“With or Without You”… again

The other night Bono was the lone guest with Steven Colbert, promoting his new book… a memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. After their conversation Bono inhabited a reinterpreted version of “With or With out You” offering a spoken word introduction… which sounded to be an excerpt from his new memoir.

I transposed his words here… not sure about formatting, breaks, or even if I got all the words right. Below the spoken words, I posted the lyrics to his version of “With or Without” next to the 1987 originals.

The walls of the Martello Tower
were made of granite and seven feet thick.
It was a fort containing three
circular rooms, two bathrooms,
and a kitchen built into the walls.

The living room was like a 
granite igloo with an opening 
onto a solid-stone, winding 
staircase leading to the lookout
that we slept in, where we built
a glass room that looked over  
the promenade of the 
seaside town of Bray.

I guess I could say we lived in a light house.

Ali? What?

Ali will let her soul be searched...
but only if you
arrive at her fort defenseless
have you half a chance at
challenging her own almost 
unbroachable defenses 
it's the only way over that draw bridge.

it wasn't two years into our 
marriage, and I could see my wife, my young wife
in prolonged moments returning to
the vast silence she holds
inside herself.

she was suggesting that even 
when I was home, I wasn't home.

Our weekly walks along the 
promenade could be tinged with
melancholy.

There is anyway, a kind of
off-color romance to a deserted
seaside town in the winter,
your heart's opera scored by the
sound of the tide crashing over
a stony beach, shushing
everything as the waves try to 
make up their mind whether
they're leaving or staying.

Leaving or staying.

leaving or staying.

white waves kissing black stones,
shushing all around them.
shhh...
shh.

Peace, dwight