U2's No Line on the Horizon

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I love the new U2 album. It's creative, different, stretchy, but still U2. One of my favorite cuts is "White As Snow," and its lyrics are just the kind of thing I like---kind of atmospheric and oblique, but not so artsy-fartsy as to be totally incomprehensible. Here are the lyrics:


White as Snow Lyrics
by U2


Where I came from there were no hills at all
The land was flat, the highway straight and wide
My brother and I would drive for hours
Like we had years instead of days
Our faces as pale as the dirty snow

Once I knew there was a love divine
Then came a time I thought it knew me not
Who can forgive forgiveness where forgiveness is not
Only the lamb as white as snow

And the water, it was icy
As it washed over me
And the moon shone above me

Now this dry ground, it bears no fruit at all
Only poppies laugh under the crescent moon
The road refuses strangers
The land, the seeds we sow
Where might we find the lamb as white as snow

As boys we would go hunting in the woods
To sleep the night shooting out the stars
Now the wolves are every passing stranger
Every face we cannot know
If only a heart could be as white as snow
If only a heart could be as white as snow
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I like how the theme of the song, redemption and hunger for goodness within oneself and others, is tied in with the concrete fact of the landscape. And isn't it true that when we see newly fallen snow there's something magical about it, something that inspires belief in (or at least a wish for) perfection and beauty. And then the next day the trucks have rolled over it, and the dogs have peed on it, and the plows have pushed it around, and we're back in our old pedestrian, imperfect, always-ruining-things world. But the momentary sight of that peace and beauty lodges in our hearts and tugs at our desire to something better.
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