In the comments on Songbook #5, I was reminded that Bono said he wrote the central verse of U2s New Years Day with Solidaritys struggle in mind. My reply there lays out the erotic and political elements any full analysis of that song would address, and why the . . . . Continue Reading »
One night in early 1983, my teenaged-Christian-60s-obsessed-socialist/pacifist-leaning self heard this song on the radio. I had not heard U2 before, and I was thrilled. Here was a band politically committed in a way that smacked of the idealism of the 60s I had been reading about in library books, . . . . Continue Reading »
The Poetic Wisdom Paradox, which I abbreviate as the PWP, works as follows. A wise poet, let us say Homer, wants to convey wisdom in his poetic creation. Unlike the bohemian model of the underground poet satisfied with a tiny audience, we assume he begins with the poets traditional desire to . . . . Continue Reading »