I was recently reacquainted with So Cruel after years of not hearing it. During my late adolescence, it ranked among my favourite U2 songs, at a time when I enjoyed much of their work up until the Achtung Baby era. So Cruel is a searing, embittered love song, delving into themes of marital discord, betrayal, and emotional desolation. What always resonated with me and still does is its pulsating orchestration, steadily building to a restrained yet powerful crescendo. The song manages to feel both epic and intimate – with Bono’s plaintive vocals laid bare against a deceptively simple arrangement. Even within an album known for its sonic reinvention, So Cruel stands out for its raw vulnerability.
The following was extracted from the Wikipedia reference below:
The Edge separated from his wife during the recording of Achtung Baby. Their painful emotions were channelled in the lyrics. Bono said, “We’re a really tight community. This is not like somebody’s, you know, girlfriend’s left. We’ve grown up with these people, this our family, our community. This was really hard for us… It was like the first cracks on the beautiful porcelain jug with those beautiful flowers in it that was our music and our community, starting to go ‘crack‘.” Thematically the song is about unrequited love, jealousy, obsession, and possessiveness. Hot Press editor Niall Stokes described it as “the desolate complaint of a lover who has been spurned but who remains in love with his tormentor.“
Višnja Cogan wrote “Women… never get treated badly in U2 songs… Women are put on a pedestal by Bono, his mother’s untimely death being undoubtedly one of the reasons. If anything, in some of the songs on Achtung Baby, it is the man who gets the raw deal. On ‘So Cruel’, it is the man who is the victim of a woman. It is the reverse of the classical torch song“
So Cruel is the sixth track on U2’s seventh studio album Achtung Baby (1991), concluding side one of the album. The song was written at Elsinore in Dalkey. While audio engineer Flood changed reels to listen to a demo of another song, lead singer Bono began to improvise a song on guitar. The rest of the band quickly joined in, creating the first take of the song.
It was developed as an acoustic track but it was further developed by Flood “did a couple of treatments to the track that utterly transformed it.” He keyed Clayton’s bass with the bodhrán, which “gave it a much more bubbly, off-beat feel”. Clayton explained that while the original acoustic version “wasn’t something one could imagine being on the record“, it “was lifted up by studio trickery.” Flood believes that the use of technology was crucial in making the final mix. U2 performed So Cruel only three full times live on the Zoo TV Tour.
[Verse 1]
We crossed the line
Who pushed who over?
It doesn’t matter to you
It matters to me
We’re cut adrift
But still floating
I’m only hanging on
To watch you go down, my love
[Verse 2]
I disappeared in you
You disappeared from me
I gave you everything you ever wanted
It wasn’t what you wanted
The men who love you, you hate the most
They pass right through you like a ghost
They look for you, but your spirit is in the air
Baby, you’re nowhere
[Chorus]
Oh, love
You say in love, there are no rules
Oh, love
Sweetheart, you’re so cruel
[Verse 3]
Desperation is a tender trap
It gets you every time
You put your lips to her lips
To stop the lie
Her skin is pale like God’s only dove
Screams like an angel for your love
Then she makes you watch her from above
And you need her like a drug
[Bridge]
She wears my love like a see-through dress
Her lips say one thing, her movements, something else
Oh, love, like a screaming flower
Love, dying every hour
[Verse 4]
Ah, you don’t know if it’s fear or desire
Danger, the drug that takes you higher
Head of heaven
Fingers in the mire
Her heart is racing, you can’t keep up
The night is bleeding like a cut
Between the horses of love and lust, we are trampled
Underfoot
References:
1. So Cruel – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
I had just really became a fan a couple of years before this album with Rattle and Hum…I really didn’t know them well before that album. They changed their sound on that album and then they changed their sound again on this one…so they were growing. “One” is the song that got me into this album and I went out and bought it….like this one as well.
I have presented two other songs by U2 so far – ‘All I Want is You’ and ‘One’ which are my Top 2 by them. I didn’t know them well until the Joshua Tree.
Having heard ‘So Cruel’ again after a long hiatus, my only criticism is it’s too outstretched and overstays its welcome at least according to my ears. Still a very good song.
