“Music is infinitely more precise than words.” ~ Felix Mendelssohn
“Now and then, however, pleasure arises, not in process of restoring anything that our members lack, nor in process of eliminating anything that causes distress, but from something that tickles and affects our senses with a secret but remarkable moving force and so draws them to itself. Such is that pleasure which is engendered by music.” ~ St. Thomas More, Utopia
I am enjoying it still, as ever, if not more, this latest c.d. from U2. I am running the risk of making the children sick of it and – gasp – making myself sick of it as well…. Still, I cannot resist it and must needs turn it on in the car, in the kitchen.
We listened to it in the van yesterday, on the way to the Museum, to Mad Hatter’s, and home again. We listened to it loudly. We danced. I cannot sit still when I hear it; it lifts me off my seat, my head is going, I am slamming the steering wheel with flattened palms while waiting at the red light. The man selling newspapers at the corner of Club Boulevard and Gregson heard it through the open window and danced with me. How could he help himself?
It was a beautiful day yesterday. The weather agreed with our joy, or our joy agreed with the weather. Whatever it was, we drove with the windows down, and the air that whipped through the van was as light as Bono’s lyrics: “Your love is teaching me how, how to kneel….”
What is it? The insistent rhythm, the wild echo of the electric guitar, the throbbing hum of “Love and Peace or Else.” Do I hear Him in that, or in the words, or in the need in Bono’s voice?
There are moments in the lyrics that absolutely send me:
“Beneath the noise
Below the din
I hear a voice
It’s whispering
In science and medicine
‘I was a stranger
You took me in'”
“I don’t know if I can make it
I’m not easy on my knees
Here’s my heart and you can break it
I need some release, release, release”
And my new favorite, #6,
“I like the sound of my own voice
I didn’t give anyone else a choice
An intellectual tortoise
Racing with your bullet train
Some people get squashed crossing the tracks
Some people got high rises on their backs
I’m not broke but you can see the cracks
You can make me perfect again
All because of you
All because of you
All because of you
I am”
