You can't be the night


Lyrics submitted by imagesofme, edited by Stockholm, plays

U-2 song meanings
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    General Comment

    There are two major themes in the VIDEOS for these songs, which is childbirth and religion, namely Jesus Christ in particular. This leads me to think that it tells the story of Mary giving birth to Jesus Christ. At the same time, however, I suspect that the videos are also about the life of Jesus, including his crucifixion and resurrection.

    Here, we see the Jesus/baby/underwear-man bursting into the cardboard-box fortress, running around it, encountering a bottle of water, and freaking out upon discovering the water. As mentioned in my analysis for U-1, the fortress can be seen as a womb, and the baby is inside of it. However, the presence of water can be connected to the concept of Holy Water, hence why our Baby/Jesus reacts very strongly to its presence. The womb-comparison is furthered at the end of the U-2 video, however, when we see the Jesus/Baby destroying the fortress from the inside, throwing boxes all around the forest until the fortress is no more. Just as a baby breaks out of its mother's womb, this character in the iamamiwhoami videos seems to have broken his fortress.

    There is also the Jonna Lee cardboard-doll, however. In quick shots, we see the Jesus/Baby holding the doll in various sexual positions. I'm not sure what to make of this, except for a very Freudian analysis involving a boy's desire to sleep with his mother.

    All of this analysis, however, taps mostly into the childbirth side of the iamamiwhoami videos, save for the possible holy water reference.

    And as for the lyrics -- once again, the U-1 and U-2 videos are not very substantial in the way of lyrics. What is it exactly that "can't be denied"? Lots of things, I guess.

    JellyfishAndMangoeson December 28, 2010   Link

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