Song of the Week: U2's "Yahweh"

The player for the featured "Song of the Week" can be found on the upper right corner of the weblog for one week.

U2 and their frontman, Bono, have released some intriguing songs over the years. On their latest project, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the band lifts up the following prayer. "Yahweh" is one of the ways to pronounce the name God gave to Moses at the burning bush--translated "I AM." The more popular pronunciation of the Hebrew consonants is "Jehovah," but "Yahweh" is well-known, too. This is a prayer lifted up from a man very familiar with the Bible--and very familiar with the brokenness within him and around him:

Take these shoes
Click clacking down some dead end street
Take these shoes
And make them fit

Take this shirt
Polyester white trash made in nowhere
Take this shirt
And make it clean, clean
Take this soul
Stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul
And make it sing

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn

Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don't make a fist, no
Take this mouth
So quick to criticise
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn
Still waiting for the dawn, the sun is coming up
The sun is coming up on the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, tell me now
Why the dark before the dawn?

Take this city
A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city
If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart
Take this heart
Take this heart
And make it break