steal my lyrics..please...so I can be inarticulate

I almost could have gone for this outtake from the U2 "October"  photo sessions...it might even beat the official cover, if the dog's face were showing.  Most have never seen this one; it,

wound up as the back cover of the remastered collecter's edition booklet..

--and the booklet contains a great article on this era by Neil McCormick that I don't see quoted anywhere online:

October may be U2's most U2 sounding record, the one in which they fully realized  their original sonic template....three-dimensional space, breaking down into mystically atmospheric quietness and suddenly raising uo into a tsunami..

           ..U2's most openly spiritual album...the Holy Spirit coursing through Bono's veins.

..U2 had never sounded this single minded, and, starnagely, they never would again.

                 -Neil McCormick

McCormick's insights into the lyrics are particularly helpful; noting that they were both pretty bad, as he wryly quips:

the vocalist is blooming here...The lyrics are another matter.

and profound in their  capturing of a "spiritual crisis" and a liminal moment:

Bono wrestles with faith, doubt and devotion and does it all live on the microphome, calling out to the Lord like a preacher speaking in tongues, the Holy Spirit coursing through his veins.  It was a high wire act, a white knuckle affair, a musical Rorshach tset.  There is little polish and finesse about the lyrics., but they  are extraordinarily alive and revealing, a genuine example of Van Morrisson's much vaunted "inarticulate sopech of the heart

And as many know, part of the crisis/secret was that at the last minute, Bono's lyrics were stolen.
Makes me wonder if we would even have the biggest band in the world today if no for that theft,

LINK:Bono’s stolen briefcase returned after 23 years

October was a season, and an album, that had to be made; one which actually did break up the band temporarily.

But look what emerged.  It would seem God's sovereignty that the lyrics were not returned for twenty  plus years (Bono called it an "act of grace".^[4]) long after the band's status was sealed.

Would I have ever heard the amazing moments that happened live in that era, in New Haven(audio is linked here)? without the stolen lyrics episode?

Would we have the U2  Spiritaneous moments  Bonglose, glossalalia and snippets  that we enjoy today without October being birthed in helplessness?

What would this album have sounded like if the the lyrics were more "polished and finessed."

I don't want to know.

And I do.
----

Backstory:

•  How can I be a spokesman when all I've got to say is "Help!"

• RECALL THOSE PURLOINED U2 LYRICS? CASE CLOSED! "I just want to go home," (keep clapping)