"Walk On": U2's Lenten Anthem

Larry Wyatt:

The album cover says it all. A virtually empty airport concourse with only Bono and the boys gathered together awaiting their flight to be called. The album is All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000). The album cover suggests that it is each other that we can’t leave behind as we journey into the future. Yet there are not an abundance of “others” who will brave this journey with us. So we treasure those who do and count on them to hold us accountable and support us with what is necessary to journey well.

“Walk On” is perhaps the leading song on this album. The song is dedicated to Myanmar political dissident, author, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi who has chosen separation from her family and a comfortable academic life in Oxford to live under house arrest in Myanmar and struggle with her people for freedom and justice. In these respects, Aung San Suu Kyi stands as a prototype of a Lenten journey.

Michael Gilmour (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-gilmour/u2-aung-san-suu-kyi-and-prophet-jeremiah_b_1302465.html?ref=music-and-religion) draws some apt comparisons between Suu Kyi and the prophet Jeremiah which Bono highlights by the reference to J33-3 added to the album to the left of the group on the airport ceiling. Bringing Jeremiah into relation to Suu Kyi adds commitment to the biblical God to fill out the profile of a Lenten journeyer.

Let’s look at “Walk On,” then, as the theme for a Lenten Journey.

And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage that you can bring…
And love is not the easy thing…
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can’t leave behind

Love is the ultimate destination of a Lenten journey, for God is love. Yet this journey is no light or easy matter. Undertaken with serious intention, a Lenten journey is like a home improvement project. It will cost more, take longer, and make a bigger mess than you ever imagined. U2 signals this cost with the claim that “the only baggage you can bring is all that you can’t leave behind.”

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it’s a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on…
Stay safe tonight

This journey is long and difficult (see U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” on The Joshua Tree album). We sometimes walk in darkness for long seasons. So long, that our fragile hearts start to break. We reconsider the trek and to turn back sounds sane and comforting. Do not do it, U2 pleads. Keep on walking! The gift you have in the love of God can’t be taken from you; indeed, that which tempts you to stop and turn back has not even a glimmer of the preciousness of this gift. The safety on this journey is to keep on walking, with and toward those who long to join you on the trek.

You’re packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom

Walk on, walk on
What you’ve got they can’t deny it
Can’t sell it, or buy it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight

We don’t know where we’re going; we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor.5:7). It is tempting and easy to leave the road but our desire for God, his love and freedom, keep our feet on the way. We walk on, lured ahead by the gift we know in part and can be had in full only in this way.

And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Home… hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one
Home… I can’t say where it is but I know I’m going home
That’s where the hurt is

and I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Leave it behind
You got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you feel
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress-up
All that you scheme…


Nevertheless, a Lenten journey is undeniably difficult. It hurts. It costs almost everything precious to us. Nothing less than our whole-hearted passion to reach the end of journey, even if it costs us everything else, to get there, will do. Whatever we must leave behind, we do. All that can only weigh us down and wear us out. And when we reach the end, we discover that home, well, “that’s where the hurt is.” Our Lenten journey indeed ends with God, but the God we meet there is the broken-hearted God of Christian faith who continues to long for and struggle towards the shalom we designed his creation for in the beginning. Nonetheless, we walk on, walk on.

So, friends, walk on this Lent. Face the pain, shed all that is not necessary for this journey, link arms with fellow-travelers, keep going even when you don’t feel like you can take another step, for One unseen is with you. He whom you journey toward is already with you on the path. He will sustain you, he will lure you on with his love, he will meet you in whatever way you have need as you walk on, walk on.

U2 Faith Future

“The Lord is in the House tonight” Going to Church that’s what going to a U2 concert felt like for a few of the fans this past tour. Faith, Love and Hope rising beyond the 50 thousand screaming fans; all in one single space in hopes to see something magical beyond the walls that held them inside.

U2 is a band on a mission, and a strong sense of integrity and purpose is the foundation for their music, lyrics, and relationships. They’ve sold somewhere between 100 million and 150 million records (CD’s) winning 17 Grammy Awards and of course inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. U2 survival in a industry where longevity is measured in months, the band has stuck together and racked up years’ worth of smash hits and signature songs.

So where do the boys from Ireland go now? The most successful tour ever and yet the album was considered to be lacking, rushed and not filling for some hard core U2 fans.  U2 has always been able to reinvent their music to fit the times.  Its not often you can follow a band thru your life and still believe in the music. U2 has grown up with their audience and its very possible their new music will continue to have us follow.

25 Years Later The Joshua Tree

U2 Studios / The Joshua Tree is the fifth studio album by rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 9 March 1987 on Island Records. In contrast to the ambient experimentation of their 1984 release The Unforgettable Fire, U2 aimed for a harder-hitting sound on The Joshua Tree within the limitation of strict song structures.

The album is influenced by American and Irish roots music and depicts the band’s love-hate relationship with the United States, with socially and politically conscious lyrics embellished with spiritual imagery.

Inspired by American tour experiences, literature, and politics, U2 chose America as a theme for the record. Recording began in January 1986 in Ireland, and to foster a relaxed, creative atmosphere, the group recorded in two houses, in addition to two professional studios. Several events during the sessions helped shape the conscious tone of the album, including the band’s participation in A Conspiracy of Hope tour, the death of roadie Greg Carroll, and lead vocalist Bono’s travels to Central America.

