One Slane

[Drosophilus]

At the end of "One" on the Slane vid, U2 Wanderer's transcript reads:

Do you hear him coming, Lord
Do you hear his call
You hear us knocking
We’re knocking at your door

You hear us coming, Lord
You hear us call
You hear him scratching
Then you make us crawl

I am pretty much convinced that instead of being third person singular, "him/his", it's first person plural, "us":

Do you hear us coming, Lord
Do you hear us call
You hear us knocking
We’re knocking at your door

You hear us coming, Lord
You hear us call
You hear us scratching
Then you make us crawl

It doesn't really make sense to have it continually changing from "us" to "him/his" since Bono is obviously addressing the Lord, not singing about Him.

But me?  I'm still talkin' about the end of the world.

[Carl]

I think the first line is still "Do you hear him coming, Lord" the rest are us... thanks for the catch, must have been glad I was on the second to last song.

The him/us dichotomy does make some sense as Bono's father had passed away a week earlier - it usually is us (zootv on) except after Hutchence's death on the Popmart tour.

[Between Two Worlds]

Bono does indeed vary the personal pronouns a bit.

On 30 September 1997, the lines were sung in Tel Aviv as

You hear me coming Lord?
You hear us call?
You hear us knocking
Knocking at your door?

You hear us coming Lord?
You hear us call?
You hear me knocking
Knocking at your door?

(By the way, that night the song had been dedicated to Yitzhak Rabin.)

I wonder whether it would be fair to say that these lines were altogether absent in most performances during the Vertigo tour...

[slaneman]

Between Two Worlds-

Both DC shows, 10-19-05 and 10-20-05

Hear us coming Lord, hear us call
Hear us knocking, we’re knocking at your door
You hear us coming Lord, hear us call
See us scratching, when all you make us crawl

But during the 1st leg, at this part of the song, Bono and Edge would vamp on "call", since One followed the cell phone speech. Interesting to check the later shows to see if "hear us coming" was used again and how often.

[Between Two Worlds]

Thanks, Slaneman. I have been to Twickenham (first night, 18 June 2005) and Munich (3 August 2005) and I am pretty sure the lines were not sung those two nights. I don't think they are on the DVD - whichever Chicago night has been chosen for that song - but I have not checked. I think it is indeed the "sonic space" required to allow people to send their text messages which is responsible for the "loss".

[slaneman]

July 2nd 2005, Live 8, "One", Bono sings this again

You hear us coming, Lord
You hear us call
You hear us knocking
We’re knocking at your door
You hear us coming, Lord
You hear us crawl
See us scratching
Will you make us crawl?

Then follows with "Unchained Melody" to end the song. What a great performance that was. And this falls in between the 2 shows you saw.
On the Chicago DVD he sings "call" at that spot, ending with "call me".