Bono, The Bible, and The Blues

[Macfistowannabe]

This was taken from a long essay that Bono wrote found in the magazine entitled Modern Reformation:

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Explaining belief has always been difficult. How do you explain a love and logic at the heart of the universe when the world is so out of whack? How about the poetic verses the actual truth found in scriptures? Has free will got us crucified? And what about the dodgy characters who inhabit the tome, known as the bible, who claim to hear the voice of God? You have to be interested, but is God?

Explaining faith is impossible....Vision over visibility...Instinct over intellect...A songwriter plays a chord with the faith that he will hear the next one in his head.

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I'd post the whole thing, but it's strictly copyrighted. Maybe I'll get back and post another snippet of it.

 

[Jamila]

can you post a website for it so that we can read it for ourselves?

thanks for the info.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

I've looked around for it, but I'll keep looking.

It's very interesting.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

I found it!

http://www.atu2.com/news/article.src?ID=668&Key=psalms&Year=&Cat=

 

[Jamila]

http://www.modernreformation.org/index.htm

Here is the website, but I can't find ANY reference to an article by Bono here.

I guess I'll give them a call tomorrow to see in which issue this essay by Bono is if I can't find it online tonight.

Any more info you can share w/us, Macfistowannabe?

 

[Jamila]

Thanks a lot.

 

[hiphop]

And what does this have to do with the Blues? Maybe you can post it anyway. Too complicated to read another article.. am I lazy? Yeah.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

And what does this have to do with the Blues? Maybe you can post it anyway. Too complicated to read another article.. am I lazy? Yeah.

He links the writings of David to the mood of blues music.

At the age of 12, I was a fan of David. He felt familiar, like a pop star could feel familiar. The words of the psalms were as poetic as they were religious, and he was a star. Before David could fulfil the prophecy and become the king of Israel, he had to take quite a beating. He was forced into exile and ended up in a cave in some no-name border town facing the collapse of his ego and abandonment by God. But this is where the soap opera got interesting. This is where David was said to have composed his first psalm -- a blues. That's what a lot of the psalms feel like to me, the blues. Man shouting at God -- "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?" (Psalm 22).

[...]

David was a star, the Elvis of the Bible, if we can believe the chiselling of Michelangelo. And unusually for such a "rock star," with his lust for power, lust for women, lust for life, he had the humility of one who knew his gift worked harder than he ever would. He even danced naked in front of his troops -- the biblical equivalent of the royal walkabout. David was definitely more performance artist than politician.

Hope that helps.

 

[Ft. Worth Frog]

This comes from his intro to the Book of Psalms published by Canongate.