Although it officially started a little over a month ago, much of the eastern region of the United States got their first real taste of the winter this past weekend, as some spots saw as much as 31 inches of snow. Of course, the wild weather got me thinking about a couple of U2 songs, and I thought I’d focus on one of those today. “Winter” first saw the light of day as part of the Anton Corbijn film Linear, which was released as part of some deluxe packages of No Line on the Horizon and featured music from the same album. In fact, “Winter” is kind of an oddity as it’s the only song in the movie that wasn’t part of the album that accompanied it. Apparently the song was going to be part of No Line on the Horizon until very late in the recording process, and by the time the decision was made to not include the song on the album, the Linear film had already been completed.

Another version of “Winter” was recorded for and included over the closing credits of the Jim Sheridan film Brothers. This version was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Original Song, and where the original Linear version of the song is lush with a big, classic-U2-sounding chorus (chiming guitar, lots of drums and bass) the Brothers version is more restrained, stripped back and spare sounding with hints of electronic percussion and occasional piano. The lyrics are also different between the two versions of the song, with the original version containing a verse that has been excised from the latter recording. The verse in question speaks about becoming a parent and realizing that you’d do anything to protect your child, even take a life. I believe that the verse was removed, at least in part, because in the original vocal Bono becomes clearly overcome with emotion while he’s singing. it’s seriously affecting to listen to, but it lacks the polish that U2 usually go for when they’re in the studio. For this reason, I believe that the original version can be considered a demo, a rough, unfinished take on the song that was later refined further into the version that was featured in the Brothers film. In place of this verse, the Brothers version of the song contains a lyric that’s part of the coda and seems to relate to the movie’s theme of family which has been torn apart by war.

Most of the overall lyric of the song feels like it’s sung from the perspective of a soldier in the Iraq war, but I’ve got a theory that the chorus might be a little more personal for Bono. Around the time that this song was being written, the sessions for No Line on the Horizon, I believe that Bono was going through something of a writer’s block. For several decades leading up to the recording of that album, Bono had been writing lyrics based on his own experience – from losing his mother as a teenager to discovering America, becoming a father and watching his children grow then losing his own father, growing older, and so on and so on. I think that Bono felt while recording in 2009 that he had exhausted his own life as a source for material, and that when Bono sings in “Winter” “Words would find me, creep up behind me, break in and enter through every locked door. Rhymes began in me, summer sang in me, but summer sings in me no more” he was expressing his own frustration at his inability to write lyrics about his own life, reflecting on how easy it once was and comparing that to the struggle he faced as he tried to write lyrics for the then-new album. Eventually Bono would hit on the idea of creating characters to write about, which is one of the most interesting things about No Line on the Horizon but I think that it was something that Bono struggled with.

“Winter” has never been performed live and I’d be surprised if it ever is. It’s not well enough known that anyone is clamoring to hear it live like they are for U2’s hits and other well-known songs, and if it were going to be played live I think it would have been on the 360 tour, which was in support of the album that the song was taken from. Then again, I never expected “Electrical Storm” or “Your Blue Room” to make their live debut years after their studio versions were recorded and released, so maybe the band will surprise me. I can see “Winter” slotting in perfectly during an acoustic set on the B-stage. Whatever the future may hold for “Winter”, it remains an underappreciated gem in U2’s catalog of music. I hope that this article helps to cast some well-deserved light onto the song.