U2’s first album of this decade, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, was in many ways a return to the classic U2 sound of the 1980s. During the ’90s, the band satirized the whole rock star motif with Achtung Baby, Zooropa, and Pop. Outrageous, over-the-top personas and glitzy, kitsch tours (see: PopMart) were the vehicles U2 used to critique an entire decade of excess, greed, consumerism, and decadence.

But with the dawning of a new millennium came a reinvented U2…all over again. The experimentalism of the ’90s yielded a return back to the bands simple rock roots. In a very real way, All That You Can’t Leave Behind was the re-embrace of the U2 sound of The Joshua Tree and The Unfotgettable Fire: a guitar, three chords, and the truth.

The last song on the album has always been one of my favorites. “Grace” is such a beautiful, lilting soliloquy on the reverberations of grace in a world gone mad:

Grace
It’s a name for a girl
It’s also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything

I love this song because the music is the message. Gentle synthesizers cresting and receding around Bono’s softly spoken tenor. I love this song because it sweeps me up and takes me back to those moments when “you can hear the strings”, when (to borrow N.T. Wright’s beautiful phrase) the world has been put to rights, if only for a moment. I love this song because it reminds me of grace’s beauty and simplicity. Grace finds goodness in everything. Indeed.

This album also possessed a prescient quality that infused it with tremendous resonance in the days that followed September 11th. This is seen most clearly on “Walk On”, one of my favorite songs for several years. Dedicated to Burmese activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the song has always been imbued with a prophetic, inspired tone. But in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, “Walk On” has evolved into a sweeping anthem of perseverance and hope in the midst of adversity. 10 days after the terrorist attacks, U2 performed “Walk On” on the telethon “A Tribute to Heroes“. This is where this ode to activism was transformed into a hymn for a hurting nation.

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it’s a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Walk on, walk on
What you got, they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight…

You’re packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom

Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t deny it
Can’t sell it or buy it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight

And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Home…hard to know what it is if you never had one
Home…I can’t say where it is but I know I’m going home
That’s where the heart is

I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Lyrics like these take on a whole new meaning in light of September 11th. “Walk On” will articulates all of the pain and fear and doubt that plagued those days for me (“when your glass heart should crack / and for a second you turn back”). But the song is equally honest in reflecting on how we find purpose in pain: “And I know it aches / And your heart it breaks / And you can only take so much / Walk on…walk on.” In a moment of extreme and even justifiable anger, Bono’s lyric reminds us how we heal: by leaving it behind. As the chorus of “hallelujahs” rise at the end, we lift our eyes above for solace and strength and hope.

And we keep on walking.