I first heard this song back in '82 when I was 14 and have been a U2 fan ever since, for obvious reasons. Even back then I remember thinking that Bono's vocal performance on this track sounded very "sexual"... But as a Catholic schoolgirl I also "got" the religious references in the song, ex: "Gloria" meaning "glory to God".
IMO the two approaches seemed very dichotomous, at least until recently when I read Niall Stokes' book Into the Heart. To quote Bono: "It is a love song. In a sense it is an attempt to write about a woman in a spiritual sense and about God in a sexual sense. But there certainly is a strong sexual pulse in there".
This may not be as bizarre as it sounds. Most of Bono's life-defining events happened within a short space of only a year or two (losing his mother in sudden and tragic circumstances; finding God; joining a rock band, meeting his future-wife Ali) so they are probably all intrinsically linked in his mind/heart.
I first heard this song back in '82 when I was 14 and have been a U2 fan ever since, for obvious reasons. Even back then I remember thinking that Bono's vocal performance on this track sounded very "sexual"... But as a Catholic schoolgirl I also "got" the religious references in the song, ex: "Gloria" meaning "glory to God".
IMO the two approaches seemed very dichotomous, at least until recently when I read Niall Stokes' book Into the Heart. To quote Bono: "It is a love song. In a sense it is an attempt to write about a woman in a spiritual sense and about God in a sexual sense. But there certainly is a strong sexual pulse in there".
This may not be as bizarre as it sounds. Most of Bono's life-defining events happened within a short space of only a year or two (losing his mother in sudden and tragic circumstances; finding God; joining a rock band, meeting his future-wife Ali) so they are probably all intrinsically linked in his mind/heart.