When I told Jen about the idea for this post she laughed. Out Loud. In real-time, not just eponymous computer characters. In between her laugher I said "But do you think it's a good idea?" and her exact words were "In a U2 nerdy kind of way, yes."
I beg of you people--for one post only U2 nerds, unite! (an even if you're not, give it a shot anyway)
Last week sometime I was
facebook stalking, reading the ubiquitous "25 things" lists of friends, neighbors and acquaintances. I gave pause when I ran across one (#20 on the list, to be exact) that cited "Where the Streets Have No Name" as the greatest rock and roll song ever.
I disagreed, as did my aunt. We represent a small but committed constituency who boldly affirm that "With or Without You" is, in fact, the greatest rock and roll song of all time.
What I was unprepared for was the feedback I would receive when I stated my belief on my own list. It was quickly met with critique from a good friend who vehemently contended that "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was, in fact, the greatest rock and roll song of all time.
**********For those few non-die-hard U2 fans that actually still be reading this, let me state clearly that I have severely limited the catalogue to what I maintain (as do most critics) is their finest album--1987's The Joshua Tree. There are hundreds of other songs that could be suggested--"Bad", "Yahweh", "Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own", "40", "Until the End of the World"--the list goes on For the sake of the non-nerd, casual U2 listener, I've severely limited the conversation to these, also by virtue of their direct use in the debate above.********
What occurred to me yesterday while driving is that each of these songs says something about humanity's current state and the the state at which humanity can one day hope/long to be. (Stay with me here). What I would like to suggest is that this debate really goes to the core of how we view the world, not just what we're drawn to sonically. In the same way that melody and meter, drums and bass have to resonate within us, lyrics must in some way speak to the greater truths that are just beyond our words. If it were anything less than music, the subjectivity of these lyrics can be ridiculed by some as being too vague, too esoteric--too many possible layers of meaning. But as a song, the lyrics do for the soul what the music does for the ear--taking you on a limitless journey into what you know in your soul to be real.
If this can be affirmed, then I would like to suggest that these three songs suggest an innate theological tendency that unconsciously is exposed by which one we favor. I've included the songs in their entirety and the titles will take you to links of the lyrics if you need to make your own decision.
The irony of all of this is that these three tracks lead off
The Joshua Tree and I am convinced that there is a reason for this. I believe that the first two songs illustrate various ends of the same tension--a tension maintained in the third track. In the interest of objectivity, I will address them in their original track order.
The "Not-Yet":
There are conflicting stories regarding the origin and meaning of Where the Streets Have No Name. Some claim Bono wrote it after his time spent in Ethiopia as he tried to reconcile the horrors of malnutrition with the joy made manifest in the faces of the children dying there. Others have claimed that it is an ode to heaven--a place with no signposts or streets named after dead politicians--a place where the prophetic witness dares to dream of one great river, one great light, one blessed community. From the Edge's soaring arpeggio intro to the organic swell of the synth organ, the song is less notes and more metaphysical state--there is a transcendence that is palpable, taking the listener to a state in which all things can be hoped, believed, and dreamed.
And the lyrics hardly disappoint. There is the admission of what is currently happening--"building and burning down love" (which 21 years later is still an apt summary of every human act) but there is the awareness of something greater--high on a mystical desert-plain.
Where the Streets Have No Name represents the hope of what will be--and it does it in a way that suggests it is already here--so real, so viable, that it can actually be known--but still it must be "gone to"--it is somewhere away from here. It is the eternity born in our hearts. This track, simply put, leaves us longing for what will be and those that prize it hold that same hope.
The "Already":
If we were on the desert plain in the first track, then it has vanished before our eyes like a mirage in the second. Every generation since has called
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For "their" anthem--which testifies to the universality of the
Wanderlust we feel shut up in our bones. Moreover, it speaks to a certain spiritual hunger that can be nourished but never satisfied. In this track, words are not enough, experiences insufficient. Even the "Kingdom Come" ushered in in
Where the Streets Have No Name is here maintained as a belief, but saccharine--what looked real left an aftertaste that belied it's exterior.
Remarkably, the tempo is upbeat and driving--and the track doesn't really end, rather it fades into the ether of silence. The meaning seems to be in the searching itself--a reality grounded in the present state of things, not longing for what can and will be.
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For provides the ultimate bait and switch--the conclusion is in the title itself. Moreover, any temptation to think the titular conflict would be resolved in three and a half minutes is exposed as naivete. There is only the droning refrain "But I still... haven't found... what I'm looking for..."And we're left with little more than an ellipsis. Those I know who prize this song do so out of the often new-found freedom of not having to have it all figured out. It is the anthem for perseverance when all around is unraveling--not because of a future hope, but because the journey alone is worth the wounds inflicted.
The "Already-Not-Yet":
"God or girl?" Most music critics fall into the trap of endlessly debating Bono's intention in the lyrics here. The answer is "yes"--inconsolable longing knows no source--the ache is almost always the same. What's unique about this ache is how visceral it is--this isn't dull ache of forlorn love or wistful thinking while parted by distance. And yet there is, at least in the refrain, a sense in which "you give yourself away" is neither good nor bad, as expressed in the most basic line "I can't live with or without you."
It's tempting to call it a power ballad, but that would be to dismiss the landscape laid down by the percussive bass and snare. The guitar could be an afterthought, but instead it commands a spirit of wavering between two extremes--always in pairs, shifting from one extreme (with) to another (without). Even the "end" of the song--the point at which the bass line fades out, reemerges with a flurry of delayed guitar arpeggios--the dyad of debate has given way to all out inner war--the tensions remain and then, as in the previous tracks, fade in to the ether of radio silence. We as listeners are left only with the tension.
With or Without You represents, musically at least, every tension that the human heart can hold--real vs. unreal (be it God or love), suffering vs. pleasure, peace vs. calm, sanity vs. insanity, longing vs. being. It is the veritable sonic expression of what New Testament scholars call "the already-not-yet-ness" of the kingdom of God.
I know where I'm at in the spectrum, how about you?*
*please feel free to list your own favorite that may not be on this list and why it's specific to your understanding of faith
