With Love, Or Without Love

[spanisheyes]

Love's face is both fragile, and at the same time powerful in the hands of those who know not the touch of another this day, like a stinging rain when no protection is to be found, or the one who beholds love with all the contentment that one can experience when it comes like a cool breeze cutting through a blistering, hot day.

U2 have written many songs about love, but to me, no one is as poignant this day as 'With or Without You'. It is a song that everyone can relate to, can find some source of comfort that accentuates what it feels like to be all at once alone, or if fortunate, in the company of a another.

Everything about the opening strains of instruments speaks of the complex intricacies that we find in relationships. You can almost hear in The Edge's guitar, the heart break of a relationship beginning to crumble. Adam's bassline resounds with a longing for lost love, for a higher love, for love's contentment. His bass resonates through the body like a serpent looking for it's next prey. Hoping to stir an emotion in a bitterly cold, callous heart.

The primal whisper begins, almost prayer like as to not awaken the lover, or maybe even a longing for something which we do not yet possess...

See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side
I wait for you

We are made with such patience as humans, and yet that very same patience imprisons us. Love is enduring, but what you don't have, you seem to want it now. Rememberance is a gift, but it can also feel like a bitter pill that we must continually take. But what do you see, or what do you do when you look intently, and their is nothing that resembles what your heart longs for. The voice still strong, but at the same time vulnerable, speaks...

Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you

With or without you
With or without you

Through the storm we reach the shore
You give it all but I want more
And I'm waiting for you

With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you

But just as fire burns to the extent that those things flammable are given to it to keep the flames and heat remaining, we realize too that we must give ourselves to something, maybe even Someone. Their is a cost involved, and the cost sometimes hurts, and it always involves the risk of exposing of one who is wrapped in uncertainty, and doubt, or as spoken of by one writer 'with anxiety, doubt and even guilt wrapped up in it'. The choice is still ours, and no one can take that away. The once primal whisper begins to turn into a scream...

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away

Now that I'm open, I realize that I may have to suffer the retaliation of self surrender and ego loss, and though it seems that I've made the ultimate mistake, I also realize I've reached the dimension that spirals me all at once from erotic love to agape love, even into the hands of Love. From within these hands, a voice claws out from the throat of bewilderment singing...

My hands are tied
My body bruised, she's got me with
Nothing to win and
Nothing left to lose

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away

With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you

With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you
With or without you

A fading guitar, a serene bass, the drum rhythm keeping time...exhuasted, exhilarated, despairing, hopeful, the soul bleeds into the night, but our heart resonates with unwavering faith in the sanctuary of our inner self, even with love or without love. In closing, wrapped with the beautiful, complex strains lingering that is 'With or Without You', we still hear the voice as it fades from a scream to a rapturous declaration...yeah, will shine like stars in the summer night, will shine like stars in the winter night, one heart, one hope, one love...the song ends, but the Song has just begun.

Chris

[Ana]

WOW Great review of the song, Chris!

[SkeeK]

I love these posts of yours.. I sure hope someone has made sure they are all being archived, I don't really have the time. Really, I'm always really happy when you post one of these, they are so wonderful.. I think you should make a webpage with all of them or something.