“White as Snow” by U2, Friday, December 17, 2021

Following up the band's 2003 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2 released their 2009 album, No Line on the Horizon. Critics liked U2's 2009 effort, and it holds a 72% rating on Meta-critic. The band's next record, 2011's Songs of Innocence would make the band one of the most hated musical acts after they gave the record away for free in iTunes libraries. For a band that has been around for over forty years, in a world of constant changing musical landscapes, U2 has had hits and misses, yet somehow their anthemic sounds force their way into relevance, whether it's because they are catchy or frontman Bono's rock star activism.

EVERY FACE WE CANNOT KNOW. No Line for the Horizon was a U2 album I passed on. I hadn't like the track listing of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, but at least I liked some of the songs to get me to listen to the album. The lead single from Line was "Get on Your Boots" and it sounded like U2 was trying too hard to relive their '90s era of music that nobody wanted to come back. I listened to bits and pieces of the album last year thanks to Apple Music, but only one track stood out to me, "White as Snow." However, today when re-listened to the album to prepare for this post, I was caught up in a rock 'n' roll baptism of equal parts arctic blast and the blaring, experimental sounds of "Get on Your Boots." That feeling aside, I was taken by the storytelling Bono uses in "White as Snow." The concept for No Line is Bono writing characters, something he hadn't done before this record. Inspired by seeing the warplanes flying over France bound for Iraq when he was on vacation in France just before recording of No Line, one of Bono's characters is a soldier. "White as Snow" is intended to be the soldier's dying thoughts when he is killed in an explosion. Sung to the tune of "Bone Jesu dulcis cunctic," a 15th century hymn better known today as "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," the song is cinematic in scope. The familiar Christmas hymn brings the listener to examine different points in the speaker's life, like a flashback in a film. The horrific death is tied in with a message about the darkness of humanity--humanity that could allow the slaying of the innocent in war.

AND THE WATER, IT WAS ICY AS IT WASHED OVER ME. The latin hymn "Veni, veni, Emmanuel" was combined with the melody "Bone Jesu dulcis cunctic" and the text was translated by John Mason Neale for his 1851 Hymns Ancient and Modern. The hymn was sung at vespers seven days before Christmas Eve, which happens to be today. The hymn is based on the twenty-third verse of the Gospel of Matthew. U2 only musically references the connotations of the Christmas hymn. Instead, Bono draws reference to the first chapter of Isaiah, in which the God of Israel tells his people: "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool" (verse 18, NIV). The solider is caught up in a war that many believe is unjust. Even though many evangelical Christians supported the war in Iraq, Bono challenges Christians and non-Christians to examine the motives for this war. The lyrics remind us that all humanity is tainted and that "only the lamb [is] as white as snow." As the dust is settling on my own unholy war, it is important for me to remember that not everyone's intentions are completely pure, certainly not even my own. Like a soldier, we can be caught up in the war; fighting it is our job. Yet, sometimes we're reminded of the compromises we have made to keep propitiating the oppressive systems we are enslaved to and ones that enslave others. Sometimes all we can see are shades of red and redder. We have to take some time to reevaluate where we stand on right and wrong. Only then can we see the "lamb. . . white as snow." 

Read “White As Snow” by U2 on Genius.

U2's "White as Snow":

"O Come, O Come Emmanuel":