![]() ![]() ![]() Where Blake’s Songs of Innocence were often meek, soft, lovely his Songs of Experience are more violent and powerful. Though the topics are often the same as in SOI (death, poverty, child labour, religion, creation), the poems come at these topics with themes like jealousy, repression, and mortality. The poems in Blake’s Songs of Experience take a darker, questioning look from a lens of adulthood and loss of innocence. Perhaps innocence isn’t just a newness or naivete, perhaps it is how you handle experience? Experience U2’s Songs of Innocence takes these harsh moments of childhood and draws on the positive that can derive from them: yes, Bono’s mom passed away, but it made him the artist he is yes he struggled with anger and fear at the world, but he found music and friends that saved him yes, Ireland was reeling from the conflict in Northern Ireland, but we are “stronger then fear.” Bono’s mom’s passing (Iris), Bono’s anger at losing her and the resulting household/world he found himself in without her as a buffer (Volcano), and the bombing that took place in Dublin when the band were youths (Raised By Wolves). growing up on the streets of Dublin, falling in love for the first time ) and formative years/events.īut these beginnings aren’t always happy and idyllic, there are dark things that happen in the stage of Innocence: e.g. Their songs deal with their beginnings (e.g. U2 borrows this idea as the driver of their Songs of Innocence, but they morph it into innocence equaling youth rather than a youthful, idyllic view. Dark things such as death, illness or poverty may happen in Blake’s SOI, but the poems are usually told through the lens of innocence and optimism. They are told from the perspective of children or about children. The poems in Blake’s Songs of Innocence are mostly a hopeful, idyllic look at the world, religion, birth/creation, and childhood experiences like playing in the park. ( This website offers full text of all the poems for Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience.) A Lens of Innocence and Experience Innocence Both utilize repetition of themes, imagery, and words/phrases (lyrics), pairing the poems/songs from one volume to another. Both U2 and Blake present Songs of Innocence as a look at the world through the perspective of childhood and youth and Songs of Experience as an adult’s perspective. Inspired by William Blake’s collection of poetry, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, U2’s two-some uses a similar framework for the albums. Well, technically I guess you can… We’ve had SOI since 2015, sans Songs of Experience, but now that SOE is out, why would you not want the pair? (I’ve been crying because it took this long for my pre-ordered vinyl set to get to me… but also because this album is just so beautiful, and emotional…)Īnd these two albums do belong together. Well, maybe Songs of Innocence (SOI), because it is a companion piece after all. For the past 2 weeks, my social media has been full of the U2 tribe posting about sitting in their cars openly weeping on the way to work, crying at their desks at work, or at home, on their couchs, just sobbing through the songs… on repeat… just SOE… playing nothing else since its December 1 release. ![]() Someone even suggested we need a support group… So the U2 fandom is crying… big blobs of salty tears… (I’m not crying, you’re crying!) No, not because of the Ticketmaster Verified Fan kerfuffle… This time, it’s because of U2’s latest album release, Songs of Experience (SOE), the band’s 14th studio album.
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