I really didn’t know what to think of “The Crystal Ballroom” the first time I heard it. I think that of all the new songs (from Songs of Innocence) it’s probably the one that sounds most like what I expected when I heard that U2 were working with Danger Mouse.

It’s got a funky sound that’s both modern and retro sounding at the same time. It’s a little rock and a little disco and it’s definitely reminiscent of the kind of music that I expect might have been played during the 70’s in a small dance club like the one that the song takes its name from. Bono has said that he imagines himself as a teenager on stage with his new band, called U2, while his parents dance romantically on the floor below. In that way it’s tied in thematically to the rest of Songs of Innocence, but in some ways I think that the song has just as much in common with some of U2’s material from earlier in the 21st century, like “Kite” from All That You Can’t Leave Behind or “Original of the Species” from “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb“.

“The Crystal Ballroom” is all about the circle of life. Every generation, men and women meet and fall in love and eventually have children who in turn grow up and do the whole thing over again. In this song’s lyrics, I find Bono reflecting specifically about blossoming romance – the kind of romance that eventually bears fruit in the shape of children, perpetuating the existence of humanity. Sure, he’s talking about his folks, but I think that he’s also got himself and Ali in mind, as well as Edge and Morleigh, Larry and Ann, Adam and Mariana, and even the band’s own children, some of whom are of the age now to start finding their own mates. It’s a hopeful song in the sense that it’s all about the potential of each kiss and every glance from across a crowded dance floor.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a U2 song if it didn’t have a touch of melancholy to balance out the high spirits. In the chrous, when Bono sings “everyone is here tonight with me, everyone but you”, I think he’s referring to his parents, who have both passed on, thinking of that last stage of the shared human experience – death. The inevitable end of each human life, much as romance between two people is often the starting place for that same life. “The Crystal Ballroom” reminds me that like Bono’s parents, like my own dad and someday my mother, like everyone any of us have ever met, all of us will meet our end someday. The Earth is only ours for a little time, before we pass it on to our children and eventually die ourselves. That’s the circle of life, and I think that’s what “The Crystal Ballroom” is really all about. If you have your own ideas on the song’s meaning, please post them below! I’d love to read your thoughts!