January 15th, 1999 - On January 15th she discovered “Deep in the Heart” (05/87) and felt astonished by the allusion to the woods and the “scent of cedar”, because those were “her” woods (where her heart was, the woods where it had felt like she was coming home), combined with the sense of meeting “her” in a room where the door was closed, the light was shut out and it was dark, -combined with the exhortation “do your work and it’ll turn out all right”. The room imagery combined with the year vaulted her back to when she made the choice in the roiling void, entered darkness, and here he was, telling her if she just did the work, it would turn out all right, and she finally got to see this when it was true. And then “North and South of the River” delineating spiritual separation in a physical way, with so many levels (all true), speaking of the desire to “see and hear” her side, “the badness that had its way” that love would surmount, and wanting “to meet you where you are”.
Some high ground is not worth taking
Some connections are not worth making
There's an old church bell no longer ringing
Some old songs are not worth bringing
She noted that Cave in his most vaunted abstract vision of "“Lucy” had invoked a ringing church bell, and when “she” was dead in his mind, and he was exhorting her to “wake up”, it so happened Bono had said the church bell was no longer ringing, but then reappeared in the song that had jacked into her sub-conscious with the appeal to “wake-up, my love, my lover wake-up”. She found this song at the time she knew what high ground (for her) was not worth taking and what songs needed to be dispensed with, and felt he’d recognized the sense of isolation in the mutual infliction of hurting someone you were connected to at an almost unascertainable level.
'Cause there's no feeling that's so alone
As when the one you're hurting is your own
Her reaction: “Some old songs . . . we get to leave them behind. All the pain of it, we drop. Mercy. He knows. I see this song and oh, I want to talk to him so badly.
And then there was “Where Did It All Go Wrong?” (06/92) expressed at the juncture when it really, really did. And then she discovered another bootleg outtake for “Blow Your House Down”, which for her was a big deal, because of the gist and the closing verses:
“You better wake up
Wake up dead man
It's in the new plan
(This is my baby, so why don't you leave me)”
“You better wake up
Better wake up dead man
'Cause there's something in your hand
Better wake up dead man
You better wake up
Better wake up dead man
We took a new plan
Better wake up dead man”
When she’d heard “Wake-up Dead Man” in 1997 she questioned if the phrase could have signified her father and how he’d effectively wiped everything out, not even being aware he’d done it, and how that made him “asleep” now. There was nothing that connected the two, but in just these fragments, the same elements were present that had been in “Salomé”, the substitution in “we took a new plan”, which for her, encountering Bono in 1992, was exactly what had happened. “It’s in the new plan”, not with you anymore “dead man”, because she’s my baby.