One Series IV: Fans Feel One

The song has since become regarded as one of the greatest songs of all-time. It was ranked #36 in Rolling Stone’s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, the highest ranked U2 song. The track was also voted #1 on Q’s “1001 Best Songs Ever” list, VH1 ranked the song #2 in its list of “Greatest Songs of the 90s”, and voters in an April 2006 poll on VH1 named the song as having Britain’s number one lyric – “One life, with each other, sisters, brothers”. The song is currently ranked as the 94th greatest song of all-time, as well as the fourth best song of 1991, by Acclaimed Music. A listener’s poll conducted by the popular Israeli radio station Galgalatz ranked “One” as the best song of the 1990s.

Performed Live

Since its first live appearance in 1992, the song has been played at every concert of U2’s subsequent tours. It has also been played at several benefit concerts, including the 1995 Pavarotti and Friends concert in Modena, the 1997 Tibetan Freedom Concert in New York, the 2003 46664 concert, at Live 8 in 2005, and with Mary J. Blige on Shelter from the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast. The song took on an even more emotional meaning at a Popmart Tour show at Mexico City in 1997, as featured on PopMart: Live from Mexico City, where the tearful rendition was dedicated to the late Michael Hutchence of INXS. Live performances of the song are also depicted on the concert films Zoo TV: Live from Sydney, U2 Go Home: Live from Slane Castle, Vertigo 2005: Live from Chicago and U2 3D. Until the second leg of the U2 360 Tour, One was played live in the key of A flat minor, while the recorded version is played a semitone higher.

Mary J Blige:

After being invited to join the group on-stage at a New York concert in 2005, Mary J. Blige performed the track with U2 and received a standing ovation. A recording of the song was later created, with Blige on lead vocals, Bono supplying additional vocals, and the band performing the music. This recording was featured on Mary J. Blige’s multi-platinum album The Breakthrough, released in late 2005. It was released as the album’s second international single in April 2006, having already been featured heavily on BBC Radio 1’s playlist, and it has been a staple record on Capital FM’s playlist since late January 2006. In May 2006, Blige performed the song at the finale of American Idol with finalist Elliott Yamin, ahead of its full release to American radio. It was also used by Fox for its end-of-season montage after game five of the 2006 World Series.

On December 31, 2006, “One” was announced by BBC Radio 1 to be the thirty-fifth highest-selling single of 2006 in the UK. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in December 2006.

Did you know this?

In late 2006, a Bank of America employee sang “One” with lyrics modified to refer to the Bank of America and MBNA merger. The video subsequently became an Internet phenomenon. Universal Music Group, the copyright owner of the song, posted a cease and desist letter directed at Bank of America in the comments section of Stereogum, one of the blogs that posted the video.

Twin City Annoucement Expected

U2’s 360 tour is expected to spin into the TCF Bank Stadium sometime next summer.

“June 27th, ” said Cities 97 radio personality Brian Turner.  “With tickets going on sale November 21st as it’s looking right now.”

It’s a stop music industry experts agree wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for the new outdoor stadium.

Turner said fans—like the bands—enjoy playing outdoors and until recently the Twin Cities didn’t have a legitimate stadium venue, now there are two.

Target Field and TCF Bank Stadiums will open up opportunities the state hasn’t seen in decades.

The University of Minnesota could potentially earn nearly $2-million in ticket sales alone for a U2 concert.

Concession sales will also bring in a few bucks.

Unlike school-sanctioned events, alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase during concerts at the stadium.

More information about the show and an official date for the concert is expected Monday.

One Series Part III: Creative Thoughts

While bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. preferred a sound similar to U2’s previous work, vocalist Bono and guitarist The Edge were inspired by alternative rock and European electronic dance music of the time and were advocating a change. Mullen, in particular felt his “input was being diminished”, as The Edge was delving into drum beats from electronic music, while Mullen was focusing on learning to play differently.

The band also had difficulty in developing demos and ideas into completed songs. Bono and The Edge believed the lack of progress was the fault of the band, while Clayton and Mullen Jr. believed the problem was the song ideas. Mullen said he “thought this might be the end” of the band.