Recording was completed in November and additional production continued into January 1987. Throughout the sessions, U2 sought a “cinematic” quality for the record that would evoke a sense of location, in particular, the open spaces of America. They represented this in the sleeve photography depicting them in American desert landscapes.

The album received critical acclaim, topped the charts in over 20 countries, and sold in record-breaking numbers. According to Rolling Stone, the album increased the band’s stature “from heroes to superstars”.

It produced the hit singles “With or Without You”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, and “Where the Streets Have No Name”. The album won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1988.

The group supported the record with the successful Joshua Tree Tour. Frequently cited as one of the greatest albums in rock history, The Joshua Tree is one of the world’s all-time best-selling albums, with over 25 million copies sold. In 2007, U2 released a 20th anniversary remastered edition of the record.

U2 Beyond Words

Formed in 1976, formed a Mount Temple Comprehensive School with limited music skills Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry set out to change the world with their music or did they? The early references to the band pointed to their limited musical skills.

Early on the band was deeply rooted into post punk and eventually grew to include influences from many genres of pop music. Signed to Island Records they released Boy – and broke thru as an international act. Along came 1987 and the breakthrough CD “The Joshua Tree” was released and that was the same year CD’s became the must have musical media.  

U2 integrated dance, industrial, and alternative rock influences into their sound and performances, and embraced a more ironic and self-deprecating image. Similar experimentation continued for the remainder of the 1990s with mixed levels of success.

U2 regained critical and commercial favor after there 2000 record All That You Can’t Leave Behind. On it and the group’s subsequent releases, they adopted a more conventional sound while maintaining influences from their earlier musical explorations.  

Has success changed U2 or have we changed into accepting faith on our sleeves and dipping our toes into the book of faith driven by the musical tunes of U2? Often you hear references of U2’s dabble into faith, love, marriage and hope yet they never labeled a Christian band. Why is that?

What is it that makes music Christian? Does it have to be written specifically for the church, for liturgical or devotional purposes, to fall into that category? Must it refer to Scripture, quoting directly or alluding by imagery? Should its explicit purpose be to evangelize? Will it sound a certain way, stick to certain conventions, or squeeze unlikely paradigms into a Christian shape?

There certainly is “Christian music” that does a few or all of these things. Some of it is deliciously uplifting, and some of it is incomparably dreadful. But perhaps all these questions reflect the wrong approach to Christian music entirely.

Perhaps the better way is to ask the question not so much of the art as of the artist. That would make Christian music the work of Christian composers, regardless of what it sounds like and what, in each particular instance, it says. If we follow that definition, then we will find the most wildly successful creators of Christian music in the past two decades — not hymn writers, and not Amy Grant, but the four Irishmen who are collectively known as U2.

Can you name any other pop contemporary musicians that have been able to introduce so many bible references without a label the book of Psalms is weaved throughout most of U2’s work.

Bono did come out and speak about his faith in an essay “My mother was Protestant, my father Catholic; anywhere other than Ireland that would be unremarkable.” “I had a foot in both camps, so my Goliath became religion itself; I began to see religion as the perversion of faith.”

Curiously enough, the religious brutality was never enough to knock the faith out of him, and Bono’s lyrics remain unalterably Christian in their coloring, even though his religion — the practice of his faith — has since shifted to rock-n-roll.

So what if within the music comes a little faith, hope and love for your fellow man, does the world not need a little love? Share your comment and views.

U2 Bloggers Wanted

Do you consider yourself a U2 fan or U2 expert ?

Either way we are looking for a few good bloggers to team up with us on our newest community. U2TOURFANS Forums designed to provide you the fan a place to share and exchange everyhing U2.

We are building out our site to include a forum section and U2 Fan blogger section. Which will allow you the fan to share your passion.

You can write once a week, month or quarter for us. We also will allow budding U2 authors to write and promote their books with our community.

This is a brand new section for us. We welcome your ideas and feedback.  So far we have been asked to inlcude the following areas.

  • Concert Videos
  • Concert Audio
  • Concert Photos

All of these areas can be viewed right now. We have also welcomed you to upload any concert audio or video that you would like to share.

Bono Wanted

Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber is reportedly interested in hiring U2’s Bono to sit on his panel for his new ITV talent show to find the next lead in musical, Jesus Christ Superstar. Onthebox.com is reporting this long shot and while sources say its really a long short Andy has been known to pull off the impossble. So could be be calling Bono,  Judge Bono in the future ? What are your thoughts of the boys focusing on other items besides music ?

Share your views on our U2 community forum. 

 

The Winners of Talenthouse Achtung

Talenthouse has annouced their winners for the 20th anniversay reinvention of U2’s Achtung Baby album cover after launching Creative Invite. Designers, Photographers were asked to submit their interpreations of todays global environment in the form of photography or artwork.

Shaughn McGrath and Anton Corbijn have chosen the winners.

Talenthouse Design

Of the 15 winners, Jana Beier has been chosen to receive a custom designed, original Achtung Baby styled Trabant car.

Each of these 15 winners will have their submissions created into a collage and featured on U2.com, giving them global exposure. Their work will be promoted across U2′s social media channels and website. They will each receive a feature about their work, a copy of the final collage, a deluxe box set, and a digital camera.

Take a look at all the submissions and judge for yourself.