A Sort of Homecoming

‎"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." ~Missy Earnest

And you know it's time to go, through the sleet and driving snow, across the fields of mourning light in the distance

Every time a U2 concert approaches, Joel asks what song I want to hear them play above all others. I have a list, and this is always at the very top.

And you hunger for the time, time to heal, desire time, and your earth moves beneath your own dream landscape

This is simply a brilliant song and, frankly, one of the few times when Bono actually hit it out of the park, lyrically speaking. I say this as a fan, U2 is more than the sum of their individual parts and Bono's shortcomings as a lyricict have often pained me (for nothing kills a fan more than to hear a lyric and to immediately think, "oh, if only you had said it this way").

On borderland we run, and still we run, we run and don't look back

When I was thirteen years old, I believed that all U2 songs were like this one; passionate, powerful, with flashes of brilliance. I didn't realize that I might never hear them perform this song live again. I don't think I was capable of realizing I would still be thinking and talking about this song twenty-five years later.

The wind will crack in winter time, this bomb blast lighted waltz, no spoken words, just a scream

For me, the mark of a truly amazing song is that it can change with time so that, regardless of what emotional upheaval you are experiencing, it is appropriate for the occasion. This song has, for me, expressed the emptiness I felt in adolescence, the loneliness I felt in college, my outrage over senseless wars, and, currently, my sadness over the death of a distant friend I never met in person.

Oh don't sorrow, no don't weep, for tonight, at last, I am coming home