So Cruel - Themes

Themes

During the recording sessions for Achtung Baby, The Edge separated from his wife, Aislinn O'Sullivan. Reflecting on the impact it had on U2, 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'." The Edge explained that travelling to Berlin to write and record provided him with an escape from his failing marriage: "I was disappearing into the music for a different reason. It was a refuge in a way. That approach didn't completely work. You know, I wasn't really... in a good positive headspace. I was running away, I suppose." Hot Press editor Niall Stokes noted that in the lyrics, "Bono is clearly drawing on the experiences of those close to him, and particularly on the emotional turmoil that The Edge and Aislinn had been going through." Bono said "that's in there, but it's unfair to lump it all on The Edge and Aislinn splitting up. That was one of the saddest things... But that was only one part of it. There were lots of other things going on internally within the band and outside it, and I was working through all of that. People are desperately trying to hold onto each other in a time when that's very difficult. Looking around, you see how unprepared for it all people are, and the deals they make."

Thematically, "So Cruel" also deals with unrequited love, jealousy, obsession, and possessiveness. Stokes described it as "the desolate complaint of a lover who has been spurned but who remains in love with his tormentor." Uncut contributor Gavin Martin said "the lyrics of the song reinforce the idea of Achtung Baby as a kind of romantic masque, where images of love, debased or abandoned, abound." Elizabeth Wurtzel of The New Yorker noted "with its lovely string arrangements, winding keyboards, and frothy, hypnotic melodies, is reminiscent of Tommy James's "Crimson and Clover", except that every lovingly sweet line is contrasted with a bitterly ironic counter line", citing the lyric "I disappeared in you / You disappeared from me / I gave you everything you wanted / It wasn't what you wanted" as an example. Hubert Dreyfuss, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley and Mark Wrathall, a Humanities Professor at Brigham Young University believed that the song was an exploration into philosophical dualism. Quoting the lyric "Head in heaven, fingers in the mire", they said "if we are essentially dual in this way, then any attempt to overcome one side in favour of the other inevitably ends in despair", comparing the underlying philosophy to Blaise Pascal's Pensées.

Author 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". Quoting the lyric "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", he added "The man is manipulated by the woman's sexual power. He is incapable of pulling himself out of this relationship and despite his best efforts, he comes back to her." He noted that the woman is portrayed as "cruel, unreliable and unfaithful. She can only betray him and the duality between love and lust is well depicted in the song." Cogan concluded by saying "unlike the classical torch song, this one ends with the man seemingly deciding to leave the woman... The only thing we don't know in the end is whether he actually acts on his promise or not."

Conversely, author Deane Galbraith believed the song was told from the woman's viewpoint, saying "a woman is unable to receive love without also hating those who love her. She acts simultaneously as tender lover and cruel sadist. The lyrics that describe her 'like an angel' are immediately juxtaposed with a more sordid description that pictures her love as an addictive and manipulative drug. Instead of the subtle and vivifying transcendence of a heavenly angel, when she offers to take her lover higher, he is forced to watch her while she controls him 'from above'. For this is a fallen angel, not purely good or evil, but a lover whose best intentions are insidiously corrupt".