intense system-killing kind of love that can only be described as disastrous. Notice that none of the analogies used in the lyrics are particularly healthy. Ex: "Like the muzzle of a gun" "Like black coffee" "Like Nocotine" "Like the sweet revenge of a bitter enemy"...
I think it may even be less about love and more about a stalkerish obsession. He does not say "I want"; he says "I need" which gives the impression that he's not in control of what he's feeling. (Ex: "Like a thought unchained".) Like "Heartland" and a lot of the tracks from Rattle and Hum, I feel that Bono is deeply homesick, and this song points out how it feels to be away from the one he loves and needs for so long. He feels crazy with desire and loneliness and it's turned him into a sort of madman because he's alone without the one thing he needs to keep him together...his love.
I love this song. I'm not sure what Bono meant when he wrote it. One theory is that it's about being drunk, but I doubt it's literal. I think the song is leaning more toward being crazy in love. To me it's about being at a state where you're so in love with somone that it transcends wanting and needing and longing and it reaches sort of a crazed, psychotic, angry, addiction for that person. Clearly from the lyrics, it isn't a pure and sweet love, but rather an intense system-killing kind of love that can only be described as disastrous. Notice that none of the analogies used in the lyrics are particularly healthy. Ex: "Like the muzzle of a gun" "Like black coffee" "Like Nocotine" "Like the sweet revenge of a bitter enemy"...
I think it may even be less about love and more about a stalkerish obsession. He does not say "I want"; he says "I need" which gives the impression that he's not in control of what he's feeling. (Ex: "Like a thought unchained".) Like "Heartland" and a lot of the tracks from Rattle and Hum, I feel that Bono is deeply homesick, and this song points out how it feels to be away from the one he loves and needs for so long. He feels crazy with desire and loneliness and it's turned him into a sort of madman because he's alone without the one thing he needs to keep him together...his love.