John Maddens Lunchbox said:
#134 - Please (1997) Highest - 23 Lowest - 204 Where to Find it - Pop LP
Vulture - 110/218 -The remainder of the song feels light years away from the 1st half, & maybe that’s meant to be intentional. The cool detachment of the early verses open up to an impassioned pleading. It’s going to sound like a broken record to state that, like almost everything on Pop, no one in U2 thinks this track was finished.
Comment - After the 3 previous songs on the album, this sounds like With or Without you. In reality its a nice enough song, more album track than single, but a rare album highlight. This 1 sharply divided us with 2 rankings around the 200 area,
one at 23 & I am sitting in the middle at 105
Yes, i'd like to hear the argument for ranking it #23 too.
Songfact:
14 yrs after “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” U2 released their 2nd single to address the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. (
the 3rd time was the song "The Troubles") As the song slowly builds, Bono paints the picture, coloring the world in terms of religion & war colliding to the point where bombs are left in cars.
The
iconic photo for the single features the pictures of 4 Northern Irish politicians — Gerry Adams, David Trimble, Ian Paisley, & John Hume. It was a direct message for them to ‘get up of their knees’ & hasten the peace process which was grinding along slowly......while some of Bono's lyrics paint the picture:
Your Catholic blues, your convent shoes
Your stick-on tattoos, now they're making the news
Your holy war, your northern star
Your sermon on the mount from the boot of your car
September, streets capsizing
Spilling over down the drains
Shards of glass, splinters like rain
But you could only feel your own pain
October, talk getting nowhere
November…December…remember
Are we just starting again?
Bono also cleverly entwines the songs meaning to be ‘about a girl’ – so much so that if you aren’t paying clear attention to his words, you could be duped into thinking the song is simply a love song about an explosive relationship.
On the origin of the music: Producer Howie B, who Mullen called U2’s “disco guru,” had taken the band to dance clubs to help usher in their electronica experiment Pop. For “Please,” he played them a beat rooted in a loop of Mullen’s drums from the sessions for another Pop tune, “If God Will Send His Angels.” Bono constructed a melody, & the song promptly fell into place. “Once the band got it, boom,” said Howie B. Bono called it “a mad prayer of a tune.”
Bono recorded his vocals in one take.