On 25 September 1976, a lil bunch of teenagers met in a kitchen in Artane, north Dublin, because a fourteen-year-old drummer had pinned a note to the noticeboard at Mount Temple. Drummer seeks musicians to form band. Thank fuck Whatsapp groups weren’t a thing back then.
Some guys whose names I could list, but if you’re reading this, you prob heard them well enough in the past fifty years. Maybe even too much some days. Ha.
Fifty years. Damn. Same four of them.
A new thread appeared on Zootopia the other day daring everyone to pick U2 songs you can’t leave behind. Fun.
So I sat down, starting to make a list of fifty songs, which felt like a reasonable and finite task for a Tuesday. Spoiler alert. I’m me, so it wasn’t. And I guess every poet is a thief or something, so I thought I’d steal the idea to elaborate a bit more on the subject and give myself the perfect celebratory post for their 50th anniversary. Oh yeah. When I say fifty years, I mean like today.
Not a ranking. Not all fans’ favorites. Just the ones that stay with me, and, as it turns out, they don’t stay alone. Half of them arrived carrying each other in some way – you know I had to make that joke come on.
You get the list, you get the why, and you get a playlist in no particular order because I’m terrible at making those. Just kidding, I’m really good at it actually, but when you dive into 50 years’ worth of music on a 24-hour notice, you just have to wing it.
Off with the horns, on with the show.
Here goes nothing. Or more like everything.
Every Breaking Wave
My favorite U2 song, so of course it makes the list. That piano version swept me off my feet the first time I heard it, and it has kept doing it every day since. I don’t have a cleverer argument than that, and I’m not looking for one.
Beauty has a sound. For me it’s very much this one.
Lady With The Spinning Head · The Fly · Zoo Station · Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
That first one is prob one of my favorite U2 songs, which is funny when you consider it spurred three others on this list. Edge has said they struggled with this lady for months. Tried to develop it, failed, tried again, failed again, and finally gave up and shoved it onto the back of a single. Which is kinda nuts when you think of the people you’re talking about. But oh well, it sure wasn’t lost as on the way to giving up, it became The Fly, Zoo Station, and Ultraviolet. I wouldn’t call that a failure, but look, that’s just my opinion.
Anyways, all four are here. The mother and all three daughters, and the funny part is that I didn’t even plan that.
Maybe that’s exactly why I love it so much, though. I get everything I love in one track. A little more raw. A little less overthought. Gosh, I’ll always be rooting for the underdogs. Never stop spinning, you beautiful lady, I love you.
As for those three magnificent minions, it spurred – Achtung, y’all. They laced those songs with 90s crack or something, and you cannot get them out of your system no matter how hard you fight it. Those intros will follow me to my grave, I’m afraid.
Always · Mercy · Xanax And Wine · The Crystal Ballroom
And once I’d noticed the Lady thing, I couldn’t stop noticing it. Are you feeling the spiraling? Finite task, my arse. Why do I keep doing this to myself?
Always is an earlier form of Beautiful Day, thrown out as a B-side in 2000. Well, guess what, I kept both.
Mercy sat in a drawer for twenty years, and you need to hear the harsh truth U2. Locking it in there was a crime against music, and yes, I’m still mad at you about it.
Xanax And Wine. For god’s sake, music is my favorite drug on the market. Yeah, I know, Fast Cars, whatever. I get that it’s prob not the best idea to advertise the rush of meds and drinks to your fans, but there’s a beauty in honesty, and that’s exactly why I take this version over its tidier counterpart. Don’t do those things all at once though, do not recommend.
The Crystal Ballroom is a bonus track, and that bass line makes me swoon like a Victorian woman seeing an ankle under a soft dress. I don’t have any better way to put it. It’s just one of those songs where Clayton turns into Slayton and leaves you with no way out. For those who know, it’s the Clayton stare, you know the one, just in bass clef mode.
