U2 - Ten Songs

Building from my post about REM and Jars of Clay. I thought it only natural to post my 10 songs from U2. A little caveat, I'm not saying these are the best U2 songs, simply my favourites, at the moment. I've kind of cheated, including a track which combines Bad and Where the Streets Have No Name

1. A Day without me [Boy]

Young, earnest, going to take on the world.  That's how the early U2 sounds, and this track is a classic example. 

2. Drowning man [War]

Intensely personal song, addressed to Adam when he was going through a tough time, and has beautiful images of friendship, ending with quotes from Isaiah 40:31. 

3. The Ground Beneath Her Feet [All That You Can't Leave Behind]

One of the more romantic songs Bono has written. The song was co-written with Salman Rushdie. Salman Rushdie wrote a book with the same name worth checking out. 

4. Stay (Faraway, So Close!) [Zooropa]

Just love the video clip for this one, and not to mention the powerful lyric 

'And if you look, you look through me And when you talk, you talk at me And when I touch you, you don't feel a thing'

5. Staring at the Sun [Pop], [this version, Popheart]

Pop is one of my favourite U2 songs, and I really love how they reinvented the song as an acoustic number during their PopMart tour.Highlights the beautiful harmonies between the voices of Bono and The Edge. 

6. Please [Pop], [this version popheart]

I loved the album version of the song, but it gained a life of its own when played on stage, first on the PopMart tour, then when Bono and the Edge played it acoustically on the third leg of the Elevation tour.  

7. Love is Blindness [Achtung Baby] 
Quite possibly my favourite U2 song, and at the moment, the version from London in 1992 (May31). Love how Bono adds two of Yeats poems to the end of the song (September 1913; and Aedh Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven). 

8. One [Achtung Baby], [this version, Miss Sarajevo, single] 

Easily my favourite version of this song. I love the depth the orchestra adds to the song. Along with the harmonies of Bono and The Edge.

9. Bad/Where the Streets have no name [The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree], [this version, Electrical Storm single]

Almost perfection. Two beaut songs melded into one, with a snippet of 40 the connection. Love how Bono quotes Psalm 116 over the introduction of Where the Streets Have No Name. Both songs are really powerful on their own - I get chills when ever I hear the introduction to 'Bad, but the two songs together is magical.  

10. Kite [All that You Can't Leave Behind], [this version, Window in the Skies single]

Picked this, because it was one of the highlights of the Vertigo tour, This version was recorded on my birthday, at the concert I went to in Sydney. 

Just love these lyrics...

'Who's to say where the wind will take youWho's to know what it is will break youI don't know which way the wind will blowWho's to know if the time has come aroundI don't wanna see you cryI know this is not goodbye'