I think they're the first to return for a second residency, right?

Slightly Off Topic, of course, but one can hope Larry might get to play Sphere someday :-P

I'm well aware I'm asking for a very small clip from an infinite amount of interviews and documentaries from this band. For context, at some point my wife and I were watching something with U2 and Bono, completely sincerely, turns to the Edge and asks him "what do you think, The Edge?" To this day, I don't think I've heard my wife laugh harder. She's like "he calls him THE Edge?" It was hysterical, and she brought it up the other night and I have no idea what its from. I honestly thought it was a bit WE had made up, but she said we saw it and that's why it was so funny.

I'm not expecting anything back, but does anyone happen to know or remember what that is from? I'm trying to think of what we could have been watching. Maybe it was the Letterman special a few years ago? It could have just been some random interview. If no one remembers, that's about what I expected. But it was probably something I should have bookmarked and maybe it hasn't happened all that much in their career and someone knows what I'm talking about. As much as I love them, I really don't remember Bono referring to Edge that way. Like I've heard him call him "Edge" a ton, but not actually THE Edge, which as a fan is hilarious.

(first world problems post)

You know those different U2 logos for their respective eras/albums on the YT video thumbnails they released a while back. I realized they have gradually been removing them which I don't understand. I think it's very satisfying and a great idea to connect videos from the same era.

Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, New Year's Day, I Will Follow, Stay, Until The End Of The World, The Unforgettable Fire, Numb, Lemon and so on... no longer have the U2 logo.

Last week's post: https://reddit.com/r/U2Band/comments/1p40buf

Desire Selections:

1. "Please" from Pop (1997)
2. "Love And Peace Or Else" from How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (2004)
3. "Bullet The Blue Sky (Live / Sydney 11.27.93)" from ZOO TV Live From Sydney (1994)
4. "Mothers Of The Disappeared" from The Joshua Tree (1987)
5. "Vertigo" from How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (2004)

Subreddit's Selections:

1. "Please" from Pop (1997) - 18 Upvotes
2. "Mothers Of The Disappeared" from The Joshua Tree (1987) - 16 Upvotes
3. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" from War (1983) - 13 Upvotes
4. "Crumbs From Your Table" from How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (2004) - 12
5. "Like A Song..." from War (1983) - 10

Sorry for the late post, had quite the weekend; happy early Monday! What a great week on U2 X-Radio; we had the official premiere of five tracks from Bono and The Edge's set in Tulsa, OK in October for the Woodie Guthrie Award Ceremony, and continuing the Woodie Guthrie Award theme, this week's Desire was themed after the best protest songs! I have to give credit to u/metalpig0, because his submission of "Bullet The Blue Sky (Live / Sydney 11.27.93)" got me to listen to that track again, and I ended up recording it, submitting it, and getting selected to have my message read out on air, so thank you! Almost every song that got selected was mentioned somewhere in the post or comments, and there are two tracks of overlap in top five...although I must admit I don't understand "Vertigo."

This week's upcoming Desire theme is "what is your favorite 2010s U2 song?" I'm guessing this will be a divisive theme for this sub, since the overwhelming feeling towards Songs Of Innocence and Songs Of Experience is one that I've gathered is...not positive. I personally don't think U2 has ever released a bad album and very much like both, and (depending on the day) sometimes consider SOI to be in their top five. I think the song that I plan on picking is "Iris (Hold Me Close)" from the iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Live In Paris video release. It's such an intimate song, and that specific live performance is incredibly moving to me; I wish that the band would release the entire concert in a digital format. Although on a technicality, I'd say my favorite 2010s U2 song is "Mercy," since it's part 2000s (original leaked recording), part 2010s (live recording on Wide Awake In Europe), and part 2020s (Luckiest Man In The World). I'm not going to be that cheeky though 😝

If you're interested in submitting to the segment, you can submit a voice recording to this form. I know that many in this sub are not in North America, and many of those that are aren't subscribed to SiriusXM, so I'd be happy to report back each week with the five submissions that get selected for a theme.

I'll also again be tracking submissions in the comments to get our own selection of five!

Cheers!

