Lyrics for Where The Streets Have No Name as interpreted by spitfirek7

Where The Streets Have No Name Lyrics
I wanna run
I want to hide
I wanna tear down the walls
That hold me inside
I wanna reach out
And touch the flame
Where the streets have no name

I wanna feel sunlight on my face
I see the dust cloud disappear without a trace
I wanna take shelter from the poison rain
Where the streets have no name

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

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

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

Our love turns to rust
We're beaten and blown by the wind
Blown by the wind
Oh yes, in dust
See our love turn to rust
And we're beaten and blown by the wind
Blown by the wind
Oh, when I go there
I go there with you
It's all I can do

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hoops
12-21-2004

Rated 0 
It's certainly not about LA robbwhite.

In the build up to Live Aid Bono and his wife were one of the few artists to visit Etheopia and see the famine for themselves. As mentioned further up, when viewed from a nearby plateau there were just rows and rows of tents lined up, which made the area look like a city...where the streets have no name.

The song is about his desperation going there with his wife (I'll go there with you) and of seeing the situation but feeling so helpless (It's all I can do).

As with the song One I saw this explantion from a band member in an interview. Lets be honest, would a band trying to save the world use the experience of being in a third world county to write a song over that of visiting LA?

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The_Grey_Walrus
12-23-2004

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Eh...........call me stupid and i'm sure you will, but i think its about heaven. It's a great song no matter how you percieve (spelling?) it.

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wwbd
01-13-2005

Rated 0 
As with most U2 songs, because they are written by Christians, the content has dual-meanings (not to mention that as artists, they want the listener to interpret it the way that means the most to them). The primary inspiration for the song was the tent city in Africa (many of us have heard that directly from Bono). I was in a Christian Rock band back in the late eighties and early nineties and we played this song (my favorite U2 song) because we thought it was talking about Heaven. I know now that is not the meaning of the song, but a lament for those suffering and forgotten about in Africa, but knowing that now, I still would be proud to sing it in a Church because who are they that were in this city but "the least of these, my brethren".

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learn2kneel
02-03-2005

Rated 0 
U2 songs can be open to many ways of interpretation to certain people, but i think certainly the most dominant interpretation is that the song is about heaven. When U2 performed this song live during the Popmart tour there was an extended ending where Bono sang "then there will be no time for sorrow, then there will be time for shame" this is almost a direct quote from Relevations 21 describing heaven... the streets that Bono is talking about could very well be the golden street described in that same passage in heaven! This is my favorite song of all time and like Bono says everytime they play it its like "God walks into the room."

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heavenlydevil
02-09-2005

Rated 0 
this song has one of the best build ups in the beginning of any song all time, behind Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf, and Green Grass And High Tides by The Outlaws

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ICantLeaveU2Behind
04-09-2005

Rated 0 
BEST U2 SONG EVER. everything is amazing about - lyrics, vocals, instrumentals, everything. i could hear a version where MLK and this are connected, though, which would sound cool. also i think that guitar between the organ-synthesyzer-thing and the rest of that song could just hang by itself for 1 or 2 seconds.

i think it is heaven + street thing + ethiopia. i guess bono was saying that equality can only take place where everyone truly needs each other (starving country) or heaven. so then bono is comparing this awful place to a kind of heaven-in-progress (unless ethiopia is one of the countries with all the civil wars) that can only be achieved if everyone works together to help each other out.

although, i do think of utah and colarado and the mojave(?) desert when i think of this song. the album does have a country feel, and the joshua tree only grows in the mojave(? its the desert that goes into parts of nevada, colorado, utah and mabye california)

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ICantLeaveU2Behind
04-09-2005

Rated 0 
i was really tired when i wrote that so dont blame me if it sounds crazy

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Duddits
06-08-2005

Rated 0 
As others have pointed out the song is supposed to suggest multiple meanings and be interpreted by the listener in their own way. Again as others have suggested, it seems to be generally about Africa and how it has been neglected and forgotten by "the west" whose systems and actions are largely to blame for the conditions many on the continent find themselves in.
Others here have also noted Bono's trips to Ethiopia, the verse with the lines "the citys a flood" and the "place high on a desert plain, where the streets have no name" is almost certainly a reference to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa where indeed the vast majority of the streets have no official names and are not signposted.

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U2takemehigher
08-31-2005

Rated 0 
my friend just came back from bible camp (or whatever the hell she wants to call it) and she said that they showed a clip from a concert (i'm thinking the elevation tour live from boston). they were teaching it that the song was based on heaven. i on the other hand believe it's about ethiopia and/or the desert (mojave more than likely).

see, and that's what's cool about the songs... it's all perception.

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bonovox
10-28-2005

Rated 0 
contrary to others, i think this song is trying to explain how love fades(or rusts as mentioned in the song)during the time of a great deluge. Where the streets have no name implies the place completely destroyed and since it has no life, it has no name

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Drucker Trucker
12-21-2005

Rated 0 
I heard the last bit of an interview a while back before I knew U2's music very well and I remember something being said about it being about heaven and the equality that was part of heaven. There is no Martin Luther King BLVD. or Washington Way because everyone there is just as important as their neighbor. I liked that and think its a good way to interpret the song.

