Thursday, July 23, 2009



I am going to Dublin tomorrow to see U2.

They have been concluding their concerts
with this track.
It is perhaps the most meaningful
from their new album.
It is called -
The moment of surrender::




I tied myself with wire
To let the horses roam free
Playing with the fire
Until the fire played with me

The stone was semi-precious
We were barely conscious
Two souls too smart to be
In the realm of certainty
Even on our wedding day

We set ourselves on fire
Oh God, do not deny her
It’s not if I believe in love
If love believes in me
Oh, believe in me

At the moment of surrender
I folded to my knees
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me

I’ve been in every black hole
At the altar of the dark star
My body’s now a begging bowl
That’s begging to get back, begging to get back
To my heart
To the rhythm of my soul
To the rhythm of my unconsciousness
To the rhythm that yearns
To be released from control

I was punching in the numbers at the ATM machine
I could see in the reflection
A face staring back at me
At the moment of surrender
Of vision over visibility
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me

I was speeding on the subway
Through the stations of the cross
Every eye looking every other way
Counting down ’til the train would stop

At the moment of surrender
Of vision of over visibility
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Moment of Surrender tells the tale of a lost soul,
borrowing an Alcoholics Anonymous term
for the moment an addict admits helplessness.

"The character in the song is a junkie, so that's where I got it,"
says Bono, who has written about heroin addiction before,
most famously on Bad, from The Unforgettable Fire Album.

"I've been surrounded a lot in my personal life by addiction -
- in the last few years, in particular,"

Bono says. "I know a lot of people -- not least the bass player in the band -- who have had to deal with their demons in courageous ways."

In the Nineties -- around the time he was engaged to Naomi Campbell -- Clayton grappled with alcoholism, and went to AA himself.

"And maybe there's a part of me that thinks, 'Wow, I'm just an inch away,''' Bono continues. "There's no doubt about the fact that I have a wild streak and I'd be very capable of setting fire to myself. So, you know, I don't go to church for the view."

Moment includes a phrase that's close to sacred for Bono:

"vision over visibility".

Until now, he never found a home for it in a song, but he used it as a title for a painted self-portrait in the Eighties, placed it in poems and essays, and even squeezed it into a live version of Rockin' in the Free World.

"It's an idea that I've held on to quite tightly over the years," he says.
"It's like Martin Luther King's speech -
- the moment when you see the place,
but you can't see yet how to get there."

The slogan stands for an insistence on looking past what you can see in favour of what could be.

For Bono, the world as it is will never be enough. "I'm not the tattooing kind, but if I had a tattoo, that would be it," he says.

"Elvis had 'taking care of business'.
I've got 'vision over visibility'."