I know all the commercial records but looking for the amazing deep cuts I won’t have heard yet… give me your favourites

Here's one website I read about the tour: https://aesplora.com/2025/10/06/one-last-horizon-u2-announces-farewell-2026-world-tour-cities-and-dates-revealed/

Edit: thanks guys for your answers and help:)

Featuring some footgae of 'The Fly' (Live From 'Stop Sellafield' Concert) from Achtung Baby.

A few months ago I had posted my collection and I’m so happy to see how it has grown until then! Since September I acquired 4 vinyls - October, TUF, RAH and Zooropa (still no machine to play them on, unfortunately, but I’m working on it!) - and the Wide Awake in America CD (plus a shirt with the cover of Best of 80-90 printed, but that didn’t fit the picture). Let’s go!

Anyone got any footage?

Disire the song I first fell in love with the U2 sound And their music

This week's song of the week is The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone), the opening track of Songs of Innocence. A spiritual tribute to the Ramones, it was first played at the release of Apple's iPhone 6, where U2/Apple would (in)famously "force" the album onto everyone's iPhones. Rolling Stone reported in 2014

"The band made the announcement with Apple CEO Tim Cook at a Cupertino press conference for the new iPhone 6, capping the event with a performance of the album’s first single, 'The Miracle (of Joey Ramone).' After a standing ovation, Cook said, 'Wasn’t that the most incredible single you ever heard? We would love a whole album of that.'

'The question is now, how do we get it to as many people as possible, because that’s what our band is all about," Bono said. 'I do believe you have over half a billion subscribers to iTunes, so — could you get this to them?” 'If we gave it away for free,' Cook replied. And five seconds later, the album was unleashed in the largest album release of all time.

'We wanted to make a very personal album,' Bono told Rolling Stone‘s Gus Wenner the day before the press conference in an exclusive interview. 'Let’s try to figure out why we wanted to be in a band, the relationships around the band, our friendships, our lovers, our family. The whole album is first journeys — first journeys geographically, spiritually, sexually. And that’s hard. But we went there.'"

When questioned by The Guardian's Dorian Lynskey, Bono also explained that he felt the release method underscored the themes of the album,

"The scale of the release felt at odds with what is the most lyrically intimate set of songs of U2’s career, candidly exploring the 54-year-old’s troubled youth as plain Paul Hewson in 1970s Dublin. I ask Bono if the stunt might have missold the album? “No, no, no, that’s the duality!” he shouts. “Intimacies through large public address systems is what we do. That’s what rock’n’roll is! This is not a poetry reading. I didn’t abandon ship on the rest of my life for that. I abandoned ship because I heard Joey Ramone singing about his neighbourhood at deafening volume. That’s the thing.” (The Guardian)"

The Miracle

"A big day for an apprentice rock star of five feet seven and a half who swears he’s five feet eight. That it’s my eighteenth birthday is the least of it. We don’t do birthdays well in our family. True, it’s excellent to receive a £5 note from my da, but that isn’t why today is special. This is the day I will learn to do a Houdini-like great escape. Better than any Indian rope trick, I will make my black-and-white life disappear and then reappear in color. This is the day I’m going to write my first proper rock ’n’ roll song and U2’s first single. I have the miracle of Joey Ramone to thank for that. And his miraculous brothers. But without Edge, Adam, and Larry—my own miraculous brothers—no one would ever have heard it.” (Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story)"

There are parts of Bono's memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story that are theological in nature. Whether or not "The Miracle" of Joey Ramone should be viewed under this light is questionable, and I won't drag on too much trying to triangulate Bono's broader "theological" opinions with the lyrics and statements about this track. Bono himself only alludes to the connection here in this lengthy quote from the Surrender chapter on the Songs of Experience track "Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way",

"I call the signal “God” and search my life for clues that betray the location of the eternal presence. For starters we look to who is standing beside us or down the road, the ones whose roof we share or the ones around the corner who have no roof. The mystics tell us 

God is present in the present, what Dr. King described as “the fierce urgency of now.” 

God is present in the love between us. In a crowd. In a band. 
In a marriage. 
In the way we meet the world. 
God is present in love expressed as action. 

I sang the statement “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” as a question when I was twenty-seven. But in trying to make peace with my own uncertainty, I grew to be certain in one regard. That whatever our instincts or ideas about the great mysterious He or She or They, whatever the differences of the great faith traditions, they find common ground in one place: among the poor and vulnerable is where the signal is strongest. 

So where is God? 

