"Acrobat" - Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down!

U2's "Acrobat" definitely references Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale" in more than just the chorus.
"Don't believe what you hear Don't believe what you see If you just close your eyes You can feel the enemy When I first met you girl You had fire in your soul"

I think this first stanza, especially the first 4 lines relates to the awful and demeaning 'ceremony' held in the book. In the book Offred closes her eyes and tries to think of something else as her and the commander have sex. In essence she is trying not to believe what she hears or sees, because in many instances her existence in Gilead seems like a dream, or more so a nightmare. She can obviously feel the commander during the ceremony, and he is, in a way, the enemy, even though we find out he doesn't enjoy the process either.

"When I first met you girl you have fire in your soul" can correspond to Offred's life before the change. A life in which she lived as an equal with Luke, and where she had passion not only for him but for her life as well. In Gilead she has lost that passion for life. She lives hoping, knowing that it must eventually end, and she lives for the moment where she might see her daughter.

Now it looks like this
And you can swallow
Or you can spit
You can throw it up
Or choke on it
And you can dream
So dream out loud

You know that your time is coming 'round
So don't let the bastards grind you down

The chorus obviously is a direct allusion to "The Handmaid's Tale," in 'so don't let the bastards grind you down' however even before that it can be related to Offred's suffering in Gilead. It tells of Offred's revolt against the society, by saying swallow the suffering and the pain because soon enough things will change. Offred knew that this couldn't last forever, and therefore acted against convention and dared to dream because she was still an individual.

No, nothing makes sense
Nothing seems to fit
I know you'd hit out
If you only knew who to hit
And I'd join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
This stanza is Offred's thoughts throughout the novel. She doesn't know why this has taken place; it makes no sense to her. She wants to escape, she wants to be like Moira and find away out of the hell that is Gilead but she doesn't know who to fight against. The 'bad guys' are so convoluted that she doesn't know whom to trust.

U2 obviously had "The Handmaid's Tale" in mind when they wrote this song.