anonymous September 4th, 2005 11:44AM  
This is a love song of sorts, but the woman is his mother. Bono's mother died when he was a kid, and he said he had even forgotten what she looked like. This song is about an old photograph (home video?) he found of her wearing a lemon yellow dress, and the rush of emotions tied to it.

It's a song about loss, but more than that, it's about man's attempts to fill that hole with technology. "And I feel like I'm holding on to nothing" "A man makes a picture/a moving picture/Through light projected he can see himself up close/A man captures color, a man likes to stare/Turns his money into light to look for her"

ollie510 September 27th, 2007 03:28PM  
I enjoyed the first interpretation but I have some questions: in the DVD, ZOO TV, why does Bono personify the Devil (or MacPhisto) when they play this song? I believe he is suggesting the dangers of this technology just as much, or even more so, then the positive aspects of it. Perhaps, U2 is making the point that film creates a simulated reality which gets in the way of fundamental human interaction in everyday, waking reality. How TV and the media itself, is screwing around with our perceptions, stealing from human face to face interaction, creating a false, insidious picture of humanity. The messages Bono is trying to get across as MacPhisto is ambiguous but, in summary, I think the song is both a celebration and a stern warning.