Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" (U2)

Welcome to Tuesday. You have arrived at Tuesday's Musical Notes, the blog.  Is that what you intended?  

Here at Tuesday's Musical Notes, we attempt each week to bring you the finest in musical fare.  It is our desire that your melodic and rhythmic IQ is increased upon every reading of this, the musicologist's favorite blog.  Each week we write Tuesday's Musical Notes with the profound reality that music touches our lives in a myriad of ways. 

It is our loving endeavor  to bring about a peculiar meaning of your favorite songs with a distinctive bend on their lyrical content.  Sometimes we succeed quite well, other times, well, we confess it's a stretch. Regardless, we take great strides to prevent any opportunity for misunderstanding, and we hope that our reinterpretations never offend.  With that in mind, we would like to offer up our latest selection to the cavalcade which is Tuesday's Musical Notes.  We do this with great...wait for it...Pride, in the name of love...(Sorry, that one was way too easy!!!) 


U2 is increasingly becoming a popular band for Tuesday's Musical Notes.  We've made mention before of how we are rediscovering their music as it, as well as we, have aged.  The Notes has featured Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (U2)", Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Mysterious Ways" (U2), and Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" (U2), as our penchant for all things 80s comes to the fore.  

Released as the lead single for the band's hugely popular, Unforgettable Fire, "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" was written as a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the pastor/civil rights leader.  Bono has acknowledged, and in concert corrected, a slight error in the lyrics.  Regarding Dr. King's assasination the lyrics state,  "early morning, April 4", in the original recording, however, the event actually took place at 6pm in Memphis.   The song received mixed reviews as well as the respectful notice of the lyrical error, but was instantly popular at radio and in concert.  Because of this reception, it has appeared on 3 compilation albums by the band.  (The Best 1980-1990, U22018 Singles, and Songs of Surrender)  

The song came about during a chord progression that lead guitarist The Edge used at a sound check while touring in support of 1983's War album.  Work continued on the track at Bono's hometown of Bray County Wicklow in a "Martello Tower" - wikipedia.org.  Work on the song was completed at "Slane Castle" - wikipedia.org.  It soared up charts in the United Kingdom, peaking at #3.  In the United States, it quickly became popular and peaked on the Top 40 at #33.  Chrissie Hyndes of The Pretenders is credited as a backing vocalist as "Christine Kerr". (She was married to Simple Minds (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Alive and Kicking" (Simple Minds),  Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Don't You (Forget About Me)" (Simple Minds)) frontman Jim Kerr at the time)

As evidenced by its inclusion on the compilation records we mentioned, "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" has an enduring legacy.  It was listed at #65 in Spin Magazine's listing of "The Greatest Singles in History".  It came in at #388 on Rolling Stone's 2010 listing of the "500 Greatest Singles of All Time".  Not surprising, given its frequent rotation at MTV and later VH1, it was listed at #38 on the "100 Greatest Songs of the 80's" list by VH1's The Greatest series.  More importantly, "Pride (In The Name of Love)", gave U2 the enduring single that would continue their upward climb to the top of the charts as well as popular music icon status.  It certainly went a long way in establishing their name in the industry and in the hearts of fans around the world.  

Establishing a name can be very important regardless of the endeavor.  As we'll see in today's Scripture reading, a name isn't always meant to be flattering, but can certainly go a long way to support The Way.


After the stoning of Stephen, followers of Jesus began to disperse across the region because of the persecution meted out by the pre-conversion Saul and other religious rulers.  As we saw with Peter last week, because of their reverance to the Mosaic Law, these Jews were only telling fellow Jews about Jesus as they were spreading around to places like Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch.  Some of the converts, however, were experiencing a homecoming of sorts as they were originally from Cyprus and Cyrene.  These folks were not limiting their evangelistic endeavors to just the Jews but telling their native brothers about Jesus' story of grace, mercy, and redemption.  As they began telling the Gentiles (as the non-Jews were called) some of them came to become followers of Jesus.  The numbers of Gentiles becoming disciples grew at a rapid rate and the word about their conversions quickly drew the attention of the church in Jerusalem, the titular headquarters of the fledgling movement.  

