..A Poor Wayfaring Stranger...

some poems make good songs. and likewise, some songs are good poems. but in neither case is it certain. this that I shall post below does, I think, fit into both categories. without further ado, then, here is U2's "The Wanderer". (for some reason this vaguely calls to mind Ecclesiastes. could anyone say why it might?)


I went out walking through streets paved with gold
Lifted some stones
Saw the skin and bones of a city without a soul
I went out walking under an atomic sky
Where the ground won't turn and the rain
It burns like the tears when I said goodbye

Yeah I went with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering

I went drifting through the capitals of tin
Where men can't walk or freely talk
And sons turn their fathers in
I stopped outside a church house
Where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they don't want God in it
I went out riding down that old eight lane
I passed by a thousand signs
Looking for my own name

I went with nothing
But the thought you'd be there too
Looking for you

I went out there in search of experience
To taste and to touch
and to feel as much
as a man can before he repents

I went out searching, looking for one good man
A spirit who would not bend or break
Who would sit at his father's right hand
I went out walking with a bible and a gun
The word of God lay heavy on my heart
I was sure I was the one
Now Jesus, don't you wait up
Jesus I'll be home soon
Yeah, I went out for the papers
Told her I'd be back by noon

Yeah, I left with nothing
But the thought you'd be there too
Went looking for you

Yeah, I left with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering

Good Day...