A breakthrough was achieved when The Edge combined two separate bridge sections of a song. Playing alone in another room, Edge was improvising chord progressions, which he did not like in the context of the song on which he was working (which conflicting sources claim to be “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)”, “Mysterious Ways”, and “The Fly”). 

Producer Daniel Lanois overheard him and asked him to play the separate sections together. The Edge played acoustic guitar, catching the ear of those in the studio. Bono joined in with vocals, improvising lyrics and melodies. The other band members joined in, as well, and soon afterwards, the band had improvised the piece of music into “One”. Bono recalls that “the melody, the structure - the whole thing was done in 15 minutes.”

He also stated that the lyrics “just fell out of the sky, a gift”; the concept was inspired by a note Bono sent to the Dalai Lama declining to attend a festival called Oneness - the note read, “One - but not the same”. The song’s writing inspired the band and changed their outlook on the recording sessions. Mullen Jr. said the song reaffirmed the band’s “blank page approach” to recording and reassured the band that all was not lost.

Following the song’s initial improvisation, tapes of the recording sessions were delivered to producer Brian Eno in order to gather his input. The band was rather anxious about the quality of their material, but when Eno arrived in Berlin, they were surprised to hear that he liked most of the tapes. However, as Bono recalls, Eno said, “There’s just one song I really despise, and that’s ‘One’.” Eno felt that they needed to deconstruct the song.

U2TOURFANS. 2009

The band returned to Dublin in 1991 to record at the “Elsinore” mansion on the Dalkey coastline. The band continued to work on the song there, adding various overdubs, but not finding a mix they were satisfied with. The Edge thought that they had the foundation for the song, but that it needed “foreground”. Eno interceded and created his own mix, which gave the band a better idea of an arrangement they liked.  Eno wanted the band to remove the melancholy elements of the song and persuaded them to remove the acoustic guitar from the song. Eno also worked with Lanois and Edge to “undermine the ‘too beautiful’ feeling”, which is why the “crying guitar parts that have an aggression to them” were added.

Engineer Flood was unconvinced by the song’s mix, saying he “was the nagging doubter. I always felt it was a bit straight, until we did the final mix.” The final mix was completed at Windmill Lane Studios in August 1991 on the last night of the album’s recording sessions, when some last minute additions were made to “One”. Bono did not like a line in the vocals and spent most of the day re-recording it. Later, after the song’s mix had just been completed by the production team, The Edge came up with a guitar part he wanted to add to the song’s end near the lyric “Love is a temple”. After convincing the production team to allow the addition, Edge played the part once and had it mixed in ten minutes later.

Bono described the song’s theme as such: “It is a song about coming together, but it’s not the old hippie idea of ‘Let’s all live together.’ It is, in fact, the opposite. It’s saying, we are one, but we’re not the same. It’s not saying we even want to get along, but that we have to get along together in this world if it is to survive. It’s a reminder that we have no choice”. The band has mentioned that many people tell them they have played “One” at their weddings, prompting Bono to respond, and “Are you mad? It’s about splitting up!”

Part IV contiues on Sunday.

One series part II: The Videos

Version 1, directed by Anton Corbijn and produced by Richard Bell - State, was made in Berlin in February 1992. The video features members of the band in drag as well as two cars—with cartoonish paintings of a nude woman and man painted on the hoods and roofs—driving around Berlin. Interspersed throughout the video is the image of a rather stern looking older man, who is in fact Bono’s father. (Bono’s mother had died while he was young and Bono was raised by his father with whom he had a fairly distant relationship. According to interviews with Bono, he and his father began getting closer around the early 1990s.)

Version 2 was directed by Mark Pellington, edited by Bob Gleason and produced by Carina Rubin - Woo Art International. It was made in New York, also in February, 1992. This version of “One” was chosen as Number 99 by the editors of Rolling Stone in their list of the 100 best rock videos of all time.

