“Love and Peace or Else” is a song that I believe to be, in some respects, underrated by the band itself. I say that because the band has ignored several perfect opportunities to revive the song since the end of the Vertigo Tour, the tour that was affiliated with How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, […]
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There are several moments that I really enjoy on the DVD that came with the deluxe package of the How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb album, but perhaps my favorite moment on that DVD is the alternate version of “Crumbs From Your Table.” The opening guitar riff is, as Bono says at the time, “a […]
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U2 has informed my musical tastes in many other ways than simply being my favorite band…that is to say that I listen to lots of music other than just U2 because of U2. A good example is the way I fell in love with Emmylou Harris’ Wrecking Ball album above and beyond Larry’s amazing drumming […]
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One of my favorite Bono collaborations ever comes in the form of a song that he and Edge wrote for Roy Orbison to sing back in the late 80s, “She’s a Mystery to Me.” surprisingly enough, Bono actually produced Roy’s recording of the song, and U2’s frontman even played guitar on the track! Bono has […]
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I don’t usually write about solo tracks from members of U2 or tracks that don’t include contributions by the whole band, but this week, I couldn’t help my self. The long-awaited Bono collaboration with Swizz Beatz and Kanye West, a song titled “Skyscrapers,” finally saw the light of day when it leaked to YouTube late […]
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I remember reading in BIll Flanagan’s superb book U2 at the End of the World that, when they are in the studio, U2 has a tendency to revisit the moods or feelings of everything they have ever recorded. Sometimes, it is easy to pick out where this has happened, kind of like how “One Step […]
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There’s a thin but definite delineation between recordings by U2 and solo work by a member of that band. Some times, that line gets a little blurry, such as with the topic of this week’s article, Bono’s cover of “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” This song began its journey into U2’s discography when Bono recorded […]
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I know that you have all read in the past about my mixed feelings regarding The Unforgettable Fire album. Well, this song, “Elvis Presley and America” probably encapsulates those feelings more than any other. To start with, the music is just a slowed-down version of the backing track from another song on the same album, […]
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Even for someone like me who doesn’t believe a lot of the Bible or most of what one might hear in a church, there are still plenty of positive life lessons to be learned from Christianity. Things like “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and “thou shall not commit murder” are good pieces of advice, no […]
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Listening to a new U2 album for the first time is always a heady experience, but I can’t think of a single album that left me as dumbstruck after the first listen as the Passengers album, and that holds doubly true for the first track, “United Colours.” This track really defies easy description. On one […]
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