Window in the Skies

Every once in a while I get the feeling like I'm not myself. I feel detached from my surroundings, like a foreign entity. I start to feel very strange, and start looking for something familiar. It happens pretty frequently, especially as I spend more and more time away from home, or even when I am home and I don't exactly feel like I belong there. It's something comparable to loneliness, but not loneliness in the sense that I wish that I had someone or something to lean on. It's purely statistical, like I'm one person out of trillions. Alone. In a very stark sense. I'm not explaining this right. I know I'm not.

Anyways, whenever I start feeling this way I start looking for familiar things, things that remind me of home, or even familiar feelings. Sometimes it's a movie, or calling home that does it. But, the most effective method is music, and the most effective peace of music is "Window in the Skies" by U2. It's one of my all-time favorite songs for several reasons. I grew up on U2. My oldest brother and my dad were big fans of them when I was young, and I thought if I liked them too, that I would somehow be part of the 'club.' Somewhere along the way, I started liking them too. Another big part of it is the music video. The music video is comprised of clips of different singers lip-synching the song, everyone from Nat King Cole to Jimi Hendrix to Green Day. It's my favorite music video of all time, and odd as it may sound, it made me cry the first time I saw it. I'm gonna regret writing that later...

The reason I write this is because today I was going through one of these 'spells.' I didn't feel particularly like myself for whatever reason, and felt a little detached from everything around me. I was walking home from class around 5:30, down the hill from campus on the way to my apartment, when 'Window in the Skies' came on my iPod. Immediately I started feeling like myself again. I snapped back into the present, and became exponentially happier. I started to think about my family, about the fact that I'm a part of something bigger than myself even if only through this song. It's the ultimate quixotic anthem, which I know can have a negative connotation. To me, though, being quixotic is the essence of life. It's being hopeful, even to a foolish degree, which is what we all need from time to time.

So here it is:

'Window in the Skies' by U2

The shackles are undone
The bullets quit the gun
The heat thats in the sun
Will keep us when there's none

The rule has been disproved
The stone has been moved
The grain is now a groove
All debts are removed, ooh

Oh can't you see what our love has done
Oh can't you see what our love has done
Oh can't you see what our love has done
What it's doing to me

Love makes strange enemies
Makes love when love may please
Soul in a strip tease
Hate brought to its knees

Sky over our head
Can reach it from our bed
If you let me in your heart
And out of my head

Oh can't you see what our love has done
Oh can't you see what our love has done
Oh can't you see what our love has done
What it's doing to me

Oh oh ohhhhhhhhhhhh
Oh oh ohhhhhhhhhhhh
Please don't ever let me out of here

I've got no shame
Oh no oh no

Oh can't you see what love has done
Oh can't you see
Oh can't you see what love has done
What it's doing to me

Oh I know I hurt you and I made you cry
Did everything but murder but you and I
But love left a window in the skies
And to love I rhapsodize

Oh can't you see what love has done (to every broken heart)
Oh can't you see what love has done (for every heart that cries)
Love left a window in the skies
And to love I rhapsodize

Oh can't you see