The meaning and significance of U2 lyrics is the source of many blogs and websites and a few books. There is a great deal of mystery and misdirection from the band members themselves who rarely give a straight answers to questions about lyrics. So at best, what follows is an exercise in eisegesis, a reading into the text of the songs, one in which I the reader supply the framework to find a meaning that may or may not have been planted there by the author and the band. With any such project, I realise I may have missed the point entirely… However, I am captured by this album and in particular the narrative that spans the tracks. I’ll only manage touch on that in this post as I listen to the first two tracks; No Line on the Horizon and Magnificent.
“No Line on the Horizon [NLOTH] starts loud and fast, almost too difficult to keep up with. The girl Bono is singing about is my life; I am her and she is me… she, it, changes everyday, one day it is quiet, the next it is big; my life is open to the whole of the universe as it streams across my screen. I give myself to too many things, the love I have is pouring out of my heart… there’s too much, too many, infinity is where it starts and infinity does contain a finish. I have too many options, too many ways, too many possibilities. Times of the day, days of the week, seasons of the year are diffused as they are no longer a constraint and do not constrict the openings through which I can pass. I can loose myself scheming schemes and hatching plots. Choice paralysis is my constant headache and I constantly exercise my right to change my mind. I am lost, all at sea, in the confusing sounds of the sirens of choice and I have forgotten where I am going! There is no line on the horizon. My life is full of means and the lack ends. I have many ways to get there but I am no longer sure where it is that I am going, and yet I am longing to get somewhere, anywhere, some place, I need to get away – there is NO LINE ON THE HORIZON !”
I feel myself spinning and there is nothing and everything to see. This is where NLOTH leaves you. Zygmunt Bauman describes the scene as “unprecedented vistas” where the “freedom of self-creation has never before achieved such breathtaking scope, simultaneously exciting and frightening. Never before has the need for orientation points and helpful guides been as strong or as painfully felt.” I find myself in NLOTH; its poetry, noise and speed captures those hidden and nagging feelings that I lack a vocabulary to express meaningfully. What is there to provide an orientation? Where can I look for a stable place in the changing sea? Who is there that can save me from this place?
Magnificent, Magnificent, I was born, I was born to be with you in this space and time. In the reality of a life without a place to go, without an orientating point, without a helpful guide, I, like Bono, turn to the Magnificent One!
Magnificent plants your feet firmly on the ground, in the here and now, and orientates you towards the ‘you’ – Magnificent. It is in part Bono’s testimony of his orientation, his ‘line on the horizon’ that enables him to navigate the changing seas in which his life is cast. To know you, to sing to you, to love you, to be marked by the love of you and from you. Love, God’s love, is the line on the horizon; always there, being the ever present guide and always much bigger than you ever thought it was.
U2 have captured the reality of most inhabitants at the front-line of western culture in a way that the church has not managed to engage with. It is here that the following Jesus needs to make sense, in the wide horizons of life in which orientation is painfully rare and difficult to find. It is easy to say that the answer you are looking for is Jesus, managing to express the question is much much harder. For those who have grasped the answer, the question is no longer an issue, at least that is the illusion they live with. Having hold of Jesus does automatically mean all lives issues are solved, especially when you do not know what the issues are. Similarly, if we are offering Jesus to those who do not and have not yet, the offer makes little if no sense if there is no question being asked, or at least a pertinent one. Here we hear not only U2 offer the Magnificent answer, we hear them express the question sufficiently and eloquently.
No Line on the Horizon is the album title and title of the first track. Album released 27 February 2009. Listen on Spotify. Buy on itunes.
Art of Life, Zygmunt Bauman, Polity, 2008. Quote from page 87. Buy at Amazon UK
