We had done it with a few of our songs over the years, and some of these stripped-down versions became iconic versions, like “Staring at the Sun” or maybe “Every Breaking Wave” more recently. Bono’s voice has also matured, and his control and interpretive skills as a singer have really improved. Often Bono’s vocals or the melodies he was trying to sing were at the top of his range, that very intense part of his range. We were operating at a level of intensity that would allow us to be noticed in a club where half the people weren’t there to see you anyway, or in a venue that might be a little bigger than you’re comfortable with. Bono as a singer had not really found his feet yet. There was also the thought that some of our early songs were recorded when we were very young men. We were doing it for ourselves and our fans, really. The record label wasn’t banging on the door, asking for it. Let’s go for it.” Also, with the caveat that if we didn’t like the results, we didn’t have to ever release it, because nobody was expecting it. But I guess it was also the opportunity presented by the lockdown, and knowing that Bono was going to be releasing a book with 40 chapters all featuring song titles.
It’s been kind of knocking around for a while as an idea. What sparked the idea for this Songs of Surrender project? while recovers from a back injury, their upcoming album of guitar-based songs, their 2022 acoustic set in Kyiv, the thorny issue of concert ticket price points and access, and the possibility of a Pop box set and U2 biopic. We spoke to the Edge via Zoom from his house in Malibu, California, about the creation of Songs of Surrender, the band’s upcoming residency at the MSG Sphere in Las Vegas, soldiering forward with Dutch replacement drummer Bram van den Berg while Larry Mullen Jr. It’s one of 40 radically rearranged and stripped-down songs from U2’s back catalog on Songs of Surrender, featuring both mega-hits like “With or Without You” and “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and deep cuts like “Stories for Boys,” “Red Hill Mining Town,” and “If God Will Send His Angels.” Loosely paired with Bono’s memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, the album was the brainchild of U2 guitarist the Edge, who secretly worked on it throughout much of the pandemic with collaborators who included Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, and Bob Ezrin along with his bandmates. “In the mirror a reflection of the boy I can never be/A boy tried hard to be a man/His mother lets go of his hand/A gift of grief will give a voice to life/If you walk away, walk away/I will follow.”
“I was on the outside when you said, you said you needed me,” he sings. Near the end of U2’s new album, Songs of Surrender, the band kicks into the familiar opening chords of their 1980 breakthrough single “I Will Follow.” But there are no drums, bass, or electric guitar, and Bono quickly begins singing new lyrics that better fit his perspective on life at age 62, rather than 22.
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