Saturday 31 July, 2010

.blogs

Kreuzberg

Posted: Aug 17, 2008 by Matt

I’ve just been listening to the Bloc Party album: Weekend in the City which is up there as one of my favorite albums. Bloc Party are an indie-rock band from Essex who are now onto their second album and hopefully about to bring out a third (it’s been a few years since Weekend in the City was released). One of the tracks, titled Kreuzberg, really struck me. Named after a suburb in Berlin, the song is story of love found and lost in the city. The fact that the song is set in a foreign country adds to the emotional intensity of dealing with love at the same time as feeling, in many ways, like an alien in an alien land.

The thing that really leaped out of the song for me though was the last verse. After sex, the bitter taste, been fooled again, the search continues. The person in the song seems like they’re on an endless journey – a journey to find the ultimate companion, a journey to find real happiness. And they’re the ones on the journey, they’re the ones searching.

There is a wall that runs right through me
Just like the city, I will never be joined
What is this love? Why can I never hold it?
Did it really run out in the strangers’ bedrooms?
I have decided
At twenty-five
Something must change
Saturday night in East Berlin
We took the U-Bahn to the East Side Gallery
I was sure I’d found love with this one lying with me
Crying again in the Hauptbahnhof
After sex, the bitter taste
Been fooled again, the search continues
Concerned mothers of the west
Teach your sons how to truly love

And then it struck me how endless and difficult that is. To be searching for something that always seems to be illusive. And even when the quest is finally complete and you’ve found the love of your life there are so many more threats to that happiness, so many potential issues that can come up (sickness, depression etc). Even the best lover/husband/wife/friend can never give you what you long for.

And then it made me realise how grateful I am for God. While the person in the song is on, what seems like, an endless journey, they’re doing the searching. But, the Bible says that God is the one on a journey, a journey to find us: We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). Why spend your life searching for love when you can let real love find you?