Composition and theme Love Is Blindness

the edge (pictured in 2011) separated wife during recording of achtung baby. channeled painful emotions time guitar playing on song.

love blindness runs 4:23 (4 minutes, 23 seconds). according hal leonard corporation s sheet music published @ musicnotes.com, played in 6/4 time signature @ tempo of 48 beats per minute in key of b-flat minor.

the production team gave bassist adam clayton s bass low end bass throbbing effect , edge described real stroke of genius production team. drummer larry mullen, jr. s drum pattern taken u2 s 1987 single still haven t found m looking , slowed down. lyrics [mix] personal , political. bono noted there reference little death, can taken mean faint during orgasm works image of terrorism. quoting lyric little death without mourning / no call , no warning / baby, dangerous idea / makes sense , said, there s nothing more deadly idea – or person – s right. know, took 20th century hundred years on communism. there s dangerous idea made sense.

—bono

u2 biographer bill flanagan credits bono s habit of keeping lyrics in flux until last minute providing narrative coherence album. flanagan interpreted achtung baby using moon metaphor dark woman seducing singer away virtuous love, sun; tempted away domestic life exciting nightlife , tests how far can go before returning home. flanagan, final 3 songs on achtung baby— ultraviolet (light way) , acrobat , , love blindness —are how couple deal suffering have forced on each other. uncut contributor gavin martin believed song contained images of love, debased or abandoned. wrote, stark, churchlike organ intro, pulsating bass synth , guitar reverb stretched hallucinatory squall, brilliantly describes discord , dread provide constant undertow achtung baby. , yet, through alluring sonic palette , wounded sensual vocal, love blindness maps out search harmony , salvation .

author atara stein wrote song suggests love can operate through willful self-deception, voluntary surrender 1 knows illusion. singer begs lover wrap night around him because, proclaims, don t want see. singer knows image creates of loved 1 false, image can satisfy him. must perceive beloved in idealized terms, can reflect him image of himself desires see. journalist bill graham believed song bleak account of failing romance. hot press editor niall stokes wrote song takes back – again – shadowy world of deceit, infidelity, , betrayal. depicts love @ end, end, of tether. bleak , despairing view of world re get, reflecting emotional climate in entire album had been made. noted, in terms of mood, love blindness had dark, sensual , decadent feel of pre-war berlin , adding lyric love blindness / don t want see desolate acknowledgement of terrible reality better not know.