A house doesn’t make a home

[lady luck]

I’ve been listening “Sometimes” for almost eight months now, but I realised just yesterday the truth behind this line and my mind started wandering through other songs and catch phrases of Bono that deal with the theme of house/home.

I think I remember that the first time I read something that goes near to this line, it was in Dunphy’s book “Unforgettable fire”, in the chapter where there’s the story of Bono and it is told about the death of his mother when he was a young boy. That chapter contains a reported phrase by Bono, who said that after the death of his mom, he just felt he had not long a home but he just shared a house with other two men. I remember I felt so sad when I read this, even if I couldn’t understand for real the feeling Bono felt, because I’ve never been in such a situation, luckily.

Other poignant moments in the lyrics Bono wrote and that, in a certain way, regard the theme of house are in the wonderful “Tomorrow”:
“There’s a black car park on the side of the road
Don’t go to the door/Don’t go to the door
I’m going out/I’m going outside, mother”
Every time I hear the song, Bono’s voice chills me and I start shaking, because it gives to me a sense of oppression and a willing to run away that I never felt with any other song.
It is exactly the feeling one has, or better, I have when things get crazy at my house and I feel I have to run away! I live in a family that is ok, but we definitely lack communication and at times I really feel we’re just sharing rooms and not much more. It can be awful: maybe you need to talk, to express your thoughts, but you think you won’t be understood and so I just go and talk in my head “in the silence of my lonely room”.

So yes, “a house doesn’t make a home”. I just hope that, if we ever go & live together, my special guy won’t let out home become a house!

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

what a beautiful post lady luck

I can relate to what Bono is expressing, even though neither one of my parents died- how he talks about his father never being there for him either physically or emotionally. I guess he has made some sort of peace w/ it or is trying to.

 

[lady luck]

Thanks! I agree with you, MrsSpringsteen.
They made peace in a way... think about Bono saying "I wish I knew him better"

 

[Russty Cat]

I definetly know what Bono means when he says a house doesn't make a home! That line always stands out to me as well. I grew up in a house, but it definetly wasn't a home. It wasn't a place of love and security that makes a house a home.

I hope that Bono truly has made peace with himself when it comes to his relationship with his dad. Its no way to live your life always feeling that you should have done something a different way. My dad was and is still much like Bob Hewson. I've made my peace with him, even though he really isn't part of my life anymore. But I have no regrets.

I have a feeling that for all the bad things in Bonos childhood that led to those lyrics, he has turned them to good with his own kids. There is nothing like the love of a father. I've been blessed in my life to watch my husband make our house a home for our children. I wish that for Bono and his children.

But I still want the poignant heart wrenching lyrics as well. I love that he always makes me think and sometimes grieve for things in my life, but thats how we grow as well.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

very well said Russty Cat..yes I'm quite sure Bono is a wonderful father

 

[lady luck]

I definetly know what Bono means when he says a house doesn't make a home! That line always stands out to me as well. I grew up in a house, but it definetly wasn't a home. It wasn't a place of love and security that makes a house a home.

I hope that Bono truly has made peace with himself when it comes to his relationship with his dad. Its no way to live your life always feeling that you should have done something a different way. My dad was and is still much like Bob Hewson. I've made my peace with him, even though he really isn't part of my life anymore. But I have no regrets.

I have a feeling that for all the bad things in Bonos childhood that led to those lyrics, he has turned them to good with his own kids. There is nothing like the love of a father. I've been blessed in my life to watch my husband make our house a home for our children. I wish that for Bono and his children.

But I still want the poignant heart wrenching lyrics as well. I love that he always makes me think and sometimes grieve for things in my life, but thats how we grow as well.

 

[VertigoGal]

at first i thought the line was kind of cliched. i still do, but i kinda like it now. i can relate to it on a few levels. i know a lot of people who have such perfect houses, with everything so consciously arranged, but there's no love. also, we've been moving around a lot lately, and whatever house or apartment we happen to be in at the time means less and less to me everytime. my mom will try to make it all homey by putting up photos or whatever, but its so fake.

so yeah...cliched, yet true

oh, btw, i love the lyrics to Tomorrow. they are quite revealing and a shrink would have a field day with them! they seem to suggest that his mom dying was what got him so heavily into religion for a little while there (particularly the last verse)...and I've always seen The Wanderer as a "Tomorrow part 2"...there are a lot of similarities. it strikes me as him looking back, wiser, at the person who wrote Tomorrow.

that's a little off-track, I know , but I've always seen those songs as going together...awesome songs

 

[lady luck]

Good point, VertigoGal!

