| Home - The U2 Sound Library | Prev | Next |
| The U2 Sound Library Presents | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
This interview takes place one week before the release of The Joshua Tree. Before the hype, before it became the fastest selling record in the UK, before selling more than 15 million units worldwide, and before spending nine weeks atop the Billboard chart, U2 sat down with Dave Fanning to discuss how they made their album and why.
To add to the discussion, I’m going to include a short article on the making of “The Joshua Tree” that appeared Rolling Stone Magazine’s “The Rolling Stone 200: The Essential Rock Collection.” “Working with U2 is like an avalanche of expectations and possibilities,” Daniel Lanois says of his experience co-producing the band’s landmark 1987 The Joshua Tree, his second U2 effort after 1984’s The Unforgettable Fire. “I went in to do some pre-production, some sketches. I knew at that time that they were onto something clear and specific.” Attempting to retain the intimate feel of those initial demos, sessions began in a ramshackle studio set up on a rural Irish farm.” U2 were looking to try something different, and we were pretty excited about nonstandard studio settings,” Lanois says.” Adam [Clayton, U2’s bassist] had been looking to buy himself a house and found this very beautiful place. We ended up renting it to make this record.” Bono reportedly struggled with marital difficulties during The Joshua Tree’s genesis, which may explain the sense of loss that haunts the album, from despairing abandon on “With or Without You” to “One Tree Hill,” a memorial to an associate killed in a motorcycle accident. The chilling anti-heroin ode “Running to Stand Still” had a less grisly inspiration.” That title came from Bono’s brother, who was in the computer business,” Lanois recalls. “He said to Bono, ‘I can’t take this anymore -- I feel like I’m running to stand still. ‘He was referring to running this business just to pay the bills.” According to Lanois, many of what are now considered U2 classics almost weren’t. After arduous sessions for “Where the Streets Have No Name” -- whose difficult arrangement forced Lanois “to stand at a big blackboard like a teacher in a science class, conducting the band with a pointer” -- co-producer Brian Eno nearly erased the song in frustration. “Too much emphasis was being placed on [the song]; he was tired of it,” Lanois says, chuckling. “But it felt like an opening scene, so we made it the record’s first track.” Similarly, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” began it’s life as a song called “The Weather Girls.” “We agreed the song wasn’t going to make the records, but it has this great beat, so we created a new song on top of it,” he says.” It always had this R&B-gospel rhythm to it. I remember humming a traditional melody in Bono’s ear’ he said, ‘That’s it! Don’t sing any more!’ and went off and wrote the melody as we know it. “I think The Joshua Tree was probably the conclusive record of the sound we were going after,” Lanois continues.”U2 really welcomed new angles and experimentation; they realized that another way of looking at their music allowed access to doors they didn’t know about. And it’s ongoing for them.” - Matt Diehl
|
|||||||||||||||||||
