ruminations on lyrics

Without doubt my favourite album is "The Unforgettable Fire" by U2. I first heard it as a senior in high school at a time where I thought no one thought like I thought or felt like I felt. I still find it hypnotic. One of favourite "I" times is cranking it up on my iPod sitting alone on the beach watching a thunderstorm crackle on the horizon.


But then comes "The Soul Cages" by Sting. Written during his mourning of his fathers passing. As I await the passing not of my father but my mother, the lyrics are speaking to me once more. I remember the first time I ever thought of what I would say to my father if I knew it would be our last meeting. In an obscure village in the middle of Austria driving down the windy road from a refugee camp to our home - I listened and sang as loud as I could. No one heard but God. It was both intimate worship and loud complaining.

In the confusion of the reassessment of his relationship with his stand-off father, Sting writes these words using the metaphor of sea and storm:

Did I see the shade of a sailor
On the bridge through the wheelhouse pane
Held fast to the wheel of the rocking ship
As I squinted my eyes in the rain

For the ship had turned into the wind
Against the storm to brace
And underneath the sailor's hat
I saw my father's face

If a prayer today is spoken
Please offer it for me
When the bridge to heaven is broken
And you've lost on the wild wild sea
Lost on the wild wild sea...

Put much better than I ever could . . .