Part 9 in the U2 Unplugged Series

The Greek language may have four words that express different types of love, but Hollywood portrays love as having one meaning: romance. Any “feel good” romantic comedy – such as You’ve Got Mail, Sabrina, Only You, or Notting Hill – focuses on the saga of two unlikely people falling in love with each other. But, these films always end the moment the couple finally gets together, marries, and lives happily ever after.

In contrast, a lively, dynamic marriage is never explored in film; perhaps the underlying assumption is that now that the couple is together, the excitement is over. In fact, marriage tends to be depicted on screen only when the relationship is failing or when it serves as a back story to something more important.

The problem comes when we start to believe what we watch in the movies and hear in Top 40 love songs – that “falling in love” is what fulfills us. Then, when we don’t feel the magic or experience the romance in our everyday life, we can become disillusioned and give up on our marriage, thinking there’s something wrong with it or the person we are committed to.
Within this romance–crazed culture, U2’s “A Man and a Woman” [Lyrics] [iTunes] offers a much different take. Instead of writing Yet Another Love Song for his wife Ali, Bono writes a far deeper, more probing, and ultimately redemptive tune. The result is a musical peek into what true married love is all about.

The Engine of Marriage

“I Want to Know What Love Is” was the piercing question that the rock band Foreigner asked in their hit tune of the same name back in the mid-1980s. Their song seems to serve as an unspoken theme for a postmodern society confused about love and the expectations we should have. If the Foreigner song poses the question, U2 answers it with an exclamation point on their How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb album. For, in “A Man and a Woman”, U2 tells what true love is. The song echoes the words of C.S. Lewis contrasting romance and love:

“Being in love” is a good thing, but it is not the best thing…Love as distinct from “being in love” is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for one another even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be “in love” with someone else…It is only on this love that the engine of marriage is run; being in love was the explosion that started it.

The type of love that Bono sings and Lewis writes about has a special quality to it I call “texture”. Much like a cloth is assembled by interweaving a multitude of individual strings, textured love is bound together by a collection of strands: romance, friendship, common interests, mutual goals, physical intimacy, children, and shared ministries. In a marriage between believers, all of these strands are held together with the grace of Jesus Christ.
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