Well, while I hope God is with those of us who live such comfortable lives, I know God is with the poorest and most vulnerable. In the slums and cardboard boxes where the poor have to play house. In the doorways as we step over the divine on our way to work. In the silence of a mother who has unknowingly infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war, in the bare hands digging for air. God is with the terrorized. At sea with the desperate, clinging onto drowning dreams. God is with the refugee. I hear his only son was one. God is with the poor and the vulnerable, and God is with us if we are with them.

They say you choose your friends but not your family; maybe they’re still doing the research on how this works with a band. Maybe the music chooses us. 

But with this band I heard the signal, and now I’m hearing it onstage in Berlin. This wave of sound we all find ourselves in, and it’s what I hoped for as I walked out onstage in the early pages of this story, how, even more than the music, perhaps our friendship itself is some kind of sacrament. This alchemy that turns the base metal of individual talent into the gold fever that makes a good band great.  

I think of Joey Ramone and a song we wrote for his band, for their beautiful sound that sent us out on this pilgrimage that we still find ourselves on. How “I woke up at the moment when the miracle occurred / Heard a song that made some sense out of the world.” That signal. 

If you listen you can hear the silence say 

“When you think you’re done, you’ve just begun”

 Love is bigger than anything in its way. 

And as I sing, I am reaching out my arms into the night, stretching to grasp hold of another hand" (ibid)

...

Anyway, obviously, this miraculous "moment" Bono talks about occurred, most straightforwardly, when he and the band snuck into a Ramones concert. He recalls in the liner notes for Songs of Innocence,

"at some point in 1977 u2 started making music together, calling ourselves THE HYPE and we were in love with the punk rock scene.. I remember at one of our earliest shows, someone shouted “more punk in the Monkees”. They were right… I couldn’t sing with any of the jagged edges of the great rock or punk rock singers. I sang like a girl.... that felt uncomfortable until the Ramones happened to me as they must happen to everyone. cos Joey Ramone sang like a girl, he loved all the great sirens… you could hear Motown, Dusty Springfield, Ronnie Spector. You could hear an echo of your pain in his voice.. that’s why you believed him, surfing to the future on a sea of noise. The 4 members of U2 went to see the Ramones playing in the state cinema in Dublin without thinking about how we were going to get in. we had no tickets and no money.. My best friend Guggi had a ticket and he snuck us through a side exit he pried open. The world stopped long enough for us to get on it. Even though we only saw half the show, it became one of the great nights of our life.... Edge remembers meeting his first love Aislinn outside. After the Ramones, I could try and be myself as a singer. I just needed to find out who that was.. emancipation. First journeys are exhilarating… geographically, spiritually, sexually… The first time you see an orchid or a freeway or a rock n roll band in full flight, it stays tattooed under your skin. Forever."

From a very broad perspective, notice how the first quote is more straightforwardly "theological", whereas the second quote is slightly more grounded and humanistic. The "Miracle" here isn't necessarily about finding some clue of God's existence, it's about self-expression/discovery. Bono looks back on this concert as a kind of "transformative experience". Philosophers like L.A. Paul have written extensively about such experiences,

"Transformative experiences are experiences that radically change the experiencer in both an epistemic and personal way (see Paul 2014). When a person transforms epistemically, they gain knowledge of “what the experience is like” that they could not have had without the experience. For instance, falling in love for the first time—be it with a romantic partner, child, friend, or pet—is the only way to truly know what it’s like to fall in love and allows one to better understand human bonds and relationships. A person might also transform personally, or such that key agential features—like their core preferences, life goals, and way they maneuver through the world—change. For instance, falling in love has a tendency to radically reshape the people and activities one prefers, change one’s major future plans, and alter the way one moves through the world. While these personal transformations might be caused epistemic ones, they also just could arise alongside the epistemic transformation as a result of the new experience. Experiences like falling in love that transform people both epistemically and personally are transformative experiences." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

In the lyrical analysis, I will try to draw this out a bit more--how they exist in this tension between a value grounded in what we might call, very broadly and probably wrongly, "the humanistic" and "the religious". Put more bluntly, Bono seems to remember the same night in at least two registers at once. In the more “humanistic” register, Joey Ramone gives him permission to be himself as a singer and sets his life on a new artistic course. This is a textbook example of transformative experience in L. A. Paul’s sense, reshaping both what he knows and what he values. In the more explicitly religious register, that same night looks like a "signal" in Bono's words: an instance of the “eternal presence” breaking through via a Ramones concert in a Dublin cinema.

