In 1987, U2 released their critically-acclaimed album, The Joshua Tree. The second single from the record, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” went on to become one of the band’s biggest hits, ranking on numerous “best rock songs of all time” lists in the decades since it’s release.
What follows is a theological assessment of the song’s lyrics:
I have climbed the highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run, I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
Bono’s world-weariness bleeds through from the song’s opening lines. The song adopts the perspective of one who has seen much, from great heights (climbing highest mountains) to regrettable lows (crawling). And yet, there remains a certain dissatisfaction, a deep desire to pursue meaning. This is assumed in the title — that there IS, in fact, something to be looked for, some great purpose for us to discover. Perhaps this helps explain the song’s enduring popularity: it is an ode to universal human restlessness and the quest for meaning, albeit backed by gospel choir and shimmering guitar.
I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
These verses imply the pursuit of varied things — human love, physical healing, religious experience, even giving in to temptation — with the same end result. These have left the narrator feeling cold, empty, devoid of true life. In this regard, Bono channels the wisdom of Ecclesiastes, the famous Jewish text that comes as close as anything to biblical existentialism. The Preacher who declares the message of Ecclesiastes systematically lists his many attempts to find “the good life” — through power, through sex, through wealth, through wisdom. In the end, his assessment is similar to Bono’s: these all leave us wanting a bit more.
I believe in the Kingdom Come
When all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
But yes, I’m still running
You broke the bonds and you loosed the chains
Carried the cross of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
Bono confesses the great Christian hope: a Kingdom yet to come when all is blended together in perfect union. To leave no doubt as to the distinctly Christian nature of this hope, he adds the line about carrying the cross of shame. And yet, he continues, there is still a sense of incompletion in the present, a yawning awareness that even though history ends in glory for those who believe, our present days are often marked by numbing ordinariness. But the song ends on a buoyant note, for even though Bono remains actively searching, he does so as one fully convicted with hope.
C.S. Lewis once said that if we find within ourselves a desire for which no earthly satisfaction can be found, perhaps this is evidence that we were made for another place altogether. This seems to be the running reflection of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Or, to put it differently, in the famous words of Augustine centuries ago: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
already & not yet 