I guess since I have been raving about Pop I should post something of a review though it is more like a story, sort of. For starters I will be basing this review on the alternate title of this work of art: The Prodigal Son Wakes Up in The Pig's Stall Wondering What in The World Happened. So without further introduction I present to you U2's Pop.
Pop opens in the thick of the Prodigal son's life of pleasure enjoying himself at the Discotheque but now something is different, he has now encountered something different, something he cannot buy and cannot direct. This begins the Prodigal's discomfort but is not enough to drive him home for we see in the next track that he is right back at it.
In Do You Feel Loved we find the Prodigal back to his old tricks this time in the arms of a lady friend but in the back of his mind the question keeps coming "Do you feel loved? Do you feel loved?” The Prodigal tries to drown it out but the question keeps coming.
Mofo opens with the Son looking around wondering if there is something more to the world he lives in than wine, women and fun. And with more inspection he sees the uglier sides of life and this realization sends him looking for security but in his poor world the only thing that he can even think is his mother but even the comforting love he seeks he has separated from himself.
In his mixed up state the Prodigal looks at the church for hope but only sees the ceremony and tradition and the things wrong with it. He asks If God Will Send His Angels would everything be alright and decides not, that it will be up to the blind to lead the blond and no hope can be found there.
Going out in search of a real experience the Prodigal tries nearly everything to find something real including Staring At The Sun just to feel something, anything. Like a hero from a dystopian novel he feels that what he has been doing is not real so he looks to everything just to find truth, not the only one staring at the sun happy to go blind.
In Last Night On Earth the Prodigal, perhaps disappointed at the failure of his quest (implied, not stated), goes back to his life of pleasure just to find that the whole thing is a sham. The girls are living lies and are racking up debt that they can never pay back. Even though he exposed himself for just a little while to the outside world he can't go back to the illusions of grander that the world offered him.
Immediately following this song is Gone the Prodigal's "See you later world" as he breaks out of the world and makes a run for it. And at the end of the song he makes one last plea for his friend to come with him and escape, but seeing that she is not coming he breaks lose not to be seen again.
Miami begins with the Son's entry of that little town on his way home and here he experiences his biggest temptation to just stop, give it all up and just hang out in Miami, and live a life of leisure and pleasure that is just waiting for him to snatch up.
But the call of Miami isn't enough when the Son thinks about what it all really is and what he would have to be. The two-faced life he would have to live is something he can't do. The entrance into The Playboy Mansion, which might have once been a sick dream come true mere weeks earlier, he can no longer aspire to. He now sees that he doesn't have (or want) what it takes to enter. Instead he hopes for the house where there will be time of sorrow, no time of shame.
In If You Wear That Velvet Dress the Prodigal is plugging his way along the hard trail home, late at night the he starts to remember his old love from back home. The true love that he could never feel with the way he was living while away from home. He considers the exclusive love he was a part of with that beau. Thinking to their close times together under the moon when all was quiet and peaceful.
Please has the son along the road running into somebody, perhaps an old mentor, and getting the kick in the pants that he has been begging for since the beginning. The mentor frying him for all his stupid mistakes and blunders he has been making since school with all his Sunday-school rebellion and elitist attitude.
The blow delivered in the last song drives the Son to the dirt not knowing which way is up but hoping that if he finds it God will be there reaching out a hand in love or at least acceptance. Like the Prodigal in the Bible asking his father for a position as a servant not even considering himself worthy of love from his father. Beaten and broken and questioning if home will be there for him, asking for the stories of what will come, pleading with desperation of a family member at the deathbed of a loved one "WAKE UP! Wake Up Dead Man.”
The album ends there on that sad note of pain but if you look further on into the archives of U2 the next album begins with the chorus " It's a beautiful day", it's almost as though you can see the Father of our poor Prodigal dancing around with joy at the return of his son-though the world falls apart outside-the Son has come home and now it is time to dance.
Well that is it for my take on this album. I will add that though I have put the songs into a story form each individual song can also stand on its own.
