‘Scream Without Raising Your Voice’ comes from one of my favourite U2 songs, Running To Stand Still from the Joshua Tree album. I’ve always seen it as part of a set… It comes after Bullet The Blue Sky on the CD and mostly the two appear in the same order in U2’s live shows. Bullet is a rage against American intervention in Central America in the 80s. It is loud, shrieking and brash. Running to Stand Still is quiet, desperate and fragile in comparison but it is filled with so much emotion, especially when Bono adds the hallelujahs at the end. It’s a song about the despair and isolation of drug addiction. It makes me cry. It’s such a beautiful song. There is only one way out. Hope.
And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was
Lying still
Said I gotta do something
About where we’re going
Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night
Singing Ha, Ah La La La De Day
Ah La La La De Day
Ah La La De Day
Sweet the sin
Bitter taste in my mouth
I see seven towers
But I only see one way out
You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
You know I took the poison
From the poison stream
Then I floated out of here
Singing…Ha La La La De Day
Ha La La La De Day
Ha La La De Day
She runs through the streets
With her eyes painted red
Under black belly of cloud in the rain
In through a doorway she brings me
White gold and pearls stolen from the sea
She is raging
She is raging
And the storm blows up in her eyes
She will…
Suffer the needle chill
She is running to stand
Still.