U2
The Joshua Tree

The Joshua Tree. U2's most successful album, with three legendary singles (Where the Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven’t Found… and With or Without You). More than just a record, it's a myth. And like all myths, it's overly celebrated.

None of us want to be alternative and deny the influence this record had on music history. The techniques used here are, in a couple of cases, milestones. However, as for the songs, this album globally does not reach the beauty of the previous one (The Unforgettable Fire).

It is essential to make a historical premise to better understand the album. During the recordings of The Unforgettable Fire, U2 experimented a lot with the help of Brian Eno as the producer. The result was a wonderful album, full of nuances, which can only be appreciated after many listens.

But the public didn't appreciate it much. Many songs from The Unforgettable Fire didn't have the live impact of the "arena-rock" songs from War or Boy. Despite a hugely successful tour - culminating in the famous performance at Live Aid in July '85 - Bono wanted to make a more immediate album. To be fair, Edge and Mullen did not agree and wanted to continue with the experiments of the previous album, but Bono, by the end of 1985, fell in love with the blues and American folk tradition. He talked with Bob Dylan, and this encounter led him to desire to make an album with American influences. "We had experimented a lot, and we had generated an impressionist, abstract album full of atmosphere. For the next album, we decided to be more essential and concise," said Edge.

Although this may anger someone, The Joshua Tree is an album that leans towards pop, of extraordinary craftsmanship, but still a pop album. Thus, an album more built on melodies and arrangements (absolutely extraordinary) than on musical ideas. Obviously, in its genre, it remains a masterpiece, with revolutionary work on delay and effects that set a standard.
The original title should have been Desert Songs (canzoni del deserto) and for a good reason. The album was conceived in 1985, at the height of Thatcherian and Reaganian hedonism, and so U2 wanted to say: while the world worships consumerism, we prefer sobriety, so let's go sing in the desert. The title was changed when U2 went to take the cover photos in the desert of the Southwestern USA and there, to their great surprise, they discovered the existence of a species of cactus, a succulent plant named by the Mormons "Joshua Tree", in honor of the prophet Joshua, because this tree looks like a man with hands open in prayer.
Then Bono had the idea to call the album "Joshua Tree". The idea was brilliant because, beyond the beautiful expression, the Joshua tree, being a succulent, needs very little water to exist, just as the songs on this album are constructed on few ideas. And, in fact, The Joshua Tree is one of the greatest masterpieces of sound minimalism.

Let's move on to the songs. It starts with Where the Streets Have No Name, probably the greatest intro ever appeared on a record. The fading angelic organ seems to come from the other world, until the celebrated 6-note arpeggio (with Edge's extraordinary delay effects) slowly brings us back to earth before Mullen's beautiful drums that definitively prepare us for Bono's poetically and idealistically bitter reflection singing of the desert, the place where the streets have no name, where there are no residential areas and abandoned suburbs, and where people cannot be judged by the neighborhood they live in: "I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside. We're still building and destroying love." During the song's development, Edge weaves perfectly, but Bono with his melody, and Mullen's martial drumming dominate the scene until the crash at 4:52 when Edge's arpeggio starts and the organ that had disappeared after Bono's voice came in returns to the stage. The sparkling arpeggio united with the celestial organ goes on until 5:22, when something changes, and the notes begin almost a kind of 10-second ping-pong before the closure.
The making of this song deserves a review of its own. For those interested, in the documentary "It Might Get Loud" (2009), Edge plays the tape with the initial demo, which almost sounds like the intro of "In God's Country." The guitarist wrote it alone, making a rough mix with a drum machine. In the end, he was so excited that he started dancing like a fan, certain that it was "the most amazing guitar part and song of my life." Actually, it is an unpretentious and personality-lacking demo, despite the excellent rhythmic idea. U2 worked like crazy to transform it into a song. Brian Eno said that half of The Joshua Tree's recordings were dedicated to perfecting "Where the Streets Have No Name," which slowly, from simple electric folk, transformed into the shimmering 6-note arpeggio (in waltz style) that gave the song an almost mythical dimension.
The perfection work was very hard, and this shows that ideas aren't enough to make a work of art. Seeing the lack of progress in recording, Brian Eno thought of taking what the four had done and erasing it, to force them to start from scratch, with a freer mind. In the documentary "The Making of The Joshua Tree" (1999), Eno said that he would then have told the others that it was a studio incident. While Brian Eno was erasing the tape, sound engineer Pat McCarthy entered the room, threw the teacup he was holding to the ground, literally grabbed Eno stopping him from committing the perfect crime. Because it would have been a perfect crime.
Even finishing the track was very tough. At one point, the band gave up. Then someone had the idea of the almost "syncopated" conclusion (from 5:21 to the end), took a blackboard, and instructed the others on what had to be done.
The final version that appears on the album is the mix of several parts played by U2 in the studio. The result is the perfect arena-rock song, the live song crafted perfectly. Almost 30 years later, at a U2 concert, this song makes everyone jump, sing, and scream: today's youth and the youth of 1987. As Bono said: "We can put on the worst concert, but when 'Streets' starts, something changes and everything falls into place. It's God entering the stadium." 5 minutes and 38 seconds that go by in a flash and make you want to listen to the track again.

