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about this song
"A Sort of Homecoming" is the opening track on the 1984 U2 album The Unforgettable Fire. It immediately shows the change in U2's sound. Like much of the album, the hard-hitting martial drum sound of War is replaced with a subtler polyrhythmic shuffle, and the guitar is no longer as prominent in the mix. Bono had been reading the work of poet Paul Celan, whose line "poetry is a sort of homecoming" inspired the song's title. Celan's profound spiritual doubt contrasts with U2 members' previous religious certainties