This was taken from the commentary on my Bible reading today.
Psalms - The U2 fans out there will know that the band released a song called "40" in 1983 inspired by Psalm 40. The band took most of the lyrics for this song straight from the early verses of this Psalm - and I quote here from the song, not the Psalm per se - "I waited patiently for the Lord, He inclined and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit; Out of the miry clay. He set my feet upon a rock; And made my footsteps firm. Many will see; Many will see and hear." The song also could have also been called "6" because the refrain is from Psalm 6 verse 3: "How long, O LORD, how long?" A quote from Bono on the song is this: "'40' became the closing song at U2 shows and on hundreds of occasions, literally hundreds of thousands of people of every size and shape t-shirt have shouted back the refrain pinched from 'Psalm 6': 'How long to sing this song.' I thought of it as a nagging question - pulling at the hem of an invisible deity whose presence we glimpse only when we act in love. How long...hunger? How long...hatred? How long until creation grows up and the chaos of its precocious adolescence has been discarded? I thought it odd that the vocalising of such questions could bring such comfort; to me too." Has anyone heard U2 play "40" in concert before? I did twice - once back on the Joshua Tree tour way back in 1987 and once a couple years ago on the Vertigo tour. It's a beautiful song - written really by David!
I have the live version of "40" in my iTunes now.
