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U2 - California (There is no End to Love)
 Album:
Songs Of Innocence (2014)
  1. Originally posted by KieranU2:I still don't like this song. It's the worst on the album in my opinion. I have to skip it as soon as I hear the first 'Santa Barbara'. It just makes me cringe.

    Call me crazy but I love this song. It just makes me wanna dance every single time I hear it. The intro is awesome as well.
  2. Originally posted by BlueLion:[..]

    Call me crazy but I love this song. It just makes me wanna dance every single time I hear it. The intro is awesome as well.

    OK - you are "crazy" - but so am I as I really like this song.

    Maybe I've been forced to listen to too much pop music (kids) but I find the song...fun!
  3. Originally posted by LikeASong:[..]

    Not that I want to lengthen this discussion any more, but play count doesn't mean much...

    If You Wear That Velvet Dress is (by far) my most played U2 song according to iTunes, but it's no way my favorite song by them. It's just that I feel like listening to it much more often than many others that top it in quality but for some reason are not suitable for many of the occasions when I listen to music.


    Songs I enjoy get more plays, so for me play count is a pretty accurate depiction of which songs I consider to be top tier.
  4. Originally posted by LikeASong:[..]

    Not that I want to lengthen this discussion any more, but play count doesn't mean much...

    If You Wear That Velvet Dress is (by far) my most played U2 song according to iTunes, but it's no way my favorite song by them. It's just that I feel like listening to it much more often than many others that top it in quality but for some reason are not suitable for many of the occasions when I listen to music.


    And what is "quality"... The number of high of difficult notes Bono sings ? The number of notes Edge plays per second ? Special lyrics ?

    Imo, it's the way a song makes you feel. How it moves you, takes you to another place. There must be a reason you want to listen to IYWTVD over and over again. It must be special to you. So it's got quality.
  5. Originally posted by BlueLion:[..]

    Call me crazy but I love this song. It just makes me wanna dance every single time I hear it. The intro is awesome as well.

    +1!
  6. Acoustic one is good fun as well
  7. I prefer this. The lack of synth frees the rest of the song up.
  8. Originally posted by LikeASong:At second full listen: worst on the album probably. The song is not terrible by itself, but I just totally despise the production. Same lyrics and chords but with a totally different approach would have made a(nother) brilliant song. But not the way it is.

    BOOM CHA.

    The acoustic version is the way to go.

  9. Indeed, I would gladly hear the acoustic version of the song in concert. The electric would be my going to take a piss song in concert
  10. So I've always been a huge fan of this song because I felt that it encapsulates the California vibe, but the acoustic version takes me right back to Santa Monica Pier. That cool ocean breeze, the smell of salt water wafting about. Mmm yes...
  11. Really enjoying this version.
    ...like sitting on a beached log with an unplugged guitar watching the waves crashing on the rocks....
  12. In Defence of California (There Is No End To Love)

    "For whom the bell tolls"
    "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."
    --Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, "Meditation XVII" – John Donne

    The bells of the Angelus ring twice a day in Ireland, broadcast on TV at 12pm and 6pm. The bells’ sound signals a time for prayer, meditation, reflection, calm. The bell tolls at the beginning of California evoke the sound of the bells ringing from the bell tower of the church of the Santa Barbara Mission. The bells ring as a call to prayer but also to welcome visitors.

    I see the song California as a meditation on life and death. Typical Bono territory. Bono is looking back on his young self dealing with grief and finding his place in the world. The opening repetition of Barbara, Santa Barbara (with a nod to the Beach Boys, Barbarana) also suggests an incantation, a serene mantra, a prayer. Bono often remarks that his songs are prayers.

    For me, the song with its bells' sound evokes Donne’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls” implying that each man on earth is only part of a greater whole, such that the death-bell has significance for all who hear it. Each man and woman are in this world together and part of the same divine plan, so the bell does toll for the sake of all who can hear it.

    The bell may toll for the death of a loved one, but will toll for us all some day, so the toll serves to remind each man to appreciate the time remaining before his own death. The toll serves to remind us that we are part of a bigger picture and provides us with direction to be charitable to each other. Such charity can be an expression of spiritual devotion as man attempts to live his life by divine standards.

    This song although dismissed as throwaway in some quarters has actually one of the most important lyrics in the album;
    “I’ve seen for myself there’s no end to grief, that’s how I know and why I need to know that there is no end to love”.

    The weight that drags Bono’s heart down is the sorrow, the grief experienced from the death of his mother. The same weight that took him where he needs to be, in a band, making music, singing, his form of prayer where words alone can scare a thought away.
    The last stage of grief is acceptance signalled by withdrawal and calm. Grief never ends, but acceptance can bring healing and the dawn he thought would never come, but it did. The lyrics speak of the light dimming when you lose yourself in grief and having to face yourself, your sorrow, your tearful reflection. Perhaps travelling with U2 on tour to California brought the perspective that comes from distance, away from home. The blood orange sunset bringing him to his knees. Man kneels to pray and once again the beauty of the sea and sky bring perspective. He speaks of sunset, of dawn, marking the end and the beginning of a new day. His darkest moment is before the dawn.

    We come and go in this world, life goes on and the days stolen from us that we won’t get to share with our deceased loved ones again are all we’re left with, but we get to keep those thoughts, those memories and they have to be enough. For we have to live in the present and some day the bell with toll for us too.
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Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.