Is That All

U2 LYRICS

Is that all you want from me?

Is this a song about perceived expectations?  I don’t know but I think so.  Slightly more lyrics here compared to Scarlet but how couldn’t there be?  A good title for the last song on an album though.

I do wonder from time to time if I am doing all that is expected of me (whether at work or at home).  Meeting expectations is a good goal I suppose.  At work our ratings system for performance is in the vein of “meets expectations / exceeds expectations”.  We do not have a ratings system at home but I wonder how that would be?  If I met semi-annually with my wife and went over my performance as a husband overall.  We could set goals for the next 1/2 year and go over the goals from 6 months ago.  She might even go for this idea (though I doubt if the reciprocal would be met with any enthusiasm).  Maybe I could talk the wife into doing this for the kids as well.  Peer reviews would be interesting or at least entertaining.

The title of this song also allows me an exit ramp for this blog series (is that what I should call it?).  I think I have accomplished what I wanted to do, namely to get back on the blog bandwagon with a subject that has meaning to me.  The War album (next on the U2 discography list) has some interesting titles that show some promising areas for discussion.  Since the title of the song is really Is That All? with a question mark, maybe that is how I should leave this blog, with a question as to whether I am done or not with U2 lyrics.

Jon

Scarlet

U2 LYRICS

Rejoice

We were bound to get here eventually but I thought that it would take until I reached The Unforgettable Fire album, an (almost) instrumental song.  The lyric above represents all of the lyrics (it is repeated a few more times during the song).

scar·let [skahr-lit] –noun: a bright-red color inclining toward orange.

While on the surface this may be confusing, couple it with this verse from the Old Testament…

Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (KJV)

…and you might see a reason for rejoicing.  I mentioned my personal troubles with forgetting past sins in a previous blog and this one appears to be in the same theme.  This reminds me of one of my favorite songs by a group called The Waiting.  On one of their (too few in number) albums there is a song called How Do You Do That?  In this song, the band wonders how God can have all these awesome attributes and yet be so forgetful (when it comes to past, forgiven sins).

I’ve known your forgiveness for each and all of my days
But the way you’ve forgotten leaves me truly amazed

You know the hairs on my head, You named every star
Buy I’m bowing my knee at how forgetful you are

How is it possible to forget something on purpose?  I do not know.  Perhaps this is a reason for rejoicing, the fact that there is someone who can.

Jon

Stranger In A Strange Land

U2 LYRICS

He looked at me like I was the one who should run.

This is another song that I am not going to be able to relate to well as it is about the unrest that the band members grew up in while in Ireland.  I have to admit extreme ignorance as to the detailed reasons for the violence in that part of the world at that time in history.  I think the song is expressing the odd feeling of an Irish person in England (or vice versa) during that time.  Though close to each other geographically, they were strangers to each other.

The only way I can relate to this is when the company I worked for in 2008 was bought by another, bigger company.  In one day, we were supposedly part of this bigger group of employees but we still introduced ourselves by our name and the company we worked for before the acquisition.  To some extend, 3 years later, it is still this way.  I would not go so far as to say we were strangers (we have many things in common) but there was definitely an “us” and a “them”.

Those of us in the company that was purchased had to go through a little culture shock, to change the way we thought about many things that pertained to our jobs and how we performed them.  We had to change our ways to fit in and do it quickly (or at least we thought we did).  It took a year or two before feeling comfortable being myself in front of “them”.

I am currently reading a book called “Cultures and Organizations: Software for the Mind” in preparation of writing a white paper around the general area of the effects of culture and off shore resources and my parent group’s focus (sounds boring, eh?).  It is a fascinating subject and the authors are obviously experts in this field.  In dealing with so many cultures on a day to day basis in my current role, this should help me personally as well.  I am sure I will share more as I get further in the book but you could say that one goal would be for me to help others that we deal with not to feel like strangers and also to feel less like strangers ourselves.

Jon

With A Shout

U2 LYRICS

Where do we go from here?…I want to go, to the foot of Mount Zion…Jerusalem

Reading the lyrics of this song, the obvious reference is of the crucifixion scene in the gospels.  There are references to blood being spilt (a phrase I never liked since spilling [to me] seems accidental and the cross was anything but an accident) and to a hill (presumably Golgotha).  But what of this shouting mentioned in the title?

From what I can tell, the shouting is about the city of Jericho and the Old Testaments' account of its being conquered by Israel.

Joshua 6:5 And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him.

While this is a great telling, I prefer the Veggie Tales interpretation (I’ve got slushie in my ear).  I do not recall any sermons tying these (2) events together so (again) I am at a loss of what this song really means.