A friend Nancy posted at ‘Elephant’s Trunk’ on ‘I Still Haven’t Found what I’m Looking For’, which I might add down the track.
I am rambling this morning….If you hear their songs up to and including the Joshua Tree…Matt they have the very same sound…great songs but same sound…the Edges guitar in particular…on Rattle and Hum they changed to more Americana and their sound changed like the great single “Angel of Harlem”…. but this album I remember The Edge talking about how they were changing their sound once again….and it is clear…they were progressing and not sitting still. Long story short…I do agree…it’s a good song. I love this album as well. Sorry for the long comment!
You made me laugh about ‘great songs, but same sound’ because it reminds me of a funny skit by the musical comedian Bill Bailey taking the piss out of the Edge’s guitar. I’ll send it below:
That is spot on! Sorry I didn’t answer earlier but I don’t even look at the blogs during the day on Mon through Wed…I’m taking this break seriously lol.
Don’t feel obliged to respond during your blog exclusion period. Hehe. I used to have the WordPress application on my mobile, but uninstalled it months back. I only now dedicate time to WP if I’m not busy with other things in the mornings after I’ve published my post. Cheers Max.
Oh you are fine! One of the biggest reasons I did it was because I was pissing more people off than making happy…I couldn’t get to everyone because in the past few months…work has got intense. But I do look at it at the end of the dad or sometimes like now when I have time.
I never enjoyed blogging more than now…I have a little break now and it’s nice. You always built in a little time…I never did…and you were right.
Haha. I always wondered how you found time to respond with due care and diligence to all the comments you receive. That must have been burdensome as you alluded if you didn’t have the time to respond. You made a good decision all things considered.
My WP time is between 5 and 8am in the morning and that’s that. Typically I take 2 hours to write an article and then 1 hour to respond to messages and look at articles (listen to music) of the few blogs I follow. Also, I don’t get crushed anymore if I don’t publish an article on a given day because of other commitments or pursuits (like watching the London marathon the other morning in lieu of getting an article out). I also don’t typically schedule ahead like I used to. I like writing with the adrenaline of completing it ‘just in time’. I also don’t know which song comes next for tomorrow, so that’s also fun to engage with on the same day as writing the article. Cheers man and cool to converse with you on these things.
Yea you remember…there were days I could not get to yours and many more people. It’s reading all of the blogs as well….it was getting impossible…I followed too many people.
Now I allow myself just one on Thursday, 2 Fri, Sat, and Sun if I can.
You do it right…I just do them when I can. But yes it’s nice to be talking again!
So you are basically posting 7 songs per week, which is no mean feat. I think I can count all the days I have missed so far this year on one hand or maximum two. I always feel a little lost if I haven’t got something out despite my meagre readership. lol I just want to finish this music library project which may end up becoming the ‘neverending’ project because of new songs added.
Anyhows, when all’s said and done the blog thing is a cool hobby, which I imagine you’d attest to. Cheers man.
Yea and that is way too high…I was doing up to 10 in some weeks and that was insane. On Thursdays I usually do something non music or different…this afternoon I’m post a cartoon lol.
My Twilight Zone I thought was a never ending project lol…so I know how you feel.
Thanks for the intro to a great U2 song I believe I had not heard before. I will say I’ve always been drawn more to the earlier U2 – pretty much their first six albums through “Rattle and Hum,” my favorite being “The Joshua Tree.” By the time “Achtung Baby” came out, my interest in U2 had started to wane. That said, I liked “One” and “Mysterious Ways” – “The Fly” not so much.
Given how my music taste has since evolved/broadened, especially over the past 10 years, probably, this would be a good time for me to revisit “Achtung Baby,” which I’m cognizant is considered a transformational album in U2’s catalog.
I love the first half of ‘So Cruel’. Those three albums you mentioned are my favourites by them, but I’m not exactly a big fan or well versed on all their output.
Strong track, gets overlooked as there are so many great songs on Achtung.
Yes, it’s so overlooked that I overlooked it as well.