A Sort of Homecoming; Preminition of Africa?

[JCOSTER]

While listening to A Sort of Homecoming (for the millionth time) it struck me in a different way.

I was thinking that the words that were written in 83/84 really have something to do with the crisis going on all over in Africa today. The terror, heartache and the hope, will and dream of the African people.

And you know it's time to go
Through the sleet and driving snow(time to move on for safety/food)

Across the fields of mourning
(the thousands of people dying there)

To a light that’s in the distance
(Hope for the future)

And you hunger for the time
Time to heal, desire, time
And your earth moves beneath
Your own dream landscape
(just dream of a better future for the people of Africa)

Oh, on borderland we run
I'll be there, I'll be there
A high road
A high road out from here
They leave their homes or this life on earth with dignity)

The city walls are all pulled down
The dust a smokescreen all around
See faces ploughed like fields
That once gave no resistance
(all the fighting, dishonesty,corruption to people who can't fight back.)

And we live by the side of the road
On the side of a hill as the valley explodes
Dislocated, suffocated
The land grows weary of its own
(People are displaced due to the fighting & search of food, even the land gives up)


Oh, on borderland we run and still we run
We run and don't look back
I'll be there, I'll be there
Tonight, tonight
Trying to escape crisis, they run from town to town)

I'll be there tonight
I'll believe
I’ll be there so hold on
I’ll be there tonight
Tonight
(Someone will help don't give up hope)

The wind will crack in wintertime
This bomb-blast lightning waltz
No spoken words, just a scream
(Africans being killed w/o reason, w/o warning)

Tonight we’ll build a bridge across the sea and land
See the sky, the burning rain
She will die and live again
Tonight
(People all over will come out to help and Africa will be reborn.)


And your heart beats so slow
Through the rain and fallen snow
Across the fields of mourning
To a light that’s in the distance

Oh, don't sorrow,
No don't weep for tonight, at last
I am coming home
I am coming home
(Don't be sad, don't cry, for heaven is your real home.)

I know the song was written about something else but IMO I can see how it can strongly relate to the issues of Africa.

PS. Don't shoot me down, just an observation.

 

[rihannsu]

It is actually astounding how many of Bono's lyrics can be seen as prophetic when looked at in hindsight. For instance, "New Year's Day" written about Solidarity and then Walesa being released on New Year's Day after the song was already written, "Please" seems to predict 9/11. The entire ATYCLB album seemed written specifically for a post 9/11 world. "Miracle Drug" has sections that seem specifically for Edge's family battle with disease. And think about how many of those songs are prayer and praise when they needed that so much to deal with what they were going through. The songs they write seem to become even more relevant after the fact. Bono has commented on his songwriting as trying to put into words the images he sees in his head. Who's to say he isn't seeing visions? Stranger things have happened.

How many times in the early 80's did he joke in interviews about counseling world leaders, meeting the Pope, etc. and look at him now. In the late 80's he talked about their image interfering in communication because their seriousness was turning people off and he wasn't getting through to them anymore. So they reinvented themselves and as a result when the Jubilee folks came knocking at his door he was able to help. Twenty years of developing a relationship with the world that allowed him the power to open doors, and hearts and minds. You could say that Bono was made for this time, this cause, this emergency. An entire career spent honing his skills at communicating a message across all borders brought to bear on communicating to the world about Africa. If there is anyone in the world that I would say God hand picked for a job it would be Bono working on behalf of Africa.

Dana

 

[JCOSTER]

I totally and fully agree with you Dana. Well said!

 

[kingofsorrow]

It is actually astounding how many of Bono's lyrics can be seen as prophetic when looked at in hindsight. For instance, "New Year's Day" written about Solidarity and then Walesa being released on New Year's Day after the song was already written, "Please" seems to predict 9/11. The entire ATYCLB album seemed written specifically for a post 9/11 world. "Miracle Drug" has sections that seem specifically for Edge's family battle with disease. And think about how many of those songs are prayer and praise when they needed that so much to deal with what they were going through. The songs they write seem to become even more relevant after the fact. Bono has commented on his songwriting as trying to put into words the images he sees in his head. Who's to say he isn't seeing visions? Stranger things have happened.

How many times in the early 80's did he joke in interviews about counseling world leaders, meeting the Pope, etc. and look at him now. In the late 80's he talked about their image interfering in communication because their seriousness was turning people off and he wasn't getting through to them anymore. So they reinvented themselves and as a result when the Jubilee folks came knocking at his door he was able to help. Twenty years of developing a relationship with the world that allowed him the power to open doors, and hearts and minds. You could say that Bono was made for this time, this cause, this emergency. An entire career spent honing his skills at communicating a message across all borders brought to bear on communicating to the world about Africa. If there is anyone in the world that I would say God hand picked for a job it would be Bono working on behalf of Africa.

Dana

very well put my fellow floridian.

 

[JCOSTER]

After 9/11 ATYCLB just blew me out of the water. I couldn't believe that 2 months later I was hearing words that related so very well to that day and afterward.

