U2 LiveJournal

I'm just sitting here, listening to "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and I thought I'd test the temperature of each fan in the community by starting something interesting:

Every day, starting with tonight, I'm gonna pick a random song from the U2 canon and ask for anyone's opinion, good or bad, in the community on that particular song. Tonight's choice is obviously:

"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" from The Joshua Tree (1987)

I know it's gonna be a little slanted towards the positive side of things, but even U2 has its warts and songs that fans aren't really crazy about. It's the nature of anything subjective, whether it be artists or music or movies. Give it a shot!

My thought: Well, I love "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" personally. But the amazing thing is that I haven't really grown to love it until a couple of months ago. I've heard it many times on the radio and at first, I found the song a little too overlong and mellow to be the sort of anthemic rock that U2 is most well-known for. Listening to it now, I marvel at how natural-sounding Bono's voice is when it melds with the guitar base accompianment and steady drum beat. The lyrics are about as passionate as you're gonna find on any U2 song. In that, the combination is quite formidable and produces a really sturdy song that flows naturally and is never insistent on anything. It bleeds passion and pride and is quite evocative. The fact that it is one of the key songs on what many consider to be the best album they have ever made also adds to the power of the song, I think.

Any and all thoughts are, once again, very much welcome!

( Dress up like a car crash)

From:	leelee_cakes
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 05:29 am (UTC)

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ISHFWILF is one of my favourite U2 songs. Amusingly enough, some of the reasons you stated as to why you didn't like it at first are why I do like it. I love the mellow tempo, the blending of the sounds. I love singing it in my car *g*.

is never insistent on anything This is another thing that I agree with you on. There is such a smooth, peaceful feeling through the song.

I actually really love this idea. Sort of a countdown to tour and everyone heading out for their concerts!

Leelee

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From:	hue126
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 05:31 am (UTC)

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I love singing it in the car, too!

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From:	mmmmjournal
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 05:30 am (UTC)

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Good song.... but overplayed. I sometimes wish they'd expose more of the album on the radio. You only hear the first three songs and MAYBE "Bullet the Blue Sky" once in a while. That whole album is so good, I think it's a shame that radio stations only play the same few songs.

I like the original best of all, though, compared to any live version I've heard.

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From:	parallel_rhythm
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 05:31 am (UTC)

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For me... I love this song. While it's not an absolute pops-into-my-head-everytime-somebody-asks-me-what-my-favorite-U2-song-is, it's definitely up there with the best. This was one of those songs that when I first got really into them 2 years ago, I heard it and was like "oh my god, this is them?!? I love this song!" Bono's voice... pure heaven. Absolute essential for any new fans. And my favorite line? "I have spoke with the tongue of angels, I have held the hand of the devil." *SIGH*

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From:	notasecretagent
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 05:39 am (UTC)

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Both the song and the Neverending Soda icon get a double thumbs-up from me.

I don't have deep things to say about the song, mostly because I have been drinking. Suffice to say that The Joshua Tree is to me what Heaven sounds like. Bono's voice will never be better, and if there is ever again an album in which every. Single. SOng. Moves me as much as The Joshua Tree does, the world will probably end. Phenomenal song, phenomenal album, phenomenal band.

Have I mentioned lately that I love U2? Because I do, so much.

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From:	forsberg21
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 05:53 am (UTC)

I believe in the Kingdom Come

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This was actually my first favorite song. I've always thought about the references in the song to the Kingdom Come; I was raised Catholic, and that kind of stuff has always seemed intriguing to me regardless of the fact that I no longer consider myself a full-time Catholic. I didn't really realize how "Catholic" I was raised until, when writing down the lyrics for myself and later seeing lyrics written down by someone else, I had always capitalized Kingdom Come. I didn't realize that I capitalized it until I had seen someone else not do so (you know, Catholics and capitalizing Holy and Him, etc...). I don't think anyone else would write it like that unless they had learned, at some point, what the phrase references.

(And just a note to that, they capitalize it on the U2 website...)

Favorite lyrics from "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For":
I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
But yes I'm still running

You broke the bonds, and you
Loosened the chains
Carried the cross of my shame
Oh my shame, you know I believe it

I see the most passion in this, for some reason.

And I agree with the person who said that "Bullet the Blue Sky" should be played more often. That's a greaat song. Outside, is America</>...

