22 June 1989
You’re so materialistic, what with your wanting “diamonds on a ring of gold” and your promising me “treasure just to look upon it”. You’re also a bit odd and ranty, with all your pseudo-Biblical bluster of “eyes in a moon of blindness / a river in a time of dryness / a harbour in the tempest“. However, I, in the small and sweaty form of Bono, am the epitome of true love, since all I want is you, even though you’re a gold-digging weirdo. Edge, play the blues!
‘All I Want Is You’ is the Rattle And Hum single that fits most closely with The Joshua Tree, since it’s another of U2’s dumbed-down stadium-sized soft-rock power ballads. More specifically, in its overwrought lyrics and singing, this is essentially a rehash of ‘With Or Without You’. Not only is this thing pompous and naff, but it’s also stretched out to an eternity. There are other U2 Irish number ones to come, so I’m reluctant to commit to definitives like “worst” before I must re-listen to 2009’s supremely ugly ‘Get On Your Boots’. Until that accursed day, suffice it to say here that ‘All I Want Is You’ is laughable rubbish.
