The song I can't get out of my head now

On Ash Wednesday

I tied myself with wire
To let the horses run free
Playing with the fire
Until the fire played with me

The stone was semi precious
We were barely conscious
Two souls too smart to be
In the realm of certainty
Even on our wedding day

We set ourselves on fire
A girl could not deny her
Its not if I believe in love
If love believes in me
Oh believe in me

At the moment of surrender
I'm falling to my knees
I did not notice the passers by
And they did not notice me

I’ve been in every black hole
At the alter of a Dark star
My body s now begging
Though it’s begging to get back
Begging to get back
To my heart
To the rhythm of my soul
To the rhythm of my consciousness
To the rhythm of yes
To be released from control

I was punching in the numbers at the ATM machine
I could see in the reflection
A face staring back at me
At the moment of surrender
A vision of a visibility
I did notice the passers by
And they did not notice me

I was speeding off the subway
Through the stations of the cross
Every eye looking every other way
Counting down till the pain will stop

At the moment of surrender
A vision of a visibility
I did not notice the passers by
And they did not notice me

U2 "Breathe"

From 'No Line on the Horizon'


(Thanks to Kenneth Tanner for the link.)

Random First Thoughts on NLOTH

Note: I’m no music critic and haven’t read the tons of reviews and background info that’s already out there on U2's latest, 'No Line on the Horizon.' This is pure first-impression, just first-listen reactions to the music alone.

1. NLOTH: interestingly, somewhere around the 2:45 mark, reminded me of my friend Nathan’s crooning. You’re in good company, Nathan. Then as it went, to me, there was a harking back to younger days of U2. Very classic, yet very now. Timeless.

2. Magnificent: Bono’s simply at the top of his game. His voice is large and beautiful in this track. Otherworldly.

3. Moment of Surrender: This one just made me introspective. It’s very personal. They reach inward both with voices and music. A little close to home.

4. Unknown Caller: Guitars—just wow.

5. I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight: While the lyrical style is so familiar, Bono sounds like he’s really trying some new things in the sound of this. It’s a little un-U2, in that it’s got a sound that is more within the now, as opposed to a classical, timeless sound. Love it.

6. Get on Your Boots: intentional single, but fun. Crowd-pleaser like ‘Elevation.’

7. Stand Up Comedy: This one’s really fun. Lots of smiles. One to crank up. [Edit: A brilliant line--"Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady."]

8. FEZ-Being Born: I think I’ll have this on repeat. Just phenomenal. Surreal. Probably my favorite.

9. White as Snow: First impression from the title is a biblical reference. And listening, there’s almost something Christmasy in its sound; reminded me of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” Beautiful.

10. Breathe: Teensy bit Matisyahu-esque in the beginning with the rapid-fire words. I’ll be blasting this in the car with all the windows down this summer.

11. Cedars of Lebanon: All about the words, like the album as a whole. This one just keeps you thinking. Required listening for every world leader.

Overall, this seems a more reflective album, something a 14-year-old who’s unfamiliar with U2 would be out-of-the-loop on regarding the band, and thus turned off by the group. That high-schooler would be missing out. A diehard U2 fan listens to this and is brought back to U2’s beginning, and to their experimental period, and to the last couple albums. This is a culmination, and a stretching still further forward. They’re simply at the top of their game. This is large music that is beyond the time it’s in, beyond the trends, beyond the genre. It is no mere entertainment.

Five years ago with the release of ‘How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,’ I tried to be realistic: I said, U2’s got a good strong ten more years, and then they should go when they’re at the top, and not become a (albeit respected) curiosity like the Rolling Stones. Well, let’s tack on another ten years now.

(Special thanks to Beth for allowing me to listen in.)

Ok, yes, I'm a little obsessed

Now, THIS Is an Encore

Chris Martin, Brandon Flowers, and Bono . . . oh, to have been there.

Thanks, Steve, for the link.

The Go Sheilas

Thanks, Steve.

Convicting, and possibly enlightening

Does the compassionate life not demand that we be present to those who suffer; does it not require that we enter into solidarity with the poor, oppressed, and downtrodden; does it not motivate us both to move into the thick of life and to experience the hardships of existence in solidarity with the outcasts?

- Henri Nouwen,
Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life

(From Sojourners "Verse and Voice of the Day")

E*Trade Baby

Hysterical.

Wise Words

"... I can see that it is so wrong of us to compartmentalize us and to label people. I am hoping that through all of this we'll learn how to, instead of label people and put them in categories, that we'll learn to really listen to each other and really see each other and have compassion for each other. Because the last thing we need to do is burden people who are just trying to work out their lives." -- Gayle Haggard, on the complexity of life.


