Ye Olde Staging Point

Do you have a particular song that strikes you as so so perfect, so sublime that just hearing it makes you choke up and weep that this broken world is unworthy of its beauty? I bet you do. For you, it might be Pachelbel's Canon; for others, perhaps Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand" or Wagner's "Ice Ice Baby." For me, it's Johnny Cash singing "The Wanderer" with U2:

I went out walking through streets paved with gold Lifted some stones, saw the skin and bones of a city without a soul.

I went out walking under an atomic sky
Where the ground won't turn and the rain it burns
Like the tears when I said goodbye.

Yeah, I went with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you.
I went wandering.

I went drifting through the capitals of tin
Where men can't walk or freely talk
And sons turn their fathers in.

I stopped outside a churchhouse where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the Kingdom,
But they don't want God in it.

I went out riding down that old eight lane
I passed by a thousand signs
Looking for my own name.

I went with nothing
But the thought you'd be there too.
Looking for you.

I went out there
In search of experience.
To taste and to touch
And to feel as much
As a man can before he repents.

I went out searching, looking for one good man
A spirit who would not bend or break,
Who would sit at his Father's right hand.

I went out walking with a Bible and a gun.
The Word of God lay heavy on my heart
I was sure I was the one.

Now Jesus, don't you wait up
Jesus, I'll be home soon
Yeah, I went out for the papers
Told her I'd be back by noon.

Yeah, I left with nothing
But the thought you'd be there too.
Looking for you.

Yeah, I left with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you.
I went wandering.

I usually make it all the way to the last verse--where he goes out looking for one good man--before being overwhelmed by sorrow at the sad state of this world. By the time we learn that he told her he'd be back by noon, I'm usually a weepy emotional wreck. Johnny Cash, we're not worthy.

How about you?