 

[Alisaura]

I dunno about premonitions and visions, but the way Bono's lyrics can be interpreted in many ways (using the word "vague" doesn't seem quite right) means that the lyrics lend themselves to being applied to specific events in a non-specific way, after the fact.
Look at Nostrodamus' prophecies (or any prophecy) - they are vague and non-specific, yet a lot of people are convinced, after the fact, that he was predicting any number of events that happened long after his death.
(I'm not saying he didn't, mind you... I'm just saying that anyone can see a prophecy in a set of vague words, after the allegedly prophesied event. The human mind is very good at picking out patterns and connections like that.)

Just my humble opinion...

And for the record, that bit in Please about 'September, streets capsizing, etc' spooked me after September 11 too.

 

[Jeannieco]

It is actually astounding how many of Bono's lyrics can be seen as prophetic when looked at in hindsight. For instance, "New Year's Day" written about Solidarity and then Walesa being released on New Year's Day after the song was already written, "Please" seems to predict 9/11. The entire ATYCLB album seemed written specifically for a post 9/11 world. "Miracle Drug" has sections that seem specifically for Edge's family battle with disease. And think about how many of those songs are prayer and praise when they needed that so much to deal with what they were going through. The songs they write seem to become even more relevant after the fact. Bono has commented on his songwriting as trying to put into words the images he sees in his head. Who's to say he isn't seeing visions? Stranger things have happened.

How many times in the early 80's did he joke in interviews about counseling world leaders, meeting the Pope, etc. and look at him now. In the late 80's he talked about their image interfering in communication because their seriousness was turning people off and he wasn't getting through to them anymore. So they reinvented themselves and as a result when the Jubilee folks came knocking at his door he was able to help. Twenty years of developing a relationship with the world that allowed him the power to open doors, and hearts and minds. You could say that Bono was made for this time, this cause, this emergency. An entire career spent honing his skills at communicating a message across all borders brought to bear on communicating to the world about Africa. If there is anyone in the world that I would say God hand picked for a job it would be Bono working on behalf of Africa.

Dana

I totally agree with you also! It's been said a million times but never gets old, it's about so much more than the music, I really think they/(Bono espeically) have a special purpose in this life and are using the gifts God gave them in such brillant ways, to help heal, enlighten, encourage, and lift us up!
I love reading in U2byU2 about the "electrical storms" Bono talks about having just after his mother passed away. He said his mind slipped and he was having visions and disturbing energy around him. He definitely has been touched by God's power and grace and it is spilling onto us. It freaks me out when I think about what he is accomplishing and how prophetic his lyrics are.

 

[Mogi]

Yeah, I think Bono has something more than Guinness passing through him. I do believe that many of our inspirations come from "other sources" and I think Bono, maybe unknowingly, has tapped into that.
Zoo TV points to this too. THink about it. 1991-1992, nobody really knew anything about the internet. We were really quite different then with the power of mass media and its effects on us. Zoo TV was quite prophetic about the oversaturation of media, advertising and technology in our lives, much more than we even thought about at the time. Now it is quite obvious, but then no.
In fact, the whole 90´s U2 was a prophetic social commentary on what we became in the 00´s. Look at the success of No Logo in 2000. The same idea was essentially on tour with Popmart.
Ok Computer? Those ideas were already being done on Zoo TV.
Kid A? Those ideas done on Popmart.
I think the last two albums will prove to be quite prophetic soon. I think we are getting ready to hit the wall of consumerism and look for better ways of simple simplicity.

 

[Jeannieco]

Yeah, I think Bono has something more than Guinness passing through him. I do believe that many of our inspirations come from "other sources" and I think Bono, maybe unknowingly, has tapped into that.
Zoo TV points to this too. THink about it. 1991-1992, nobody really knew anything about the internet. We were really quite different then with the power of mass media and its effects on us. Zoo TV was quite prophetic about the oversaturation of media, advertising and technology in our lives, much more than we even thought about at the time. Now it is quite obvious, but then no.
In fact, the whole 90´s U2 was a prophetic social commentary on what we became in the 00´s. Look at the success of No Logo in 2000. The same idea was essentially on tour with Popmart.
Ok Computer? Those ideas were already being done on Zoo TV.
Kid A? Those ideas done on Popmart.
I think the last two albums will prove to be quite prophetic soon. I think we are getting ready to hit the wall of consumerism and look for better ways of simple simplicity.

Exactly! The early nineties they were already noting the "Reality TV" genre, and throwing it back at us with the video cams via irony. "You haven't come to a rock show to watch TV now have ya?"
That observation was so far ahead of it's time, it's scary, it's like they knew where we were headed!

 

[U2Kitten]

I read or heard somewhere, in the distant past, that ASOH was based on an allegedly true story of an Irish soldier killed in WWI, but whose apparition appeared to his sister in a field on the family farm at the time he died on the battlefield, hence, a SORT of homecoming. The lyrics do fit such a story.I prefer to believe that, because it's cool!

 

[Jeannieco]

I read or heard somewhere, in the distant past, that ASOH was based on an allegedly true story of an Irish soldier killed in WWI, but whose apparition appeared to his sister in a field on the family farm at the time he died on the battlefield, hence, a SORT of homecoming. The lyrics do fit such a story.I prefer to believe that, because it's cool!

Awesome! That is cool. I could see Bono writing it from that perspective, it makes total sense.
love it!

 

[Alisaura]

Thanks for that U2Kitten, I never had any idea what the song was supposed to be about.