Beatnik writesThe Songs That Get You Through: “Where The Streets Have No Name” by U2

These are obviously strange times we are living in, so we asked some of our CHIRP volunteers to tell us about a particular song they like to listen to when things are tough. We're calling it, "The Songs That Get You Through."

Today, we hear from CHIRP partnerships coordinator Bradley Morgan:

I am a dreamer, so I have pretty big dreams about the world and my place in it. I am also an Irish citizen, a heritage with no shortage of big dreamers. So I feel a special kinship with Bono. He wrote “Where the Streets Have No Name” after visiting Ethiopia and it is there he had an epiphany about classism in the Western world. This idea that where you live determines your worth and whether you live or die. In America, block by block, the marginalized are relegated to their corners and the privileged to their own. That is an unjust way to live. "Where The Streets Have No Name" represents an idealized world, one to strive for where class lines cannot be drawn on a map. A world that guarantees equal access to food, housing security, and the right to not be murdered by police. That is the world I want to live in and am striving for. COVID-19 has further highlighted the vast inequities that exist in America. But it also has emboldened the dreamers to step up and tear down the invisible walls that divide us and make the rich richer while the poor get poorer.

“Where The Streets Have No Name” gets me through difficult times because it reinforces the responsibility I have to help make this world more just for all.