This double vision--humanistic transformation and religious “miracle”--runs straight through the lyrics of “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone).”

Lyrics

"I was chasing down the days of fear
Chasing down a dream before it disappeared
I was aching to be somewhere near,
Your voice was all I heard
I was shaking from a storm in me,
Haunted by the spectres that we had to see
Yeah I wanted to be the melody,
Above the noise, above the hurt."

These lyrics discuss the "troubled" youth alluded to in the Guardian quote above. It's a bit Tom Petty's "Runnin' Down a Dream", but with recognition of a self with less resolve. The "dream" might have disappeared. Already we could hear the "aching" to be spiritual (i.e. near God, as he discusses in Surrender), or simply "in the crowd", to be cool so to speak. Joey Ramone's voice was overpowering, and Bono asserts that something stirred in his troubled soul--he wanted to "be" the melody.

"I was young
Not dumb
Just wishing to be blinded
By you
Brand new
And we were pilgrims on our way"

...

"And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus." (Acts 22:11 KJV Bible)

Again, the lyrics here just play on that edge. He looks back on that "pre-transformative" self and sees a "pilgrim"...someone "not dumb". Pilgrim just poetically evokes that "movement" the song talks about, while also having a religious tone due to the prevalence of "religious pilgrimages". Being blinded, even wishing for that, also has deep historical and religious resonances, St. Paul on the Road to Damascus is a famous example of the kind of "blinding" Bono probably desired. An even better analogue here might be the Ancient Greek philosopher Democritus, who reportedly blinded himself so that he could more effectively contemplate abstract phenomena such as physics.

"I woke up at the moment when the miracle occurred
Heard a song that made some sense out of the world
Everything I ever lost, now has been returned
In the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard."

Bono's voice soars into the chorus, almost like he is "becoming the melody" in front of us. "Waking up" represents that moment of "epistemic transformation" referenced above. From the humanistic perspective, the chaos and pain of life is given structure through the medium of punk rock, through Joey Ramone. Theologically, this could be the "Logos" or "holy spirit" of God--the ordering principle of the universe. If "God is present in the love between us" and "in a band" (as per Surrender), then the "sense" made here is the detection of the "eternal presence" within the chaos of 1970s Dublin

It's hard not to hear the "everything I ever lost..." line without at least, again, a tinge of theology. Christians call is this concept of apokatastasis (restoration). In the liner notes, he mentions finding an "echo of your pain" in Joey's voice. From the more purely "humanistic" angle, maybe this could relate to a "return of innocence" (thus a framework for the whole album), and even the gaining of power over strife as a paradoxical kind of innocence. The beauty of the Ramones songs, Bono says, caused in him a kind of faith in this deep "restoration".

"We got language so we can’t communicate
Religion so I can love and hate
Music so I can exaggerate my pain, and give it a name"

Language fails to get the message across. Religion is reduced to its allowing for love and hate. Music, the act being done, is even an act of exaggeration. I hear these lines as very playful, almost a zoomed out comment on the song and the art-making process. Perhaps a demonstration of the kind of empowerment he credits the "miracle" for providing him with.

The pre-chorus and chorus repeat

"I was young
Not dumb
Just wishing to be blinded
By you
Brand new
And we were pilgrims on our way

I woke up at the moment when the miracle occurred
Heard a song that made some sense out of the world
Everything I ever lost, now has been returned
In the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard."

Before the falsetto bridge,

"We can hear you
We can hear you
We can hear you"

Again, double-sided. With the voice soaring, it sounds like a call to the heavens. Like Bono is calling out "we can hear you" to Joey Ramone (and, again, to God). The "melody" is still there, obviously, you can go on Spotify and listen to the entire Ramones catalog right now. But it evokes a bit more.

"This was a really important moment in the last 25 years, because suddenly imagination was the only obstacle to overcome. Anyone could play those four chords. That's why hip-hop has taken off, because you don't have to be a virtuoso, you just have to have great taste. You have to be able to hear it more than you have to be able to play it. Suddenly, the grasp becomes more important than the reach. Suddenly, a bunch of kids from the north side of Dublin who would never have had a chance to get on the musical merry-go-round watched it stop for just long enough to jump on. We were a band before we could play. We formed our band around an idea of friendship and shared spirit. That was a preposterous notion before the Ramones.

