[rattle and hum]
Love Rescue Me
Love rescue me is a psalm. Bono is talking to/calling upon a that higher Love, that means God. He is down on his knees to pray, and he has many reasons for it. The background to the song is the life on the road, and the price of it, and the situation is quoted in the lines "In the cold mirror of a glass I see my reflection pass"- the free lifestyle and the emptyness of that life. In the first part Bono calls upon God and confesses that no man is my eneny, that means he feels totally responsible for his pain, his problems. It´s the same point to the start of the new song, Starring at the sun, and many other places, where Bono confesses himself as a sinner, and he wants nobody else to be blamed.
Then the second part is about his experiences as a rock-star with ideals and faith, that people make him God-like, and this he wants to be rescued from, because he is just, what he often sings, "an ordinary guy." The chorus I think make a scene of the sun going down, but there is no romance, because the stretching from him to Ali and the other way back is with no realisation, and therefore he is lonely, without a name, in the palace of my shame. The only one that means something to him is Ali, and she calling him by name, and taking away his shame - but the lines could also relate to the longing for Gods forgiveness.
The third part is about his relation to Ali, and he confesses his lies, that makes her cry (I think), he see himself changing, and he does not want to it. After that comes a variation of the chorus - stretching out, but I don´t know exactly what that means: "hanging by my thumbs", but it is about being down. Then the forth part is about his religious life, and he quotes Psalm 23, but he cannot take comfort in the words, he has cursed the helping hand of God, and still he is in the paradox praying to the one, he is denying. Like Judas. And then I first of all see the confessing of not getting any help from the institutionalised religion - the staff could be dobble, also mening the church-people. Then the song changes into a la-la-la- part - a man thinking after having said what he needed to, and then there comes a climax where he from the deepest of his heart repeats Love rescue me. And here I also hear him singing - "wide on the mountain" and later something like "all my love.. I´m here on the side of the pale of the sun in the water of the pier of love" - he is on the dark side of the sun and in a situation like drowning, and the song goes out, and we think we leave a man in pain, but then something happens. The song continues silently and we have the last part, which I understand like the words coming as a fruit from prayer, just like the Psalm 22, after having the man in deepest pain, suddenly changes to a prayse to the Lord for his power and help. The same structure is here, and Bono ends by singing, that he is on the way to a new future, and we don´t hear a lot about what he is going to change, but he had the Love, that he needed, and now he is set free to do a totally new start. Thats what christian faith is about, and I think this song is a masterpiece - also in the performance together with Dylan, they have soul and they give it away - now we try a little to be as honest and deep as they are in their christian faith. (Joergen Lasgaard, Pastor in the lutheran church of Denmark- lasgaard@vip.cybercity.dk)