It’s fortunate that there are fifty-two weeks in a year–there are three U2 albums celebrating significant anniversaries this year, and my plan is to cover all three of them until they are exhausted, including all B-sides, outtakes, and any other related cuts that U2 might have recorded. Today, that means that we are talking about […]
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There are several “legendary” pieces of music from U2 that we fans might never get to hear, no matter how long we wait, whether patiently or impatiently, or what we might do. I’m thinking of things like the very early song “Concentration Cramp,” the complete soundtrack that Bono and Edge wrote for that stage production […]
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U2 has recorded a handful of instrumentals over the years–mostly, but not exclusively, in the early years. Today’s topic is very nearly one of those instrumental tracks, but for a very few lines of singing. That’s enough by itself to make this song noteworthy in U2’s catalog. What makes it special, though, and almost entirely […]
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I’ve written in the past about U2’s relationship with Patti Smith, but I barely scratched the surface of this particular song in that article. It seemed like the appropriate time to give U2’s cover of “Dancing Barefoot” a platform all to itself, since it was a B-side from the Rattle and Hum album that’s celebrating […]
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I’ve been bouncing around for the past few weeks…moving between Zooropa, Rattle and Hum, and War, all of which are celebrating noteworthy anniversaries this year. Today, I’m focusing once again on Rattle and Hum, or rather one of its B-sides. From the Angel of Harlem single, it’s “A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel.”
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A few years ago, when U2 was in the middle of a program of remastering and re-releasing several of their early albums, I really got a kick out of the songs that were left-over from the from the sessions of the album in question. On several such tracks, the band took an existing musical track, […]
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As you read the title to this article, you might be thinking “U2 never covered Frank Sinatra,” and you’d be right. The song that I am writing about this week is technically not a U2 recording. Rather, it is a track that Bono recorded with Ol’ Blue Eyes around the time that Zooropa was being […]
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One of the greatest truisms of Bono’s lyrical career comes from the title and lyrics to one of Zooropa’s unsung gems: “Some Days Are Better Than Others.” It is a simple statement, really — some days really aren’t as good as some other days — but it is a statement that still manages to be […]
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Apart from one small detail, Zooropa’s closer fits in with the rest of that album perfectly. “The Wanderer” conforms perfectly with that album’s futuristic sounding euro-pop and even continues the use of Biblical themes from the song we talked about last week, “The First Time.” In fact, with the exception of that one small detail, […]
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I’ve heard some fans and critics present the opinion that U2 “lost their way” during the 1990’s. First off, I completely disagree with the idea that U2 went astray during that decade – they were having fun and experimenting, and consequently they produced some of their most interesting and exciting work. Perhaps, it might be […]
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