Director Mark Pellington’s video for “One”—the first (sic) of three versions made for the single—may not have gotten as much attention as the other two, but his slow-motion, out-of-focus footage of running buffalo is a quietly elegant tour de force. Its power lies in its simplicity: The piece includes no band shots and was intended as a meditative video background for U2’s live performance of the song, which deals with AIDS and intolerance toward gays.

“We had done a cut of it, which we used in rehearsals,” says bassist Adam Clayton. “When the need for a video came up, we went back to it.” Built around the closing image of the beasts being herded off a cliff (a photograph by artist David Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS in 1992), the video was played on MTV until, according to the band, the network determined it wasn’t right for heavy rotation, and it was replaced by the other two more MTV-friendly clips. one by director Phil Joanou, the other by photographer Anton Corbijn.

David Wojnarowicz was a controversial New York artist, prominent in the mid-to-late 1980s. His work, which has been described as media art and includes writings, performances, photo- and video-based pieces and installations, deals primarily with sexual/gender orientation and AIDS issues. Wojnarowicz died of AIDS in 1992.

In a March 4, 1993 interview with Alan Light for Rolling Stone, Bono discussed the use of David Wojnarowicz’ images in the “One” video. Bono said:

Adam is the man who turned me on to Wojnarowicz’s work, Whatever you do now, you are in the post-AIDS age. It’s there, and you’ve got to walk through it or around it. And if a record deals with any kind of erotic subject matter, the specter of AIDS is even all the more close.

You know, if Freud was even half-right, if sex is even close to the center of our lives, how is it that we leave it to pornographers and dum-dum guys? We leave the subject to them, and it’s reduced to titillation in the cinema, to these kind of half-baked plots. Wojnarowicz dealt with the subject seriously, he took it on. I can’t believe how people can just walk around it, you know? I’m sympathetic to Madonna in that respect, too. Whatever you think about her work, she’s actually just trying to say: “Look, here I am, and I have these feelings and ideas, and I know you do, but you’re not owning up. I will.”2.

Version 3 is considered the most “MTV-friendly.” It was directed by Phil Joanou and produced by Ned O’Hanlon - Dreamchaser Productions in New York in March 1992. This video uses the standard supermodels and banks on Bono’s sex appeal, featuring close-ups of the tortured-looking singer in a bar drinking and smoking cigarettes.

Check the video out here from our YouTube Channel:

Version 4: In 2006, U2 re-recorded the song as part of a duet with contemporary R&B singer Mary J. Blige. After being invited to join the group on-stage at a New York concert in 2005, Mary J. Blige performed the track with U2 and received a standing ovation. A recording of the song was later created, with Blige on lead vocals, Bono supplying additional vocals, and the band performing the music. This recording was featured on Mary J. Blige’s multi-platinum album The Breakthrough, released in late 2005.

Bono Snorts Salt To Hit High Notes

Bono regularly sniffs salty water as it acts as an antiseptic for his throat and helps ensure he can hit high notes, according to The Script frontman Danny O’Donoghue.

Danny told Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper: “Snorting salts - it’s actually a singing technique.”

“Myself and Bono share a vocal coach. Whenever the high notes aren’t feeling that high or in the morning you’re groggy, you snort salt water up your nose.”

“It cleans out cavities, it’s a natural antiseptic for your throat.”

 We did not know that

One Series

This week our four part series will be focusing on “One” is a song by Irish rock band U2 and the third track from their 1991 album, Achtung Baby.

It was released as the album’s third single in March 1992. While recording Achtung Baby, conflict arose between band members over the direction of the U2’s sound. Tensions almost prompted the band to break up, until they rallied around the improvised writing of “One” Lyrically, the song describes lead singer Bono’s struggles to maintain relationships with others, but it has been interpreted in other ways.

The song reached #7 in the UK charts and #10 in the US pop chart, and reached the top of the US Billboard Album Rock Tracks and Modern Rock Tracks charts. It peaked at #10 on the Dutch Top 40.