The psalms talk about shouting for joy and while I can understand this, I do not think I have ever been so joyful I wanted to shout about it.  This could be a cultural thing for the Middle East 3,000 years ago.  In our society (other than at sporting events) this would seem like odd behavior.  While it is not exactly shouting, I have yelled but that is usually at a dog (or at a kid when the first few attempts at getting their attention fails) and certainly not for joy.  It does feel strangely good to release that kind of tension though.  Perhaps I should shout (or yell) more often.  I live out in the country and so only a few neighbors might hear me if I let it rip from the back yard.  I will have to let you know how it goes.

Jon

October

U2 LYRICS

…the trees are stripped bare of all they wear. What do I care?

I am on a terrible streak here after doing so good on side 1.  What does this song mean?  Perhaps this is still about the death of Bono’s mother.  Maybe he was getting to the point of thinking that he should not think about her so much or miss her so much.  I think the lyric above is saying that we (people) are basically born to die anyway (no one lives for ever) so why should someone’s death affect us so much and for so long?

I think I like to think that I go through life this way.  Nothing affects me deeply.  Something I hold dear can for some reason stop being part of my life (not death really but say if a friend moves away or is let go at work) and I can continue on (in a “what do I care?” attitude).  This is some sort of defense mechanism I have in the software of my mind that allows me not to dwell on the past (even the immediate past, like yesterday).  This frustrates my wife to no end.  It makes me appear to be this cold, dark person that is isolated from the world around me.  This mechanism allows me to avoid the lows in life but this also removes the possibility of the highs in life.  I think it is a good trade but the wife does not (and of course is trying to change me [silly girl]).

…kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall…

Ok, so if all I said above is true then what does this line mean?  Maybe I will just move on to the next song (With a Shout) as I think I think I know what it is about.

Jon

Tomorrow

U2 LYRICS

I think I used to think that I thought that I knew what this song was about.  I think now that I think I was wrong.  It has images from the Bible and the concepts of the death of Christ (Who tore the curtain and what was it for?) and the 2nd coming (He's coming back, O believe Him).  However, it also seems to be rooted in the violence between Protestants and Catholics (or maybe the IRA is in there somewhere).  A time that I cannot relate to when a knock on the door was something to be nervous about and being around when tomorrow came was not a promise but a hope.

I suppose the closest I can come to understanding this is the uncertainty at my company, specifically those people that I work with day to day.  Even this afternoon I learned of 2 more co-workers who are now former co-workers due to cuts.  Each of us wonders in one way or another if we will be here tomorrow.  Some deal with this better than others.  Some, like myself, just keep my head down and keep working in order to deal with this uncertainty.  I treat most things in my life like this anyway and tend not to worry about things that I have no real control over (or very little control).

For the most part though I take Tomorrow for granted.  I probably shouldn’t and I am sure there will be an event in my life sooner or (hopefully) later that will force me to stop assuming that Tomorrow will always come.  Until then this will continue to be (yet another) U2 song that I cannot relate to.

Jon

Fire

U2 LYRICS

Calling, calling, the moon is running red

I don’t think even Bono knows what this song is about.  The lyrics sound like they come from the book of Revelation…

Rev 6:12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

…but in some obscure way.  Keeping in mind the well known story of the band losing all the lyrics right as they went into the recording studio then this might have been something slapped together quickly.  I still like the song though.  If you had to understand U2 lyrics to be a fan then I think they would have 90% less fans than they do (at least).

Speaking of fire…

My “Man + Chain Saw vs Tree” project is nearing the end.  For those of you who don’t remember, we lost a 25’ pine tree to sheer line winds about a month ago and I have been chain sawing it down since that time.  We have had many fires like this one and probably have 2 or 3 more to go before all the pine wood is gone.  It burns very hot and the coals remain hot until the next morning.  So much so that raking them and then throwing more wood on usually results in the fire picking back up in full force.  The son and I are having a lot of fun ridding ourselves of all the wood from the tree.

Jon

A Puppy Spreadsheet

A small break from the U2 blog project to entertain a random thought I had yesterday as I was watching our new puppy, McKinney, hork on the floor.

McKinney is our 10 week old standard poodle that we drove to Ohio to pick up 2 weeks ago.  A large portion of her life is spent sleeping but of the non sleeping hours, the majority of time is spent chewing on things.  The range of things chewed goes from throw rugs to shoes to fingers to anything left on the floor.  Many of these chewed things end up being swallowed and a significant portion of those things that are swallowed are then (some time later) horked up (back onto the floor).

The wife tells me (and the internet backs her up) that the standard poodle is one of the most intelligent breeds (slightly ahead of Dobermans, but we are not telling Nina, our Doberman, this fact).  Assuming that we don’t have a puppy that falls on the low end of the intelligence spectrum for poodles, I can only conclude that all this chewing, swallowing and horking is part of some grand experiment that McKinney is conducting.  A strange thought popped into my head yesterday.  What if McKinney had a spreadsheet to track her experiments?  I think it would look something like this.

