Amazing Springsteen quote about U2

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

swissair135

The Fly
Joined
Nov 1, 2002
Messages
64
"How do you find God unless he's in your heart, in your desire, in your feet? I believe this is a big part of what's kept their band together all of these years. "


springsteen at induction ceremony
 
I was kinda struck by the Isaiah paraphrase in Bruce's speech....I wrote about it in my journal:

...And It Burned Like Fire, This Burning Desire....
I was watching the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame video today and was really struck by this quote from Bruce: ‘A great rock band searches for the same kind of combustible force that fuelled the expansion of the universe after the big bang. You want the earth to shake and spit fire, you want the sky to split apart and for God to pour out. It's embarrassing to want so much and to expect so much from music, except sometimes it happens."

I was so taken with this paraphrase from Isaiah. The Old Testament prophet, in a moment of personal bewilderment and self-doubt, seeks solace within the confines of the temple. And within that temple, the ground shakes, angels appear and God pours Himself out in the appearance of smoke. Isaiah immediatley fears his own undoing...for gazing upon the image of God Himself will destroy an individual. An angel touches Isaiah's lips with a burning coal and makes him pure. Through the experience of the profane, he becomes whole.

It is in this way I can understand my deep connection to U2. This group of four men somehow manage to straddle the line of this world and of some other world of which nobody can completley understand or imagine, but rather one we can only catch rare glimpses of from time to time. In the presence of thier songs I can see these snapshots of another plane of being.

There is a power in music, it is not a static force. Music is a language anyone can speak...it crosses national lines and intersects hearts. It can bind and it can move. Without a word, the notes can affect your mood and change the atmosphere of the space you occupy. There is a fragility and a strength in U2's music. There is something in me, something from deep inside that shouts Yes in response to their songs. There is something in me that recognizes a feeling I can't articulate but it is something I know, even if only subconsciously.

Bruce may think it is 'embarassing' to want so much from music. But from the way I see it, perhaps he has it backwards. Isn't that what should be expected from music? I can imagine the reason the first person to ever create a melody did so because there was no other way to convey the emotional terrain of his soul. There was a deep rooted desire to connect to the divine and there was no word or gesture that would fit.

Now I have this picture in my head....Bono on his eighteenth birthday, looking out his bedroom window and feeling full of doubt and uncertainty, uncomfortable with a feeling that his house was pulled down around him, because after the death of his mother that house was no longer a home -- it was just a house. His father, who never spoke of his wife after her death, is playing opera on the radio downstairs. Bono wonders if perhaps, in some way, it is the music that allows his father to connect with her again, for words aren't needed when the music can express the heart's longings. Bono reaches for a notebook and begins to pen the lyrics to "Out Of Control"--a song that speaks of birth and death, life's only certainties, and the fact those certainties are not in one's own hands but rather God's...

Bono said once, "Music can change the world because it can change people." I'm inclined to agree. Music is the same fuel to the force behind creation, however fleeting and quick burning it may appear to our eyes, when harnessed in just the right manner. Music can change people, it can change their hearts, their passions and their souls. It is the act of God sonically pouring Himself out through His people that has the power to purify one's mind and make the heart clean.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom