Song 547: This week the playlist applauds Pride (In The Name Of Love) by U2, who also wrote the song (all four band members), and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Friday would have been Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 92nd birthday, and tomorrow will be the yearly day that commemorates his legacy, so this seems like an appropriate moment to feature a track that honors him, particularly when the White-Supremacist-in-Chief is about to leave office, to be replaced by a nicer and more crafty white supremacist. Well over a year before the album that included this cut came along at the end of the summer in 1984, I had already become a major U2 fan, and the new record took my appreciation for the quartet to an even higher level. At a point where many rockers seemed to lack drive, these four had a very strong message wrapped in both their lyrics and their music. They obviously understood the implications of early morning, April 4, when a shot rings out in the Memphis sky. Dr. King was, ironically, free at last when racists took his life, but they could not take his pride, and they could not squash the movement that he had worked for in the name of love.
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