Originally posted by blueeyedboy:[..]
I'm confused... BB King was talking about "When Love Comes To Town" when he made that comment to Bono.
Remember, he was 20 when Boy was released, so he actually probably wrote these lyrics when he was 18 or 19!
Originally posted by blueeyedboy:[..]
I'm confused... BB King was talking about "When Love Comes To Town" when he made that comment to Bono.
Remember, he was 20 when Boy was released, so he actually probably wrote these lyrics when he was 18 or 19!
Originally posted by blueeyedboy:[..]
I'm confused... BB King was talking about "When Love Comes To Town" when he made that comment to Bono.
Remember, he was 20 when Boy was released, so he actually probably wrote these lyrics when he was 18 or 19!
Originally posted by cesar_garza01:[..]
He's just saying that just like Bono was writing "heavy lyrics" when he was 27, he was also ahead of his age at 18.
Originally posted by Caledonia:[..]
Yeah BB King was of course talking about 'When Love Comes To Town'.
It was just a reference point and general comment that Bono has always been a bit older than his years if you catch my drift, be it in 1980 or 1987 or whenever. And yep, to think that he could have been just 18 or 19 writing some of that stuff, it's very admirable.
Originally posted by Bloodraven:Had to look for this topic...
This is the one song I don't like in one of my favorite U2 albums (I enjoy Boy even more than AB or TJT).
But I never got this song.
Now...
Ok, like Cesar said, the live versions were great! a totally different song imho... Edge's guitar is prominently from the start, and the whole song is even anthemic, unlike the studio version -which, yeah, it has its thing, but imho is no match against the live version (U2, overproducing and second guessing themselves since 1980)
And I'm totally intrigued about this song; (if whatever I say next is wrong OR TOO OBVIOUS, feel free to correct me, like I said, I'm intrigued by it, and I'd love to get more info on it): to begin with, it was changed at the last minute... the album was recorded in July-August '80, but we have audio that as far as in July (Leixlip Castle show) SATT was still being played with full Edge's guitar.
Then after being included in the album, we don't even know if it was played again (probably it was, we only know like 1/5 of the setlists played between sep-dec of that year, still missing something like 50 shows). But if it wasn't played in the Boy Tour, it was only remixed in order to retire it...
Why change a very well known song (clearly it was a regular/fixed in the setlists from 78-80) just to retire it?
The first record we have that it was played, was in March '78, the Church Hall show when The Hype was disbanded and U2 was born. They started the set playing as The Hype and then they started playing a set of only U2 songs.
My question, again, not sure if totally wrong or totally obvious: is Shadows And Tall Trees the very first U2 song?
I know that Street Mission, The Fool and Life on a Distant Planet, among others, are know to have been played before this date. But none of them made it 'til the end. LOADP got really close, but still didn't made it.
It was only Shadows.
It could've been there before those songs and we just don't have any evidence of it, or, this is the first song they wrote as the 4-member U2 band (the others being wrote by all 5 Hype members).
If SATT is their first song, then makes absolute sense to me that it was included in the album as a re-imagination of their first ever song just to be retired and never played again.
Again, if this is wrong or a well known fact, sorry for the block of text, I didn't get the memo...
Originally posted by cesar_garza01:[..]
It's tricky, right? Because for example "Trevor" was played since 1978 and this became Touch, which was released as a b-side to 11 O'Clock Tick Tock,
so you can also say that "Touch" was the first U2 song.
Silver Lining was played as early as 1979 and then became 11 O'Clock Tick Tock.
Originally posted by Bloodraven:Off course is speculation, we don't know if Tonight was ever played live, or even if The TV Song actually exists or not.
But if we speculate about which one was U2's first song, SATT certainly has a better case than Trevor/Touch (which is a superior song IMHO), and I think a better case than any other song.
What I'm speculating is that they consider SATT their first song and that's the reason why they decided to give it a special place in their first album before retiring it (despite being newer and better songs, and even better versions of the song itself)
Originally posted by CMIPalaeo:[..]
This is really intriguing. It really adds to my respect for this song (for a long time I couldn't stand it, but it's gradually become one of my favourites on Boy, go figure), if it is indeed U2's 'first' song.
However, I think it's worth pointing out that 'U2' had appeared before the 1978-03-20 show, where The Hype 'officially' disbanded. The Limerick talent show that won them an audition with CBS was two days prior, and the band appeared as U2, though I don't know whether Dick Evans was present or not - I'm inclined to think he wasn't. This show also contains the earliest confirmed performance of Life On a Distant Planet (AKA The Magic Carpet, etc), so if The Hype never performed it, it's entirely possible it's a true U2 original as well (although it never made it to any official release, of course, so Shadows is a more 'worthy' contender - although I would consider Life On a Distant Planet a 'better' song, certainly my favourite from the early days).
I am now curious as to whether Shadows was ever performed FOLLOWING Boy's release - on one hand, there's a lot setlists missing from the end of 1980, as you point out. But on the other, the Boy Tour featured pretty static setlists, so I'm not sure how likely it is there would be a song that's only being played at a few shows and that they just happen to be the ones that are missed; all the other Boy songs are known from this time.