(image from adamsacks.com)

When the Clouds Eventually Part

I read two articles recently from a past Sunday Washington Post (yes, I’m reading it some ten days later, and yes, I saved it that long—such is the life of a single mom who loves her Sunday Post) that got me thinking about the “what next?” in our society and economy. It’s easy right now to get down about it all, with talks of liquidations and layoffs, rising unemployment rates and foreclosures. Believe me, I know, as I’m in that hunt for gainful employment along with so many. And then I read these two articles, and as I unnervingly tend to do (unnerving, that is, at least to myself, and doubtless other would-be cynics), I had an idealistic thought, and a tingle of excitement crept in.

These two articles had seemingly little to do with each other, but then, you could see how they could touch something in all of us.

The first was a feature on director Kelly Reichardt, whose film Wendy and Lucy is now in theaters (though, more likely, the smaller arthouse ones—but it should be more widely released, because we really need to open our eyes). The movie is not getting rave reviews, but rather comments about it not going anywhere or giving the viewer “enough” to go on about the central character, Wendy. Now, I will say, I have not seen the film. So I cannot judge it on that. But the filmmaker’s intentions are definitely laudable.

She made the film well before the economic recession. The idea came to her and co-writer Jon Raymond, actually, after Hurricane Katrina. "I called Jon Raymond after hearing an interview where someone used the proverbial 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' image,” said Reichardt in the Post, “and we were musing over what happens if, like Wendy, you have no safety net, you have a nothing education, you don't have family support, and certainly there's no trust fund. How do you pull yourself up by your bootstraps?” Good question, and relevant today particularly.

I have the feeling some reviewers, even if they realized that knowing next to nothing about Wendy is Reichardt’s point, are still missing the film’s beauty. (Again, I realize I need to see it to determine whether the film meets the director’s intentions. Anyone want to babysit for me??) Writes the Post’s John Anderson, “But are the economically distressed defined strictly by their circumstances? Is poverty really just a condition? Such an approach deprives Wendy, already deprived of almost everything else, a narrative, something that would make her singular and incontrovertibly human. We get the whole point. We just don't get the whole woman . . . ” I’m not so sure, though, that Anderson and others do get the point.

I don’t think the film is about Wendy and her dog. I think the film is about the audience—about us. From the Post: “ 'Wendy and Lucy' asks the question of what we owe each other, and what's our responsibility to each other?" says Reichardt. “Wendy is a stranger: We don't know where she came from, and people have to decide in the moment where they meet her what their obligation to her is. Or maybe there is no obligation. Is it every man for himself now?” To repeat, we, our, we again. I think this film, in its intent anyway, is more about a look in the mirror.

How are we going to see those around us? Yes, Wendy is a “whole woman,” a person with more depth than we apparently are allowed to see in the film. But does that mean the film failed to develop her? Or that we failed to see ourselves? Maybe I’m getting too obscure. But maybe not.

We look at people’s circumstances only and define them by that alone, regardless of how they got there or how they view their own actions. And in so doing, we keep them down—if those circumstances are low—or falsely on a pedestal, if they’re high, equally limiting people in their situation (think Bono, trying not to look ridiculous as a rich rock star while helping the world’s poor).

Ok, enough on Wendy. The second article was by a Slate columnist on the liquidation of so many well-known chain stores: Circuit City, Linens’n’Things, Sharper Image, to name a few. You’ve heard about the rest. It’s as if the strip-mall landscape as we know it has changed forever. But what next?

We could see ourselves in a place of hunkering down, saving up—what did they hoard during the Depression? Aluminum? Or, we could (I hope someone is) see this as a chance for a fresh start, a chance to do business—and community—differently. Perhaps whole new ventures with completely innovative ways of operating will crop up to fill the void after all the going-out-of-business sales.

Another part of Wendy and Lucy (yes, I realize I said above I was finished with it—tough) was the road trip aspect and the sense of looking for the American Dream, in caps. Again from the Post: "For 'Wendy and Lucy,' I spent six months looking at the parking lots of supermarkets," Reichardt says. She depicts an America where corporate branding is banishing local color. "When I was a kid we used to do a road trip every summer from Miami to Montana," she says. "You really knew what state you were in by the radio and all these things that made each state particular. Now, between New Jersey and Laramie, Wyoming, it doesn't matter where you are, it's all the same: Taco Bell, Days Inn."

Maybe now is the time to move beyond the ubiquitous chains that alienate us by making us all the same, mired in materialism, and toward “some sense of community [that] can bring people back together,” as Reichardt puts it. To start, we would see the Wendy’s and their dogs not as circumstances, but as people. And then, when the “gathering clouds and raging storms” that Obama described pass, when the clouds finally part, a more appealing and realizable American Dream will shine through.

So I guess that’s a call to entrepreneurs to churn the wheels in their minds, and neighbors to open their eyes and hearts to each other. Wow, that was really sappy, but who cares?