The song is widely considered to be one of the band’s greatest songs and is consistently featured in lists of the greatest songs of all-time. Rolling Stone ranked the song #36 on their list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, and Q ranked the song at #1 on its list of the “1001 Greatest Songs of All-Time”.The song has been played by U2 at every one of their concerts since the song’s live debut in 1992, and it has appeared on many of the band’s concert films. In a live setting, “One” is often used by the band to promote human rights or social justice causes, and the song lends its namesake to Bono’s charitable organization, the ONE Campaign. In 2006, U2 re-recorded the song as part of a duet with contemporary R&B singer Mary J. Blige.

At the instant we were recording it, I got a very strong sense of its power. We were all playing together in the big recording room, a huge, eerie ballroom full of ghosts of the war, and everything fell into place. It was a reassuring moment, when everyone finally went, ‘oh great, this album has started.’ It’s the reason you’re in a band - when the spirit descends upon you and you create something truly affecting. ‘One’ is an incredibly moving piece. It hits straight into the heart.

—The Edge, on the recording of “One

This is a a very touching story of music, family, friends. We are one share your life and enjoy the story over the next three days. Tomorrow, we cover the video part of the story and can you tell us which Ameircan bank has made a name for its self with the song “One”?

U2 takes risks to make Fire

The boys from U2 have been marking the 25th anniversary of the release of “The Unforgettable Fire” with a series of re-issues of the album. There’s a new remastered version, a vinyl version, a “Deluxe Edition” and even a “Super Deluxe Edition” for $54.99 on Amazon with two CDs, a DVD and a bunch of other extras.

Speakeasy is hoping that they come out with a “Super Mega Magnanimous Deluxe Edition 2.0″ with plane tickets to Dublin, a pub crawl with Bono and guitar lessons from The Edge. We can only hope.

“The Unforgettable Fire” is an album worth celebrating. U2 fans and critics can debate which album is the group’s best–”War,” “The Joshua Tree,” maybe “Achtung Baby.” But “The Unforgettable Fire” deserves to be part of the conversation.

Released in October 1984, and recorded at Slane Castle in Ireland, the release was the first U2 album to be produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois and it took U2 in a more experimental direction. When you see the 1984 video  “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and see all these largely-forgotten European pop-rockers with questionable haircuts, one reason why U2 transcended all that is that they took an artistic leap like “The Unforgettable Fire.” U2 didn’t just take risks with their hair–they took chances with their music.

“Unforgettable” songs like “A Sort of Homecoming” combined poetic lyrics with nakedly emotional performances, pulling the listener in and keeping them there as they tried to figure out what it all meant. Other songs gave up their meanings more readily: “Pride (In the Name of Love)” eulogized Martin Luther King, Jr.–a challenging subject for a rock song. The track “Bad,” also off the album, explored heroin addiction in terms that were both evocative and abstract.

U2 provided Speakeasy with an exclusive clip of the band talking about the making of ”The Unforgettable Fire.” You can watch it below. Feel free to sound off on what you think is the best U2 album in the comments section.

U2 Fan Book Selections

The question has been asked many times. Is it possible to be a committed Christian and rock superstar, can political activists make good music? How much does a hugely successful rock band really care about AIDS and poverty in Africa or is the whole concept just a front for selling more music. U2 has had a successful career distinctly dipping into those issues while remaining true to its fans.   For over two decades, U2 has been one of the biggest acts in rock music. They’ve produced over a dozen platinum and multiplatinum records and won 15 Grammy Awards. Critics everywhere have praised the band’s thoughtful, complex lyrics and the artistry of their music. At the same time, Bono, the group’s lead singer, has dedicated himself to political and social causes, blurring the line between rock star and respected statesman.

U2TOURFANS 2009We have just completed our book store list of the must read books about U2. The books have been selected to give a new fan some prospective into U2, covering all the topics.  If you’re looking for a holiday gift or just something refreshing to read while you wait out the next show. We invite you to visit our book store. Your purchases are safe and secure, you may ask why buy from our site; why not go directly to AMAZON or any of the other thousands of book stores on-line. We do earn commissions of the sale of the item. By the way if you click a link and purchase anything from AMAZON, you’re supporting our website. So this holiday season why not purchase items from our store. Watch for our guest writers to be coming soon.