Tony Blair, U2 Fan.

So Tony Blair's recently announced favorite U2 song is "Where the Streets Have No Name".  Seems a decent choice--it's one of my top five U2 favs--and at least he didn't go with "Beautiful Day".  Lyrically, the song combines a lot of idealism in the face of calamity with lots of desert imagery.  It's pretty hard to avoid thinking Iraq wasn't at least subconsciously on his mind in selecting this song as his favorite. Lyrics like:

The city's a flood, and our love turns to rust.
We're beaten and blown by the wind
Trampled in dust.
I'll show you a place
High on a desert plain
Where the streets have no name

or

Where the streets have no name
Where the streets have no name
We're still building and burning down love
Burning down love.
And when I go there
I go there with you
(It's all I can do).

That "It's all I can do" is the most haunting line in the song, suggesting the singer has little left in his arsenal except his hope in the face of hopelessness.  I can see why Tony Blair would have such a song in the back of his mind right now.

But I'm also reminded of a speech Bono gave on stage once about people who use their idealism to excuse the violence they commit:

"Let me tell you somethin'. I've had enough of Irish Americans who haven't been back to their country in twenty or thirty years come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home...and the glory of the revolution...and the glory of dying for the revolution. Fuck the revolution! They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What's the glory in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old age pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day. Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying or crippled for life or dead. Under the rubble of the revolution, that the majority of the people in my country don't want. No more!"

So anyway, there really are better U2 songs.  Two that come to mind are "A Sort of Homecoming" and "All I Want is You".  Can you do better?