2.20.24

I’m hanging on

You’re all that’s left to hold on to

Unless my memory is failing me (and let’s be honest; that could be the case), U2’s 1987 Joshua Tree album was the recording that helped me understand that when it’s done right, music is about a lot more than music and lyrics.

I mean, there was We Are The World a few years before, but that also felt like more of a well-intentioned stunt than actual music. Joshua Tree was different.

It told stories of humanity, struggle, spirituality, and passion in a way I hadn’t yet experienced. And a big part of that was Bono’s voice.

When he sings the story of Red Hill Mining Town, he is singing the stories of families and communities torn asunder by the National Union of Mineworkers’ 1984 strike and Margaret Thatcher’s opposition to that strike. It was an ugly time in the United Kingdom, and Bono sings about it in a heart rending fashion.

Red Hill Mining Town is a song about hurt and frustration and desperately looking for a way forward. It’s very much a song of its time, but it’s also timeless in its yearning to hold on to what was, even as what was is slipping through our hands.

There’s a whole lot of heartbreak in this song, but there’s also comfort. Comfort in the connectedness of humanity. We are never alone in our suffering. Others have traveled this way before, and they found a way forward. And so it goes for those of us struggling now.

There’s someone there to hold onto. And each of us has to decide if we’re going to take that support or deny it.