Source Video - • U2-Mysterious ways (Ly... Our Patreon - / enoma No copyright infringement intended. We do not own this video. This reaction constitutes Fair Use.
Thanks to this reaction to one of my favourite songs from my favourite U2 album. I love how you both are reaching out to the far side of the globe with your musical reactions. In a small way, I'm doing the same in reverse. It's time for me to listen again to the ground-breaking West Meets East by Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar. I also must rewatch the brilliant documentary film Monterey Pop, which concludes with an awesome 1967 festival performance by Shankar that wins over a crowd clearly unfamiliar with Indian music. While I'm thinking of this, I'm reminded of the time I heard Indian music legend Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and his son Salil at one of our local festivals. They were on stage in a "workshop" with slide masters who included Sonny Landreth and the Campbell Brothers. The set ended with each of them taking a turn to solo. The astonishing experience concluded with the Bhatts at stage right, where I was standing backstage mere feet from them. The blown-away expressions on the faces of the other musicians almost rivalled the brilliance of the music.
U2's each song can be interpreted in different ways..... There's an overt/superficial meaning and a hidden/ deep meaning. Mysterious Ways is a great example of this. Kirti's lyrical interpretation is accurate in a sense. But there's other possibilities like the following....... This song is also, in part, based on an Oscar Wilde play called "Salome." Salome is the name given to the dancer from Herod's court who demanded the death of John the Baptist. "Johnny" is John the Baptist, of course. In the play, there are repeated references to the full moon driving men crazy, and Salome in her cold beauty driving men crazy... it is a short play. John is in prison and Salome finds him there and tries to charm him, but he sort of shuts her down, and she gets mad at him. And then, in th heat of the night and the sweltering stare of the full moon, Herod and his men look for some entertainment, and Salome bellydances for them. Herod is, of course, pleased and offers Salome any payment that she can think of. She asks for the head of John the Baptist. So in this reading, the "she" and the referenes to the moon are about Salome, and John is "living underground" because he is in prison. And the moon and Salome drive men mad with lust... she moves in Mysterious Ways.
I was 15 and just got to high school when they dropped this album my whole high school was going zoo tv crazy because it was their first album Since 88
"Mysterious Ways" is not about a particular woman. It is about women in general, and the way they entrance, and often dominate men. Says Bono, "At times I do tend to idealize women. It's easy to fall into the trap of separating them into angels and devils for the sake of the drama. But there's no way that there's ever anything anti-women involved. Our songs are not politically correct. They are written from a man's point of view. He's wrestling with different things, there's a flash of anger and hurt here and there. But I don't think women come out badly."
If you see the official music video, you can see that middle East/ some Arab country is depicted there...... So, the song can also be about middle Eastern conflict..... someone who is afraid of all the violence and sufferings and living in isolation..... She in the song is the country / higher meaning of life. The country's political movement is moving in mysterious ways. You can't ignore it ..... You have to embrace it and make good out of it..... And in this way lift the country to greater and peaceful state.