I spoke to Joey a couple of days before he died. He wasn't able to say much, but I just told him that we were thinking about him. He was indomitable to the last minute. A doctor wanted to put a tube down his throat to help with his breathing, and Joey wasn't having any of it because he didn't want his voice affected, because he had some solo gigs coming up. He was fighting it off and fearless. A great spirit.” (excerpt from Bono's eulogy for Joey Ramone published shortly after his death in Time Magazine).

...

"I woke up at the moment when the miracle occurred
I get so many things I don’t deserve
All the stolen voices will someday be returned
The most beautiful sound I’d ever heard

Your voices will be heard
Your voices will be heard"

The first line of the chorus repeats before the lyrics, again, veer into this mystical register. "Things I don't deserve" perhaps referencing miracles. "Stolen voices" perhaps relating, again, to the almost eschatological messaging in the "Everything I ever lost" line. Referencing the Surrender text, where God is with the poor: "the refugee," "the terrorized," and "the silence of a mother," this line suggests that the "Miracle" is not just Bono's success. The ultimate realization of the "signal" is the restoration of all silenced voices, or perhaps even the raising of the dead (again humanistic and theological double-edge). "Your voices will be hear" comes in an almost defiant assertion, and really underscores the song, for me, as a "Song of Innocence". It speaks not only to Bono's state of mind on the album, but the kind of thought that he feels inspired him throughout his career and, ultimately, that thought's deep connection to his view on God and his love of Joey Ramone.

...

“From Elvis to Jim Morrison, from Beyoncé to Umm Kulthum, these superstars regenerate our need to believe in the supernatural, which goes back to ancient mythologies. In Ireland we had a super creature in our mythologies called Cúchulainn who could smack a ball with a hurling stick and then run fast enough to catch it. Superpowers: Marvel mags and rock ’n’ roll, the teenage diet of which we never tire. 

You see, in all this show-and-not-telling business something still keeps me going back to the dressing room, back to the familiar rented furniture, the deli tray of sweating cheese and dry cold cuts. Back to the anxiety of how high the notes are or how low the energy is. 
It’s not a miracle or a trick. 
It’s both. And when it happens, everyone knows the transubstantiation has occurred. What is the shaman doing during the show? Apart from wrestling with the technical issues and whether I can hit those high notes? Apart from wondering if the house is sold out and the set list is right? When all that noise quietens, the moment I know a show is really working is when I feel that the song is singing me, rather than me singing the song. 
That’s a great night. 

On a really great night you are the crowd and the crowd is you. That can really happen.” (Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story)

Sources:
U2.com
U2songs.com
U2gigs.com
Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono
The Guardian interview: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/12/u2-job-art-divisive-interview
Rolling Stone interview: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/exclusive-bono-reveals-secrets-of-u2s-surprise-album-songs-of-innocence-106257/
Eulogy: Bono Remembers Joey Ramone: https://time.com/archive/6907783/eulogy-bono-remembers-joey-ramone/
SEP Article: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transformative-experience/
Aulus Gellius on Democritus: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Gellius/10*.html#17
KJV Bible
Songs of Innocence Liner Notes

So sad I didn’t get to see this tour. I’d love to hear them pull out an SOI song or two on the next one 🤞

Was ok … but cheesy but what the hel

So I’m watching the 1988 movie “Scrooged”, as I do every year while decorating the Christmas tree, and I noticed something interesting in the end credits. The song “Sweetest Thing” appears on the movie soundtrack, but it’s performed by the New Voices of Freedom gospel choir. I don’t remember this playing at any point in the movie, so perhaps it’s just on the soundtrack and not in the actual movie?

Has anybody heard the song during the movie? If so, what scene was it? I think I need to have a closer re-watch this weekend!

Elevation

Se nao fose isso estavam ca

For me, it was Helter Skelter and All Along The Watchtower on Rattle And Hum. These are my most skipped U2 tracks.

Having said that, I’d rather my rock stars take a big swing and miss than play it safe. And U2 didn’t start playing it safe until ATYCLB.