Despite the trite chorus, this song is jam-packed with meaningful lyrics that chart a course of moving through life with joy, sacrifice, and mission as we move up, “not a hill but a mountain” which requires that we “believe not doubt.”
Bono points us toward the light in a life that can be difficult and dark, a place where we have to “shout in the darkness” to keep out sanity and to God to “still our soul.”
Yeah, thanks to Zac I am streaming the new album for free from here right now. Select No Line On the Horizon from the drop down menu in the player. Killer. The first two tracks are mellow but contagious.
Get On Your Boots
The first release off of No Line On the Horizon was sort of disappointing. “Get on Your Boots” is super-pop not vintage U2, but this is something I have come to expect from their first radio releases (Discotheque/Pop, Vertigo/Atomic Bomb, etc). However, the reviews I keep reading hold out the promise of yet another U2 reinvention with Lanois tinkering with the sound quite a bit. It’s going to be a progressive album.
Levitate (Spirit Come on Down)
Austin 360’s review strikes a similar chord. In fact, Joe Gross gives us a track line-up from
best to worst: 4-3-2-1-7-8-9-11. And as if the new album wasn’t enough, U2 has released ‘U2:Medium, Rare and Remastered‘ a limited edition double disk collection of rare tracks and lost early cuts spanning three decades in the studio with U2.The catch is a $50 members fee to U2.com, which came in handy for me during Atomic Bomb tour, affording me the opportunity to buy tickets ahead of the crowd. Plus, you do get access to some cool stuff. You can listen to “Levitate” a surging anthem that reverberates with spiritual power, a song I’ll be singing the rest of the day. The lyrics dip into that great b-side “Always” from All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Enjoy!
McCormick offers a great review of U2’s forthcoming No Line On the Horizon. An excerpt:
To me, it is probably the album ‘Zooropa’ was supposed to be, building on the sonic architecture of classic U2 and taking it into the pop stratosphere. But what a place for a band to be, in orbit around their own myth, making music that bounces off the inside of a listeners skull, charged with ideas and emotions, groovy enough to want to dance to, melodic enough to make you sing along, soulful enough to cherish, philosophical enough to inspire, and with so many killer tracks it might as well be a latterday greatest hits. It is, at the very least, an album to speak of in the same breath as their best and what other band of their longevity can boast of that?
read the rest…to see what Bono thinks…