The leaders in the church of Jerusalem were both excited and curious about what was going on with the Gentile converts in Cyprus and Cyrene.  They had heard Peter's reports of the interaction he had with Cornelius and his other new Gentile friends and wanted to investigate further what God was doing among them.  They sent Barnabus to the Greek islands in an effort to find out and qualify what was happening among the Gentiles as well as the Jews as a new church was quickly needing to be established.  Upon arrival, Barnabas, the encourager, was immediately encouraged by how the hand of God was moving among the peoples there.  As we have seen before with Barnabas, he promptly began the work of advising them as well as using his natural skills to support them in their new faith-walk.  The Scripture calls Barnabas, " a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and faith."  This was quite the testimony coming from Dr. Luke as he writes the activities of the apostles.  

Barnabas realizes that the new believers would need some instruction if they are to remain true and faithful with a resolute heart for the Lord.  He sought out Saul, who had been residing in his hometown of Tarsus.  Barnabas brought Saul back to Cyprus and Cyrene and together they spent a year meeting, encouraging, instructing, and guiding the "considerable numbers" who were coming to the church.  One could even say that they took great pride as they led this church in the name of love.   Well, no one has really ever said it, but I needed the tie-in somehow right?

The Bible goes on to say in the last verse of our focal passage, "... and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. This name is used only occasionally in the New Testament (Acts 26:28 NASB/AMP/ESV/KJV, and 1 Peter 4:16 NASB/AMP/ESV/KJV).  It was never used as a term by Jesus to describe His followers.  It is oftentimes assumed that "Christian" was considered a slur word of its time, when in reality, we don't have a historical or Biblical context by which to construe that particular connotation.  Here is an article that breaks some of that down for us:

"One Man come in the name of love
One Man come and go
One Man come, He to justify
One Man to overthrow
In the name of love
What more in the name of love
In the name of love
What more in the name of love..."

In our day, we see folks labeled in many ways.  I am of the conviction that there are only 2 things that truly in our day and age of characterizing people.  First, we are all a part of the human race.  That's right there is only 1 race.  The nomenclature so often bandied about is incorrect and we should resist the usage of it.  Yes, we do have CULTURAL differences.  Yes, there is a difference in the color of most everyone's skin.  These differences should never define us as those made in the image of God, the Creator.  The more we stoke the fire of this debate, the more highlighted it becomes and the deeper the divide becomes.  So please, love folks.  Even those folks in whom your culture and skin color do not match.  They are a part of the human race, made in the image of God.

The second characterization is that of Christian.  It identifies you as a disciple of Christ.  Every person, as a part of the human race, will have to make a decision regarding what they believe about the One who came in the name of love.  As a believer in Jesus, a Christian, you attempt every day of your life to emulate Him.  Not the AI Jesus floating around the internetosphere, but the Jesus that leaps from every page of the Bible (questionable during those ancestral lists, but He's still there!).  Begging The Holy Spirit to show you how to become more and more like Jesus, AFTER you have taken the step to accept His leadership in your life.  

That's it.  The only labels in our world of alphabet soup that matters.  Human and Christian.  NOTHING else truly matters in the scope of eternity and are tools of the enemy to cause anger and division.  Please consider this as you interact with your brothers of the human race.

Friend, as a believer, you can take great pride today with this name of love.  You can rest assured that as you carry the name Christian, it is rooted in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world who came to everyone to provide a redemptive restoration with the God of creation.  You can believe with confidence that as you wear this name of love you can do so with great pride as it represents a story unlike any other in the history of mankind, that of ultimate love and sacrifice.  "...Nobody like love, There's nobody like love, nobody like love..."

'Til Tuesday

Loving HIM by Loving You,
randy
<><

 

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)