So here’s a realization I wasn’t planning on having today, and yet it’s so unsurprising. I guess I just like everything they deem not good enough to make the album. I guess it says something about me. But hell, I’ll be damned if it doesn’t say something about them too.
Stop putting all those great tunes in the trash, lads. Bless is the day you decided to reopen that fucking drawer.
Out Of Control · I Will Follow · The Electric Co.
The holy trinity of bouncing, and they come as a set or not at all.
Are they great songs? I genuinely don’t know. But are we still yelling those words and jumping like our lower back could take it fifty years down the line? Bet. So you tell me.
Gloria · I Threw A Brick Through A Window
I would have included Gloria in that trinity, but I don’t need the religious people banging at my doors saying I haven’t understood shit. But that’s fine because truly it isn’t really a song, it’s a spell. There aren’t that many bands on this earth capable of getting a whole venue singing along in freaking Latin, let’s be honest about how strange that is. But eh, it happens.
I decided to keep I Threw A Brick just because I like hearing baby Bono, full punkarse, and committed to break shit when needed. Puts a few things in perspective, that. ‘Time won’t take the boy out of this man’ hopefully.
Two Hearts Beat As One
Is it a great enough song to make a list like this? Maybe. I just like it, and it has one of my favorite bass lines in the whole catalogue.
Again, it’s a feeling rather than an argument. Great song? Dunno. Great fun? Hell yeah.
Where The Streets Have No Name · Until The End Of The World · Bullet The Blue Sky · Even Better Than The Real Thing
There are great songs, and then, on an atmospheric level somewhere beyond all that, there’s Streets. Experiencing that one live, once in your life, should be on everybody’s bucket list. There’s not quite any feeling like it, and I’m not going to embarrass myself trying to describe it. Joy in a bottle? Make it a gallon.
Even Better Than The Real Thing Until The End Of The World on the freaking setlist. See what I did there? That’s the hill I’ll die on. If you know, you know. If you don’t know, get your arse to a U2 show and you will. Very simple.
Oh and of course, Bullet The Blue Sky, during which I have literally dislocated my thumb by clapping too hard. Of course it makes the damn list.
With Or Without You
Do you really need an explanation? No, you don’t.
In God’s Country · Staring At The Sun
I don’t know. You just wanna roll the car windows down and blast In God’s Country. It takes me places I kinda like, and not necessarily spiritual too, which is nice.
Staring At The Sun does the same job from a deckchair. Summer anthem. Forever.
Running To Stand Still · Bad
I’ve written enough melodramatic posts about Running To Stand Still over the years to cover it all. You weren’t there? Shit luck, you won’t get the story now. My oversharing days are over. Kinda. Anyways. It’s an important one.
And right beside it, Bad, which allowed me to sing along badly to that part of my story, back when I had no voice.
Thankfully that singer can get loud.
Also an important one.
One
It could so easily be one of those songs we’ve all heard far too many times. And yet here it is, on my list, where I put it without hesitating.
That’s what happens when a song becomes bigger than itself. It turns into something else, and none of us, if we’re being honest, are ready to let go of it.
Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
One of the best songs ever written.
Is that enough? That’s all I’ve got. It’s enough.
Zooropa
It makes me high. And maybe that’s just how it sounds, but its real power is in the lyrics.
They’re smart at feeding us mantras to hold for a lifetime, and this is the clearest case of it.
“Don’t worry baby, it’s gonna be alright
Uncertainty can be a guiding light” .
Shh.. lemme enjoy my comfort hug now.
“She’s gonna dream up
The world she wants to live in
She’s gonna dream out loud ”
Ha. Thank you lads.
Who needs therapy when you have songs like that? – (everyone) – You’ll be carrying that prescription long after the song is over.
Lemon · Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me · Do You Feel Loved · Dirty Day
Lemon. F A L S E T T O. COME ON. HOT.
