« Those Things On the Wall Really Work | Main | Are We Really Getting Smarter? »
January 01, 2006
Nothing Changes on New Year's Day
Tweet|
So today, New Year's Day 2006, I did something about it. Oh nothing astounding - I just searched and found explanations from people who know more about history than me... ---- On the surface, this song is fairly obviously a love song, with one partner desiring to get back together with the other. And coincidentally enough, it's that part of the song that holds a personal connection for me: on New Year's Eve 1988, I was going to drive from Prince Albert to Yorkton in order to be reunited with my girlfriend at the time. So that part of the song I understood. But a few of the lines in the song just didn't fit with a purely "unrequieted love" theme... the ones that talked about crowds, newspapers and war. OK, so this is U2 and I should be looking for some political or social commentary from them, especially considering the album from which this song comes. However I was lazy, and up until today I was merely content to listen to the song and enjoy it on a superficial level. So here's an interesting explanation that I found from one enlightened soul: This song is about the Eastern Front in WWII written from the perspective of a Soviet Red Army soldier writing to a loved one. For those of you who received the public school version of History where we were force-fed the Civil Rights Movement at the cost of learning about WWI and WWII, allow me to translate... "All is quiet on New Year's day This refers to the fact that the Russian Winter e.g. "A world in white" is synonymous with the Eastern Front. "Under a blood red sky The first line is a reference to the fact that this part of the war was primarily fought in the USSR...a communist country under Joseph Stalin. The second line refers to the fact that in 1941, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, they were unprepared for winter fighting and wore primarily grey and black uniforms whereas the Soviets who were fighting on their home turf wore white snow cammouflage. "Arms entwined, the chosen few This is a reference to Soviet propaganda. Things looked bleak for the Soviets at the end of 1941 as the country was split into two fronts in the north and south. In the north, the German Wehrmacht was at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad was cut off and under seige. In the south, the Axis were driving toward Stalingrad. Despite this, the newspapers, actually just one "Pravda" kept proclaiming that the Red Army was resisting (which they were) and that the great push to drive the Germans back was coming. But, as the song and the soldier lament, "nothing changes on New Year's Day." That's a nice, short lesson in history, and I think that knowing this does add to what one can take away from hearing the song again. However, after reading all of the above explanation, I'm still drawn back to the main theme of the song; so to me, it's still a love song, and now I just know more of the setting. Perhaps not much does change on New Year's Day after all. Posted by Hammer at January 1, 2006 11:45 PM |
Since the first time that I heard the song "New Year's Day" by U2 back in 1988, I've been haunted with the thought that there is some deeper meaning to this song that I'm just not getting. If you enjoyed this article, you may want to read more in the My Life is a Stereo category.