Thorn
Artist: U2
Song: With or without you
Album: The Joshua Tree
Model: ‘Mimi’
Location: Basingstoke, Hampshire UK


Notes:-
Another song about unfulfilled love. It’s beautiful expression of desperate love still haunts me. “I can’t live, with or without you”. The bass line thumping away like a heartbeat reminds you you’re still alive when everything around you feels so bleak.

I’ve been in this place, as have countless others. At the time of release I was in love with a beautiful bright and happy girl called Alison that I was sure I was going to marry. Unfortunately for me, she didn’t feel the same way and I was left to pine for months, unsure how I was ever going to recover. I came home to our grubby, damp bed-sit early one day to find her struggling down the stairs with a massive suitcase packed with all her stuff. She wasn’t even going to tell me she was going! I loved her with all my heart. I cried and cried and cried. I remember the only thing I could manage to do was to run back to my Mum and sob pathetically on her shoulder while she loved me and shared my obvious pain. Helpless and hopeless. I did, of course, eventually recover but the song always reminds me of that desperate time.

The image reflects the softness of the girl and the beauty of the rose but in this case, as we all know, the thorns protect them both.