The U2 song that Bono thought was misunderstood: “We’re not the same”
A lot of people tend to write off U2 as just that one band that dads love and the pretentious singer at the centre of it all. Yes, there are more than a few questionable pieces of their discography, but the group have had their moments, especially when they were bringing their sound to the biggest stages possible in the wake of The Joshua Tree. They still had something to prove after the 1990s, but ‘One’ is the kind of togetherness song that Bono says everyone has wrong.
Then again, it’s not like Bono is short on words regarding his material. Compared to other artists who like to be cagey, Bono will be more than happy to tell you about how important a certain track is to him or what it means for the greatest context of the universe. Underneath all of that posturing, ‘One’ seemed to be the one song that brought the band back together.
When making their first demos for what would become Achtung Baby, they struggled to get on the same page before they finally hit on the poignant ballad. Coming right in the middle of an album that’s all about being disaffected by the pressures of fame, an earnest song about relying on each other and living in harmony was the one time it seemed like the band still had a heart.
Except… nope. Even though the piece does have allusions to the kind of hippy dream of living together as one nation, this isn’t the kind of song that’s looking to bring together everyone under one nation, à la John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. Every time Bono sings lines about coming together as sisters and brothers, he appreciates that everyone has their own beliefs.
When talking about the track in his book Surrender, Bono said that it actually means the exact opposite of what most people think, saying, “I was, and still am, suspicious of the idea of oneness. I don’t buy into the homogeneity of the human experience. I don’t think we’re all one. We can be one, but I don’t think we have to see things the same way for that to be so. We’re one, but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other, not that we’ve got to, just that we get to.”
Even though the song means something completely different, that doesn’t take away from the power of the track. If anything, it actually puts some cool points back into U2’s reputation for how against the grain it is compared to their usual sound.
Given that this is the one song that was most similar to The Joshua Tree style-wise, the lyrics feel like the band actively leaving that side of their sound behind. They may have been sure of the answers back in the 1980s, but in ‘One’, they realise that you can’t bring about utopia by telling people to join together. Because at the end of the day, everyone is a free thinker and deserves to have their voices heard, which might be one of the most punk rock things to come out of the same guy who wears those dopey shades every night.
