"Nothing Changes on New Year's Day"

Good bye 2010, hello 2011.
I like to read the Top 10 lists of the past year that have been dominating the media highways for the last few weeks. My favorites of the year include books like The Help by Katherine Stocket and Stieg Larsson’s ‘The Girl’ series. The Help and the first book in Larson’s series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, will be movies in 2011. A couple of my favorite films of 2010 were The Social Network and City Island. Musically, artists like Train and Bruno Mars generated a few of my favorite tunes of the year.

While reading and movie-watching can take me back to my youth, I really wasn’t musically aware as a child. I remember being a junior-higher in 1980 when John Lennon was killed. I didn’t know who he was. A centerfielder for the White Sox? No, that was Chet Lemon. Even though the 80s MTV video era was totally tubular, I wasn’t really impacted musically until late in the decade when the band U2 was coming into their own.

One of my favorite U2 songs is 1983’s New Year’s Day. Research suggests the song is either a love tune from Bono to his new wife or a tribute to Poland’s freedom from martial law which occurred on New Year’s Day 1983. Given that the song was released in January of 83, it would have been written and recorded in 1982, making Bono one Bad prophet.

Many people try to interpret U2 songs through a Biblical filter. Pertaining to New Year’s Day, here’s how some lines can be perceived:
"Under a blood red sky" = the sky darkened when Christ was crucified
"A crowd has gathered" = a crowd gather at the crucifixion
"Arms entwined, the chosen few"= Christ's disciples
"The newspaper says"= The Gospel is commonly known as the "News"
"It’s true, it’s true, we can break through" = through Christ's death we are saved
"Though torn in two, we can be one" = at the time of Christ's death the veil separating the Most Holy Place in the temple was torn in two. This symbolizes that all peoples of the earth now have access to God and can be "one" with Him.

Of course, the New Year brings resolutions. Maybe Bono is pessimistically stating that with all the eventual broken resolutions, “Nothing changes on New Year’s Day”.

It’s safe to say that song lyrics can have different meanings for individual people. Lyrics can even take on new meanings amid events and changes in our lives. I heard New Year’s Day differently after my mom’s passing in 2003. The words “I will be with you again” gave legs to my faith and confidence that I’ll meet her again in heaven.

Personally, 2010 was a difficult year of change, deliverance, healing, and decisions. Feelings of failure and a loss of hope also plagued me this year. I’m looking forward to what 2011 will bring. So lines in the song like “I will begin again” ring ever true.

Love song, political homage, religious psalm, or grumpy satire? Who knows? I vote for love song. But, I wonder, maybe the singer is the Lord himself. In John 14, Jesus tells his disciples to not worry, that he is going to prepare a home in heaven for them. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:3). It’s not Bono crooning to his new wife, it’s Jesus, the bridegroom, singing to his bride, his family of believers and followers.

Perhaps the song is referencing Revelation 21 in which the apostle John is visualizing a new earth and a new heaven. The old earth and heaven will away. Everything will be new. God will come down and dwell with his people. There will be no more death, crying, or pain. Every tear will be wiped away. It will be permanent. Forever. Nothing will change it. Not our failures or our losses. Everyday will be like beginning again. Everyday will be New Year’s Day.