Item Swallowed	Date Swallowed	Taste Good?	Hork?	Elapsed Time
Throw Rug	Week 8 Day 1	No	No	N/A
Stick	Week 8 Day 2	Yes	Yes	4 hours
Manure (mine)	Week 8 Day 3	Yes	No	N/A
Manure (other dog)	Week 8 Day 4	Yes!	No	N/A
Book	Week 8 Day 5	No	Yes	2 Hours
Shoe	Week 8 Day 6	Yes	Yes	1 Hour
Chew Toy	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

There might be other columns that only dogs would care about (smell, relative amount of trouble [measured by the level of the volume of human yelling to stop], etc) but this is how I imagined it.  I translated the first column into human words of course and the date measurement is probably different depending on how dog’s really measure time.  I am not entirely sure how the last column would be recorded in a dog’s measurement of time.  All in all though I think this is how McKinney is tracking her experiments.  Notice the phenomenal lack of data for the last row.  Why chew on a chew toy when there are so many other things to chew on?

I will keep you posted as the experiments continue.

Jon

Rejoice

U2 LYRICS

Just tell me what am I supposed to say?

I thought I would a more steady progress through this U2 blog adventure but another week has flown by without an entry.  The quoted lyrics of this song seem quite appropriate.

This is another one of those songs that (after closer inspection) I have no idea what it is about.  The title would suggest that it is a happy song.  The rest of the song’s lyrics though tell a different story.  There is a line in the chorus that says…

I can't change the world but I can change the world in me.

This line follows the lyric at the top of this blog entry.  I had been thinking that changing the world in yourself was a good thing, a suggestion by Bono.  Now though, in context, it seems that he is asking if this is what he should say.  It seems that this line is meant to point out how naive the concept of this is.  Given all that Bono has tried to do in the world, changing the world in yourself seems to fall way short of what our goal should be.  I have no idea why we are told to rejoice then.  Oh well, I still like the song.

Reflecting on this thought, what can I do to change my world?  I have heard another saying that goes something like this, “You cannot change the world but you can change the world of another person.”  This is why I support a child through Compassion International.  I have done this since I was 16 (and had enough money for the monthly cost of supporting one child).  Doing the math, I have supported a child for 25 years now (not the same child of course).  The current child that I support is named Ester. She is 10 years old and lives in Honduras.  My sponsorship changes her world and for that I rejoice.

Jon

I Threw A Brick Through A Window

U2 LYRICS

No-one, no-one is blinder than he who will not see.
No-one, no-one is blinder than me.

In one part of this song, Bono sings about seeing his reflection in a window.  His reflection causes him to think about the current direction of his life.  Though the title of this song does not appear in the lyrics, you can tell that he was not happy with what he saw.

Don’t you wish it was that easy?  If you do not like what you see in yourself then you can choose not to look (or demolish the thing that is there to make you look inward).  I suppose many people do this on the surface but I have never been able to.  The Bible talks about this in a sense in the book of James, chapter 1…

23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. (NIV)

This passage talks about the Bible (word) being the window that shows us a reflection of our true selves.  So it seems that no matter if you are using a literal mirror or some other method of self reflection, we have a tendency to attempt to forget about what we see, or worse to destroy or dismiss the thing that shows us our true self.

I want to change in many areas of my life, I really do.  I think I can change, for a while anyway.  Part of me though will always remember my past and not be able to stop dwelling on it.  No matter how much I change for the better, I remind myself how I was before I changed.  What is done cannot be undone and I will not let myself forget it nor will I forgive myself for any past sins.  I then lose momentum for whatever change I am trying to perform in my life.  My mind reminds me that no matter what I do, I will have always been that former person so what is the point really?  I might as well continue in my old ways since I can never remove the stains and creases caused by my former actions.

I wish this were not the way it is for me.  I am sure I am not alone in this mental anguish that I put myself through.  I do not think it is possible (without the assistance of drugs or surgery) literally to forget about the past but how do we deal with it?  How do we look at it and not chastise ourselves?  I think if I do not figure this out then old age will be torture for me.  I will just have 30 or so more years worth of memories of bad choices and incorrect actions.  I will need to figure it out I fear or risk going mad.

I have held off for a week in sitting down and writing a blog about this song.  The next song on the October album is called Rejoice.  The last line of that song talks about changing the “world in me” so maybe this will give me some direction.

Jon

I Fall Down

U2 LYRICS

I want to get up…But when I get up I fall down

This song (and the next one, I Threw A Brick Through A Window) are 2 of my favorites on this album.  This one speaks of failure and who cannot relate to that from time to time?  Written about 2 people he knows (Julie and John in the song), Bono sings not about his failure but others.  Either way, it is easy to understand the shame and humiliation that usually accompanies failure.