Hold Me, Thrill Me is one of those songs that can steal a low growl out of you. Make you groan. And hell, it makes you beg for more. Ugh. It def taps into that tension you can’t fight, and it’s all in the title really… the kind of dying that makes you feel very much alive. Gosh I need a cold shower.
Speaking of hot as fuck, Do You Feel Loved. If you need more from me than that, go listen to it again I need a 5-minute break.
And Dirty Day, because we love a dirty groove in this house, and that junk day mix seals it. I swear I didn’t think through the order of those songs but I’m seeing it now. Well. Sorry, not sorry?
Gone · Discothèque · Mofo · Please
I’m a Pop girlie at heart. I know it shows. Four of them in a row should settle the argument.
Gone, and that sonic guitar that gives me life. Discothèque, which allowed YMCA U2 to live rent free in my head forever (sorry Larry) and gave us the probably-unwanted call every decent fan recognizes instantly – boomcha, mofos. Speaking of.
Mofo itself, which earns its place on ‘mother sucking rock n roll’ alone – or just because I have been obsessing over it for twenty years.
And Please, one of those songs they pretend to have forgotten about. How could they? I’m gonna smash that drawer so hard some day. Freaking masterpiece.
Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of · Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own · Kite
These three are different songs, but in my ears, they carry the same voice, the one of an old friend.
Stuck In A Moment is an important one. We all know why that song was written, and I do hope the man knows it brought comfort and help to so many people. Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own is the same thing, maybe relatable to more of us. Sometimes all you need is to hear the words from someone who’s known you a long time. That’s what those songs feel like.
Kite hits hard as it is. Hits harder with context. A little safe place to process and feel. Again, in the safe space only a friend can provide.
I won’t elaborate more than that because the feelings we all have tied to those songs are something way more intimate than my cold shower segment.
In A Little While · The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)
I don’t know if it’s the Joey Ramone connection that makes In A Little While special to my punk arse, but there’s something in there that never fails to make me smile. Everyone needs a little sweetness once in a while.
Which makes The Miracle its bookend, thirteen years later, from the other direction. And I quite like a little full-circle moment.
All I Want Is You · Landlady
I like to think of these two on a spectrum. That continuity of love, running the length of a whole lifetime.
One is a declaration, a promise, a holding on for dear life. The other is what it sounds like when two people made it to the other side. Of what? We’ll never know the details. Of life, probably. Of any long-standing relationship and all its ups and downs.
Almost like putting down the phone on a I fucking love you, answered thirty years later by a thanks for letting me loving you.
It’s sweet. They’re sweet. Still stands.
No Line On The Horizon · Moment Of Surrender
No Line On The Horizon opens with « I know a girl who’s like the sea ». Come on now. The way that line is delivered cannot miss you. A direct hit, an urgency. And as an opener? Hell, you came in for a good time, and that girl already got you rolling upside down and choking, fifteen seconds in. Brilliant one.
Moment Of Surrender is probably one of the best things they ever did, music included, but it works the way grief works: you only get it once you’ve been through it. That’s not a feeling you can fake, and you can’t borrow it either. If you’ve been there, you already know exactly why I’m calling this one an absolute masterpiece.
Unknown Caller · Breathe
“Shout for joy if you get the chance.” Maybe the best reminder I ever heard – you get that one, or you don’t, and all I know is that when you do, it’s worth getting it inked on your skin.
Breathe. I love when a song tells me exactly what to do. Criminally underrated, one of my favorites, full stop, and it literally opens your lungs when you sing along. There’s a freshness in it I don’t find anywhere else in the catalogue. And that bridge? HA.
Get On Your Boots
Right. Put the pitchfork down because I don’t care what you think about that, I’m blasting this one too loud to hear you. Or care.
Get On Your Boots gets so much shit for guitars that would kick your arse THAT bad. I can’t understand how so many people will praise some better-known radio hit and then crap all over this one. If I hear another U2 fan complaining that the band went soft and they want big guitars back while slagging off this exact song, I swear to god I will… well. Not do much. But oh, I will judge. Relentlessly. It slaps. End of discussion.
