Very emotional, this is another song that deals with Bob Hewson’s death.
Noel Gallagher from Oasis is mentioned at the end for he is the one who gave Bono the idea of the lyrics. To quote Edge’s words: They were talking about how weird it was to know that your father’s dying, and Bono was saying, I’m not sure he has a faith, whether he knows where he’s going, and Noel says “Well, he’s one step closer to knowing, isn’t he!” The lyrics certainly show how Bono felt at the time of his father’s death: there is the same feeling of loneliness, of not knowing what to do as in Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own. Bono expresses his difficulty of thinking of the future when he knows he is going to lose his father, as if deconnected from reality because of his pain and sadness: “I’m across the road from hope”, “I can’t see the future”, whereas the world does not stop from turning (“I’m on an island at a busy intersection”). The last part, “a heart that hurts is a heart that beats” refers to the fact that pain is a way to realise that one is alive even if it sometimes seems unbearable.
But the lyrics can also be read from the point of view of someone who is
going to die, and who is already going away from the world and its
activities (“I’m on an island at a busy intersection”), who is just “one
step closer to knowing”. It is the reason why the person “can’t see the
future”; “I can’t go forward and I can’t turn back”. In my opinion, the last
sentence “can you hear the drummer slowing?”, is an allusion to the end of a heart beat, of death coming closer.
Click here to download the guitar tab for One Step Closer
I’m ‘round the corner from anything that’s real
I’m across the road from hope
I’m under a bridge in a rip tide
That’s taken everything I call my own
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
I’m on an island at a busy intersection
I can’t go forward, I can’t turn back
Can’t see the future
It’s getting away from me
I just watch the tail lights glowing
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
Knowing, knowing
I’m hanging out to dry
With my old clothes
Finger still red with the prick of an old rose
Well the heart that hurts
Is a heart that beats
Can you hear the drummer slowing?
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
To knowing, to knowing, to knowing
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