 

[Nube Gris]

great thread!
some tears ran through my face...

 

[neutral]

I think there is a theme in some songs of "home" as a feeling or a concept, as well as a physical place, that Bono is longing to find. It seems just out of his grasp at times in Sometimes, Wake Up Dead Man, Fast Cars, Walk On especially and he feels abandoned in his home after losses of his parents.

Walk On -
Home...
Hard to know what it is, if you never had one
Home...
I can't say where it is, but I know I'm going
Home...
That's where the hurt is...

Wake Up Dead Man -
Jesus, Jesus help me
I'm alone in this world

Sometimes -
Well hey now, still gotta let ya know
A house doesn't make a home
Don't leave me here alone


Anyway this line has stood out to me since the first time I heard the song and I feel that he's also referring to feeling that home will never be quite right now that Bob is gone. Ever since my father died in November I've had this constant, nagging feeling that something just isn't right and my home is out of sorts, even though I haven't lived at home with my parents in years. That's what the line makes me think of.

 

[yimou]

Sometimes -
Well hey now, still gotta let ya know
A house doesn't make a home
Don't leave me here alone


Anyway this line has stood out to me since the first time I heard the song and I feel that he's also referring to feeling that home will never be quite right now that Bob is gone. Ever since my father died I've had this constant, nagging feeling that something just isn't right and my home is out of sorts, even though I haven't lived at home with my parents in years. That's what the line makes me think of.

Excellent post Neutral.

Ever since my father passed away 1 1/2 years ago then i have felt the same way. And i even moved out of my parents house 11 years ago. But something have changed and i think Bono found a great way to express a feeling that is actually hard to express. A house dosn´t make a home,, Very true.

 

[kaber]

Have to agree.

My father also passed away quite suddenly a few years ago.

The phrase 'a house doesn't make a home' is for those left behind, feeling that there is something missing in the building without the old man being there.

I like the way this song expresses so well all the feelings after the sudden death of a loved one - the words, music and the way it is sung portray all the emotions - regret, gratitude, love and even anger.

Very grateful that Bono shared such a personal song with the world.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

when I hear those lines..

"A house doesn't make a home, don't leave me here alone"

...I always think he's talking about after his mother died, how his father wasn't there physically (working) or emotionally for him

 

[dazzlingamy]

i agree with what everyone has been saying - that after his mother died the warmth and 'motherly love' that children recieve was gone, and all he had was his father who was a tough irish man who didn't care for affection and love (because of how he's been brought up etc)

my heart feels for bono when i hear that. I was brought up in a house full of love but i understand how devestating and lost someone could feel without having that unconditional love growing up.

but i think he is a fantastic father himself, and he gets his unconditonal love now, which may help with the past

 

[VertigoGal]

yeah, the more i think about it, the more i think it might be connecting his father's death to his mother's. i know it's sort of a soundbyte of his, saying after his mother died he lost his "home" and it was just a house. even though i'd think it'd be different to lost a parent as a child than as a 40 year-old, in both cases he felt like he was losing someone he never got the chance to know. so there's sort of a connection or similar emotion. or something like that...

 

[dawkins20]

So simple but definitely one of my favorite lines in the whole album.

I'm a big Tom Waits fan and he wrote an entire song on this general theme....House Where Nobody Lives

"WHat makes a house grand, ain't the roof or the doors,

If there's love in a house, it's a palace for sure.

WIthout love, ain't nothing but a house,

A house where nobody lives.

 

[lady luck]

i agree with what everyone has been saying - that after his mother died the warmth and 'motherly love' that children recieve was gone, and all he had was his father who was a tough irish man who didn't care for affection and love (because of how he's been brought up etc)

my heart feels for bono when i hear that. I was brought up in a house full of love but i understand how devestating and lost someone could feel without having that unconditional love growing up.

but i think he is a fantastic father himself, and he gets his unconditonal love now, which may help with the past

 

[SiW87]

Great post Lady luck

 

[babyman]

you've hit the bull's eye, luck! good.................................... very intense

 

[lady luck]