www.u2tour.de has published an interview with U2, it is unknown if it's u2tour.de that made the interview or if they have some other source, and Bono made the following comments about the song.
Love and Peace Or Else started off a few years ago, and we could never quite crack it, it was just like the spirit in the sky, 60s psychedelic riff. Brian Eno was in the room, with that low bass sound, and it sounded like the end of the world, this subterranean bass and glam-rock, day-glo, gospel melody, "Lay down, lay down your guns, all your daughters of Zion, all ye Abraham sons". A preacher-type character, cracked but making some sense. It's like the Fly went to the seminary to become a priest, and ended up in this song... something like that. It's got a real T-Rex groove to it and a Gary Glitter thing in there with that boom boom boom boom... and it's got this nice picture in it which is "when enter this life, I pray you depart with a wrinkled face and a brand new heart". This baby and this old person, an image which is nice. And then there's a lovers' row in the middle of it. So the middle of this stomping tune about where we are right now in the world, it does a Brian Wilson-like turn left, and you're on a phone call with "Hi darling" and you're having a row with your girlfriend and you say, "Look, don't fight, we can figure this out, thing's are going to be ok", and in the background, as you're talking, there's a TV, and "the TV is turned on, but the sound is turned down, and the troops on the ground are about to dig in, and I'm wondering, where is the love, where is the love". So you have the personal and the political come together in one little one scene, very cinematic.
Sara L. Bechtel slbechtel
adelphia.net (28:th of March 2005)