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From:	carobanano
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 05:55 am (UTC)

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I decided recently that this must be my favorite U2 song, mainly for all of the memories and feelings it evokes in me. Strange as it may sound, I feel like I have a spiritual connection to it. ISHFWILF (as well as JT) have helped me through some tough stuff. :)

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From:	walrusoct9
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 06:11 am (UTC)

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The original version is one of the U2 songs I always skip, but I love the Rattle & Hum version, since anything sounds cool wtih a gospel choir on it.

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From:	billhelm
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 06:11 am (UTC)

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Meh... never been one of my favorites, personally.

I do have fond memories of the video though, where they were walking down the strip in Reno.

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From:	arcmorality
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 05:49 pm (UTC)

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Its Vegas.

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From:	axver
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 09:53 am (UTC)

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The amazing thing about The Joshua Tree is that the quality of work on that album is so incredible that I simply cannot rank ISHFWILF in the top half. I think it is an amazing song and a crucial element of the holy trinity that opens that album, but U2 really went above and beyond with the whole Joshua Tree album and made a number of even better songs.

ISHFWILF definitely features some of Bono's best and most honest lyrics.

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From:	corianderstem
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 08:38 pm (UTC)

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I'm with you. It's an amazing song, very "realized" if you will. Bono's vocal is amazing in it - he's just at the tip-top of his range the whole time, and you keep waiting for his voice to break, but he just keeps it going.

But yeah, I skip it a lot. It's just too overplayed. My favorite version is the movie version - not the soundtrack. I like the bare bones version, and prefer the choir's addition in the movie, as opposed to the live concert version.

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From:	wydok
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 12:14 pm (UTC)

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One of my favorites, but to me it's a sad song, because I ask myself "why it is he can't find what he's looking for?" and "what is it that he is looking for?" The speaker obviously believes in a higher power and the afterlife, but I wonder what exactly it is the person is searching for and why he hasn't found it in God.

Still, it's a very powerful message about God. I think I like the Rattle and Hum version better than The Joshua Tree version, but I like both.

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From:	jenday
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 04:33 pm (UTC)

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What an interesting thought! I sort of see what you're saying here and now when I listen to the song, I think I'll have this image in my head. I can relate to that thought. It's not that I believe that I couldn't find everything that I'm looking for in God, but maybe... just maybe that hesitance to actually SEE what it is that you're looking for.

That's the truly great thing that my eyes have been opened to lately about U2's lyrics. (I really tend to focus on lyrics while listening to music) They're so simplistic, yet have such a wealth of meaning woven into them!

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From:	boomtownrat
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 03:30 pm (UTC)

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It's a great song, it would beat the pants off a song by nearly any other band I can think of off the top of my head, and it's consistently one of their greatest live moments. It gives me goosebumps and swells my heart when I see the red lights and hear the first few notes of this song. And yet... I think they've done far better, though possibly less-acknowledged songs. That's how great they are.

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From:	septembergrrl
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 03:38 pm (UTC)

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Don't shoot me, but I've never liked it much. For one, I'm not especially comfortable with overt religion, and it's basically a gospel song. For another, it's just so overplayed, and has been for 17 years now, so I'm sort of sick of it. I've tried to get past those things and just hear it as music, but it doesn't work for me.

So you got at least one negative opinion!

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From:	clayboy103177
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 05:56 pm (UTC)

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Ya I know what you mean, what really saves the song for me though, is that it seems to be more about Doubt rather than Faith...

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From:	arcmorality
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 05:50 pm (UTC)

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Its probably my fave U2 song. Amazing guitar work, not so sure Edge will ever beat that riff again.

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From:	fadedgalaxia
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 08:35 pm (UTC)

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This is the song that really got me hooked on U2. I think it kind of describes me, trying to find what it is I'm looking for. And the guitar rocks. It's one of my favorite videos, too.

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From:	canadanne
Date:	March 22nd, 2005 09:38 pm (UTC)

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I can't entirely decide what my opinion of this song is. I certainly like it, and it's great to sing along to, and it has one of my favourite U2 lyrics (I have held the hand of a devil, it was warm in the night). But at the same time, it's not exactly the most exciting song they've ever done, and not one that would spring to mind if someone asked me to list U2's best songs. It's not one that I'd ever be desperate to hear at a concert. I probably would have appreciated it more if I had carried on believing it was a kind of love song (as I originally assumed), but once you know it's a religious song it becomes hard to see it as anything else, and I'm not a religious person. So, I dunno. It's very good, but not one of my absolute favourites.

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( Dress up like a car crash)

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March 21st, 2005

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For @ 09:23 pm

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I believe in the Kingdom Come

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