Crossroads populate religious and folkloric beliefs all around the world. Stories of an intersection of dimensions, as well as of roads where a guardian-trickster deity awaits to carry human desires to the gods, are widely encountered in European, Caribbean, and West African lore (as well as the legends formed around blues and rock stars). The symbolism of the crossroads speaks directly to one's innate recognition of a charged metaphorical space; a space that is liminal, betwixt-and-between. This notion of the crossroads serves as inspiration for examining the relationship between U2's music and listeners' progressive political awareness—the marriage of critical consciousness and action for social justice and change. To this end, an in-depth study is carried out of six listeners' experiences at the potent crossroads of their developing progressive awareness and their encounters with U2's music.
The third album by the Clash, London calling captured the zeitgeist of its time with references to various domestic and international news items that had captured the attention of Joe Strummer (née John Mellor) and Mick Jones as they composed the songs. Many seek to represent the state of Britain in the late 1970s, where an inflation rate of 25 percent and high unemployment fueled anger at the government and sparked attacks on minorities who were blamed for taking jobs that might otherwise have employed Britons. The album tackles such issues as racial disharmony, police brutality, unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse, and the sense of alienation felt by many working-class youths and contextualized these social ills in a broader international frame with references to similar political and social crises in Spain, the Caribbean, and the Middle East.