Did I almost put all of NLOTH on this list? You bet. My little underrated baby. Judge away, again, I don’t care.
City Of Blinding Lights · Invisible
Two songs I can’t hear without seeing a room.
City Of Blinding Lights and I can’t help but see B running the catwalk on the 360 tour. And that’s a freaking good memory to have. It’s a joyful sound, and it stays joyful.
Invisible is funnier to me. That song literally doesn’t belong anywhere, and it turned out to feel relatable and powerful to everyone. Maybe there’s a lesson in there. It makes this list on the memories alone. Freaking powersurge live.
A Sort Of Homecoming · Window In The Skies
A breath of fresh air, both of them. Songs that carry you – no, lift you gently from the ground and nudge you forward.
It’s a sound I can’t quite describe, but it’s very specific to these guys. Twenty-two years between these two, and it’s the same kind of uplifting magic.
Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way
Let’s be honest on this one: I like the sentiment behind it more than the song itself. It’s a nice anthem in general, but it got a lot better in this house with the music video, giving that appreciated nod to the queer community.
I’m glad it’s out there. Songs like that are important, and I’d prob have held onto it a lot tighter a few decades ago when I was struggling with my own queerness. Someone will stumble upon it and feel that free dad hug they needed. That’s a cool thought.
Again, glad it’s out there.
Original Of The Species
Rings especially true when you start having children. The song takes all its sense at once, and there’s some of that I want to keep close.
But also. That band has been with me for so long, and at times music was the only thing around. I like to joke that these four old men raised me sometimes.
With a song like that one, I smirk. Because eh, they kinda did.
Beautiful Day
That damn song. You get sick of it, you can’t stand it anymore, and yet there you are, turning up the volume on the radio and singing along like your life depends on it.
It took me many years to understand why, of all the songs in a set, it’s always that damn one that makes me break down into tears during a show. Like proper bawling my eyes out.
I guess you need to have lived a bit to get it properly. Fucking stupid song, so brilliant.
13 (There Is A Light)
Couldn’t end that list any other way than with the ultimate peptalk and some of my favorite lyrics ever written. And no, I’m not giving you that one.
Ha. Ending with a little light. How very on-brand with that band is that?
So, about that
Yeah. There are more than fifty songs in there.
You didn’t even notice, did you?
That’s the thing with this band and fifty years of career. It’s actually a hard task to pick just fifty. I counted three times. I cut two. It went up. You don’t notice the overflow while it’s happening, you just look down at some point, and there’s another handful. Again, finite task, what a joke.
A lot of songs. Sometimes just that, sometimes one hell of a feeling. And writing this full arse thing, I realise how many of them stand the test of time, but also how many of them deserve some time.
Ten years ago my list would have been different. I could make the easy joke that close to nothing came out since anyway, but I’m not going to be an arshole on their anniversary, am I?
(Emphasis on joke keyboard warriors, breathe, go outside, touch some grass.There there.)
Anyways, all I’m saying is that it takes living. It takes maturity. It takes having been through the thing the song is about sometimes.
Is it that way with every band whose age is older than yours? Are they just talking about things that haven’t crossed your path yet?
Honestly, I think they’re just that good at writing great songs.
Fifty years worth of great songs. I wasn’t even born, Bono – I know you love that joke, but here’s a 3000+ words essay on how it’s not even funny.
And more on the way on Nov 13th?! If any of those sound like Silencio (fucking finally, they remembered that mofo line I love so much. Absolute banger.) That list is gonna get longer hella fast.
Fifty years. Fifty (five) songs. For now.
Happy anniversary, dads. I mean, lads.
Full playlist of Fifty(ish) Songs For Fifty Years Of U2
And I’m serious serious when I say that I like stuff they won’t even put up on streaming platforms… So here’s the two missing ones.
