A gold guitar

I went out for a walk last night, something I’ve been doing a lot of since the Lockdown started. Instead of the usual random choices from Spotify, this time I chose my companion. “Songs of Experience”.

“The end is not coming, the end is here”

Now I know it’s a metaphor, and I know what a lot of people think about U2. But. My brother and I often talk about what it must be like to have done your best work by the time you are 31, and know it’s almost impossible to get any better. Great for him and me, because in Achtung Baby, there is a multi-layered library of musical and lyrical completeness. Don’t bother arguing.

But. With Songs of Experience, now nearly 3 years old by the way (which in the 80s would have felt like another era, but now, just feels like yesterday), I think they’ve made their second best album.

“Every grand illusion, I would win and call it losing”.

Anyway, the walk was a short one. Just three miles around my block. Things to see beyond the sublime.

Although it was a lot greyer than that last night. But you get the general idea. Idyllic countrysideness. I also had to get back in order to torture myself by watching West Ham lose to my/our arch-rivals. Or “The Blue Filth” as I like to refer to them. I can’t write their real name, children might be reading.

And it was torture, because this was one of those rare occasions when our players could be bothered. It’s never the despair, always the hope. Which made it all so much worse. Denied a good goal by the wonders of modern technology. Went behind, unusually went in front only to predictably squander the lead. Defeat now looked certain.

But Holy Shit, wonder of wonders, a stunning move of incredible beauty, and my now favourite Ukrainian bangs in the winner.

Mayhem in the Mendip Rouleur household. 

Of course we are not safe from relegation. We’ll probably lose to Them for the next 10 times in a row. But last night that didn’t matter, for once the double had been done and someone, somewhere was as unhappy as I was happy.

Being deeply, passionately in love can never be explained. It’s a love that lasts a lifetime, from when you are five to when you are fifty-five. And beyond. It waxes, wanes, becomes more measured, involves anger, tears, frustration and loads of bad emotions too. But it will never leave me.

“If the moonlight caught you crying on Killiney Bay

Oh, sing your song

Let your song be sung

If you listen you can hear the silence say

"When you think you're done

You've just begun"

I wrote about this album nearly two years ago, peripherally when I came back from the Cent Cols. I knew change was afoot, and sure enough it has come to pass. But even as I was changing jobs last year, I never imagined all of this. 

“If there is a light

We can't always see

If there is a world

We can't always be

If there is a dark

Now we shouldn't doubt

And there is a light8

Don't let it go out”

Now. Times have been tougher. But not much for many of us in our western, privileged cocoon. But everything is relative, and a viral pandemic causing massive global misery and economic carnage is not the actual end of the world. But for many it feels close. But it needn’t be. Really.