Thinking a moment about things I have failed at in my life I immediately think of my “career” as a professional bowler.  For a few years in the early 90s I drove all over the Midwest (and even a bit into Canada) almost every weekend heading to bowling tournaments.  I only won a handful of tournaments and only one that was associated with the PBA (Professional Bowlers Association).  That was a great weekend but it was preceded (and followed) by 100’s of failures to win.  I really had 2 goals in each tournament.  The first goal was to break even (to win enough to cover the tournament entry fee, food, gas and maybe hotel costs).  The second goal was to win.  I think I might have those goals backwards as there came a point in time in each tournament when it was obvious I was not going to win but I could still strive for the breaking even goal.  Either way, I failed at goal 2 almost always and at goal 1 about 1/2 the time (probably more if I kept track).  The long drive home alone with my thoughts and empty pockets gave me time to reflect on all the mistakes I had made in the tournament (I did have one kick butt stereo in my little Geo Metro though to crank up and drown out my thoughts).

I suppose that feeling of failure made the winning (or breaking even) that much more enjoyable.  What would joy be without sadness to compare it to?  Or pain without comfort or pleasure as its opposite?  Now I know that failure at sports does not rank up there with any failure in real life, the kind that affects more than just yourself.  I hope that I have not failed as a son / brother / husband / father.  I hope that I come nowhere near that word when anyone comments on me in one of those roles.  I can only hope that if I do, if I Fall Down, that I can get back up again.

Jon

Gloria

U2 LYRICS

I try to sing this song…I try to speak up, but only in you I'm complete

As a young man that was active in my church’s youth group, I remember this song justifying my liking of this “secular” band.  This song seemed straight out of Psalms (Psalm 2 perhaps?) and what youth pastor could argue with that?  Youth group was great for me in that it gave me sense of belonging.  It really did make me feel more complete.  Now, whether that was due to the influence of religion or of belong to a small group for the first time in my teenage life I cannot say.

There are several songs on the October album that are spiritual in nature, much more so than on the Boy album.  Even though this is one of their worst selling albums, it is one of my favorites.  I rediscovered this song when Audio Adrenaline covered it for the album “In the Name of Love: Artists United for Africa”.  I am not an AA fan but they did a pretty good job on this song.

So what to make of this song?  Why did a band that was the next big thing in rock and roll do something that might alienate people?  I am not sure but maybe we chalk it up to being from Ireland (3/4 of the people are Roman Catholic and the Latin parts in the chorus sounds like it could be from that religion’s liturgy).  I like it and I guess that is all that matters.

Jon

Shadows And Tall Trees

U2 LYRICS

Are the leaves on the trees just a living disguise?

This title it taken from the title of a chapter in Lord of the Flies.  I will admit to not having read the book (or seen a movie adaptation of it) but I think I know the gist of it.  Yet another song about youth, boyhood, innocence, innocence lost, etc.  A fitting final song for U2’s Boy album I suppose.  I have no idea what the line above means.  Maybe I should have read the book, maybe I will.

I have had fun going through this album and learning a thing or two about it and about myself.  I look forward to moving on to U2’s 2nd album, October as some of my favorite songs are on it (and I even know what they are about!).

Mrs Brown's washing is always the same

This line here speaks to me of boredom.  I remember being stuck at home during the summer and having little or nothing to do.  We only had rabbit ears to get TV stations and there were only the major channels anyway and they had nothing on during the day.  We did not have a VCR but I did have a huge yard, a creek just down the road and (of course) my music collection on LP (including Boy).  I filled the time with music (and drinking gallons of instant tea with my younger brother, although he preferred to take our dog and a fishing pole down to the creek).  This album and the music around that time really helped me fill the hours and gave me an appreciate for great music.  Thanks for coming on this journey with me, I suppose in a sense this is helping me fill in the time as well.

Jon

The Electric Co

U2 LYRICS

If you don't know, Electric Co.

I have been singing this song for years and the only thing I could come up with as to its meaning was that they were somehow huge fans of The Electric Company (a kids show broadcast on PBS when I was growing up).  To quote Lloyd Christmas, “I was way off!”

Turns out this song is about Electric Convulsion Therapy.  Who knew?  Well now we are at back to back songs that I have no way of relating to at this point of my life.

The Electric Company (the PBS TV show) was cool though.  I remember the opening credits…

 

Ah, memories.  This show (and Sesame Street) were staples in my childhood TV diet.  Sadly, I only remember the opening credits really.  I could probably drone on and on about other TV shows here (I can admit that I just won an eBay auction for the first 2 seasons of The Facts of Life) but I think I will just end with admitting my embarrassment of not knowing the true meaning of this song having sung along with it for 25+ years.

Jon