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Smartrip
01-08-2006

Rated 0 
I'm definately not a U2 fan but I had to say that the instrumental intro that this song has is one of the most amazing sounds I've ever heard. It's almost undescribeable and I haven't heard any band come close to something so incredible as U2 did here for the first 1:46 of this song.

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xird77
02-07-2006

Rated 0 
Many years ago i was watching a U2 video while this song played and if i remember one of the street signs had Martin Luther King on it. Has any one considered that if there is no need for martyrs the streets would not be named after them? Kind of like " Imagine" by John Lennon. Just a thought.

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Anne Marie
02-10-2006

Rated 0 
This is my favorite song ever. On dvd's it so beautiful I get tears in my eyes every time I hear and see it.
It really makes me long for such a place, where I can run and sing and dance and have no care in the world. It makes me think about the perfect place, heaven or a place on earth and I so much want to be there. It makes me dream and wonder if I will ever get there. It makes me want to live my life as alife as possible, so much it hurts inside! It gives such strong emotions and that's what makes certain songs so strong! Heavenly even.

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Liamus
02-17-2006

Rated 0 
Heard them play this at twickenham, on the vertigo tour-never really saw it as a stand out track but soon realised it has to be heard live to be truely appreciated. As they were playing, all the flags of Africa were shown on screen.

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Anne Marie
02-20-2006

Rated 0 
I think the studio version is very good as well. But you're right, this is one of these songs that just gives you goosebumbs when played live. Wish I could see them live one day...

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bostonbonoboy14
02-20-2006

Rated 0 
THIS IS THE BEST U2 SONG EVER WRITTEN. It is about heaven or a place that everyone would love to be. This song always brings up a crowd during a concert. It is insane on both the Elevation dvd and Vertigo Dvd.

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bostonbonoboy14
02-20-2006

Rated 0 
Also, I love the way the song starts off in almost a church's organ and then you can hear Edge faintly in the background.

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deankavanagh1234
03-01-2006

Rated 0 
This is one of the best songs of u2, for me it has many meanings the title itself "Where the streets have no name" suggests searching for a society free from all the restrictions imposed on people ,simply to justify their existance,
"I wanna tear down the walls
That hold me inside" this could refer to the tumble of the berlin wall and states that the first few steps towards this utopia have already been taken.

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kazu
03-02-2006

Rated 0 
I used to think the lyric was "They're still building them / burning them down" meaning this city is still actively changing. Sort of (but not exactly) like how DiCaprio's character describes New York in "Gangs of New York": 'It wasn't a city; it was a furnace out of which a great city would be forged.' What does "burning down love" mean? Is 'love' the shelters that volunteers have built for the Ethiopians that are getting burned down? Is that what he means by "our love turns to rust", kind of like a shantytown corrogated metal shack kind of a thing? I don't understand what those two lines mean, though I guess real poetry is supposed to sometimes make subconscious sense if not conscious sense.

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deankavanagh1234
03-02-2006

Rated 0 
Kazu "They're still building them / burning them down" basically explains the utopia which u2 strive for , a society free of poverty , war and discrimination is a long way off due to the fact as society lays the foundations for such a wonderous land small factions of society undermine these attempts through resurfacing all the past conflicts preventing us from learning to coexist as one. If we do not learn to leave the past behind and move forward together we will always be victims of our own ignorance and deposited in a world filled with hate fear and ruled by the manipulative creature taking advantage of our blindness.

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deankavanagh1234
03-02-2006

Rated 0 
P.S Kazu also listen to one by U2 for another example of society tearing itself .

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kazu
03-03-2006

Rated 0 
Well what does "burning down love" mean, I wonder? Or "our love turns to rust"?

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deankavanagh1234
03-04-2006

Rated 0 
The first few lines explain Bono's desire for a society where you feel at liberty to take risks without ridicule for failing e.g." I wanna reach out And touch the flame Where the streets have no name". " Burning down love" later in song explains the fact people can't feel that freedom to make mistakes without ridicule from others, therefore we burn down love with each other by not allowing others the freedom they deserve in life to take risks and try and embetter oneself. "our love turns to rust" explains that when we try and justify our desires to those who ridicule us never works, because these people are so stubborn and selfish they believe anyone who tries a new experience is being selfish. and no matter how much you try and explain yourself or show you love this person ,that love errodes because that person cannot find it in them to allow change because change scares them. Their fear is derived from the fact that if the person trying this new experience really enjoys it, the other person feels they will be pushed aside over this new experience when in actual fact this is not the case. if you trually love someone you do what ever it takes to make them happy, even if that isn't what you want. But by showing the will to someone that you don't resent their efforts to improve their standard of living, that fear of loss won't become a reality because you have proven to them you understsnd what love trually means in that you will make sacrifices for them in order to give them happiness, this showing of understanding and tolerance keeps love strong and paves the way for the street with no name to be built.

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luismartineztx
03-25-2006

Rated 0 
This song is the hope of something way better than this world. Escaping from the torment and despair of this world. Wanting to run on the streets of gold(heaven), where there is no more pain and suffering, running to freedom without worries and knowing that you will be FREE and with your maker(the flame) for eternity, living the way it was originally intended. This is my favorite song of all time and everytime I hear it, it gives me chils all over me.

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