Friday's Important Stuff: Topical Pop Lyrics Analysis and Christian Contemplation

In correspondence related (in part) to his early impressions of the new U2 CD, How to Dismantle the Atomic Bomb, Paul Cella indicated that the stem-cell research theme of the song "Miracle Drug" mightn't be as obvious as I'd thought. As it happens, this song first caught my attention during my two weeks of rattling around in a truck delivering Christmas packages, so I had plenty of time to break my rule about over-interpreting pop song lyrics, which are, in this case, as follows:

Miracle Drug

I want to trip inside your head
Spend the day there
To hear the things you haven't said
And see what you might see

I want to hear you when you call
Do you feel anything at all?
I want to see your thoughts take shape
And walk right out

Freedom has a scent
Like the top of a new born baby's head

The songs are in your eyes
I see them when you smile
I've had enough I'm not giving up
On a miracle drug

Of science and the human heart
There is no limit
There is no failure here sweetheart
Just when you quit

I am you and you are mine
Love makes nonsense of space
And time... will disappear
Love and logic keep us clear
Reason is on our side, love

The songs are in your eyes
I see them when you smile
I've had enough of romantic love
I'd give it up, yeah, I'd give it up
For a miracle, a miracle drug, a miracle drug

God I need your help tonight

Beneath the noise
Below the din
I hear a voice
It's whispering
In science and in medicine
"I was a stranger
You took me in"

The songs are in your eyes
I see them when you smile
I've had enough of romantic love
I'd give it up, yeah, I'd give it up
For a miracle, a miracle drug

Miracle, miracle drug

It's conceivable that I'm not thinking of something, but it seems to me that a song blending science, medicine, miracle drugs, and newborn babies is likely about embryonic stem-cell research, and that's the framework within which I set about understanding it. Now, given his politics, the obvious extra-textual assumption is that Bono would support embryonic stem-cell research. Indeed, a Google search for "stem cell bono u2" brings up a reference to his attendance at the Democrat National Convention, where that position dominated the rhetoric. On the other hand, the religious references and the inclusion of baby imagery suggest an opening for the opposite position.

So what's Bono's position? More importantly, what's the song's position? Although I can't satisfactorily answer that question, given the lyrics themselves as well as the musical trajectory, I'd suggest that the song doesn't seek to lay out an answer, but rather to convey an internal narrative of the debate.

"Miracle Drug" begins with reference to a "you" who is apparently animate, but whose consciousness, if it exists at all, is trapped in an expression-denying prison: "I want to see your thoughts take shape/And walk right out." With Alzheimer's being a disease frequently mentioned in the stem-cell debate, it would seem a likely candidate for Bono's intended affliction.

In this context, freedom's having a scent "like the top of a new born baby's head" could have two meanings, both shades of an argument in favor of the research:

1. The thing that could provide freedom is somehow redolent of babies.
2. The freedom from disease should have no less an emotional tug than the pleasant olfactory associations we have with newborns.

Opponents of embryonic stem-cell research may tend to assume that any reference to babies in this debate is automatically in their favor, but that's not necessarily the case. Some people on the other side really do understand the science involved and its implications, but they come to different conclusions nonetheless. Their attribution of value differs. And Bono's subsequent appeal to the "song" and "smile" in the eyes of this "you" could be taken as an assertion of the drowning personhood of the sufferer.

The next stanza seems to cinch this interpretation: the only failure, when it comes to "science and the human heart," is quitting. The next stanza, however, is a jumble of concepts — accentuated by the mid-thought elision of sentences, grabbing the object of one sentence as the subject for the next. (Would it be too generous to U2 to wonder whether this moment associates those having the debate with those afflicted with Alzheimer's?)

"I am you and you are mine" sounds almost as if the narrator is addressing his cells, or perhaps a clone dehumanized in "therapeutic cloning." The narrator then declares that love removes the coherence of the measures of material reality (space and time). Then, following the ellipsis, "love and logic" are functioning together, which echoes (to my ear) religious writers' insistence that a foundation of faith does not indicate a lack of logic. When we get to the assertion that "reason is on our side, love," the question is nearly tangible: Whose side?

With the repeat of the chorus, "had enough/I'm not giving up" becomes "had enough of romantic love/I'd give it up." Frankly, I can't get the "romantic love" piece to fit in the puzzle. Is it an oblique reference to procreation, making the chorus a retreat to the emotional desire for stem-cell cures? Is the initial "you" a romantic love interest of the narrator, whom the narrator is now willing to give up to death for a "miracle drug" of a more spiritual, salvational sort?

The devolution of the music into an echo-laden morass at this point doesn't help to clarify. The more straightforward interpretation is that it represents the narrator's intellectual turmoil; it could also be a mechanism to signal that we're shifting viewpoints to that of the sufferer. In the latter case, "God I need your help tonight" could just be the patient's request that God spur human society toward the "miracle" of embryonic stem-cell cures. I prefer the former possibility, so I'll proceed in that direction.

The plea to God is the narrator's, and he is asking for help sorting through the various moral claims. Directly following the line, the guitar bursts forth its most piercing scream of the song, and the marching rhythm of the lyrical bridge evokes a sense of clarity... unfortunately, ambiguity persists, even within a biblical reference. The clarifying voice that the narrator hears "in science and in medicine" could either be speaking through science and medicine or from within them, as an ethical appeal, perhaps, or maybe from science and medicine's victims.

Regarding what the voice — apparently Jesus — actually says (Matthew 25:35), one could take it to mean that the embryos destroyed for the research are "strangers," in whom we are called to see Jesus even though they may be difficult to recognize as our brothers. (Indeed, that the unborn are among the "least brothers of mine" is a standard Christian pro-life argument.) On the other hand, these being pop-song lyrics, Bono could have been pointing, again obliquely, to the next verse, "[I was] ill and you cared for me," skirting the difficulty of rhyme.

I'm very wary of attributing too much effort to the artistic endeavors of rock stars. And I can only hope that it does not sound implausible for me to claim that I expended so much effort of my own for interpretation because it was fun. Still, whatever its deliberateness or its intellectual conclusion, the song captures very well — musically and lyrically — the difficulty of living according to that paragraph of scripture, particularly as science and medicine progress.

Now if Bono would kindly email me to let me know what he was thinking, I can go on with my life...