We move to I Still Haven't Found…, the melodic masterpiece of the album. It's hard to overstate Bono's vocal performance – for Daniel Lanois, the band’s second producer, "worthy of Aretha Franklin." Without Bono, the song would still be a beautiful piece with the minimal appearance of a few chords, with many layers: the drums, the reggae-like arpeggios, the acoustic guitar, and the "abstract" guitar. The track is Bono's confession to the Lord: of his love for him ("I have climbed the highest mountains, I have run, I crawled, I scaled the walls of this city, just to be with you"); his weaknesses ("I have kissed honey lips, I feel the healing on her fingertips. I have spoken with the tongue of angels I have held the hand of a devil"); his convictions ("I believe in the Kingdom come. Then all the colors will bleed into one. You broke the bonds Loosed the chains, carried the cross of my shame. You know I believe it"); and his doubts ("But I still haven't found what I'm looking for").

And we move to With or Without You. People who despise songs on principle, superficially qualifying them as little songs, should listen to this kind of piece and reevaluate their opinion. Its origin goes back to 1985, during "The Unforgettable Fire Tour". The original chords are from Bono. Even here, U2 worked a lot on the song, which, according to Adam Clayton, initially was "too conventional", a pleasant acoustic strumming. They came to nothing. At a certain point in 1986, Lanois and Eno refused to work on the track, and the project was abandoned. But Bono continued to believe in it, together with his friend Gavin Friday and together they perfected the track. Brain Eno listened to this reworked version and changed his mind on the track by adding the distinctive three-note keyboard intro that opens the song unmistakably. Clayton's four-note bass is perfect to represent the song's "down" character. Simultaneously, a sound that seems like an organ but is actually the sound of an "infinite guitar" that arrived to Edge during the album's recordings starts. The song's first part is just Edge’s creative work with his new instrument, while Bono sings his tormented self-analysis/confession. Then, at 1:50, the famous few-note riff that made the song famous enters. At that point, the song begins to grow, with Bono giving it his all, until the famous "Oh!". Again, a repeated refrain followed by Mullen, then peace, filled by Bono with a beautiful falsetto.
At this point (4:05) a true symphony of electric guitars begins: the "infinite guitar" provides the soundscape, while a new guitar enters on the right speaker, repeating a few notes, until the first guitar (the solo one) joins the second with its riff. The final fade-out gives chills; here you need to just listen, possibly listening to one speaker at a time. Edge has always said: "I could have done a super solo at the end, a real climax. But I didn’t, and I’m satisfied. The greatness of the final solo of 'With or Without' is in it being held back." With or Without You will go down in history as an electric symphony, a musical masterpiece in "song form".

There is something I want to add, not known by many, including many U2 fans. If you take the musical film Rattle & Hum, and listen to the version of With or Without You, you'll notice there's an addition at 4:15, with the guitar rising instead of closing and surrendering to a climax (the one Edge wanted to avoid on the album version) with Bono adding a verse: "We shine…". It's a real shame that U2 never recorded this version in the studio. If this version was already present in the studio version, then it must be said that here U2 were guilty of being too concise.
The next track is "Bullet the Blue Sky", the rock song of the album, the one that most resembles U2 in their early years. Bono recalls: "I was furious with the attacks carried out by America in Nicaragua in 1986. I told Edge to put my anger into his guitar's amplifier, and he did the rest." And indeed this track is one of the greatest triumphs of the great guitarist. The beginning is anthology-worthy with the super-distorted guitar recalling planes first (0:20 sec), then the dropping of missiles (the bullets in the blue sky indicated in the title), then the missiles' explosion on the ground (0:30 sec). Then the guitar disappears and the song, in the verses, lives on Mullen's work and Bono's voice. Then Edge goes wild and manages, in his solo, to represent the ambulances picking up the injured (1:40). A song of anger against the dark side of America.

After the fury of "Bullet the Blue Sky", musical peace is found with the piano-ballad "Running to Stand Still". In reality, "Running to Stand Still" is more than a piano-ballad. U2, in homage to American music that this album somehow wants to celebrate, placed acoustic blues notes at the beginning with a "slide-acoustic-guitar". Then the song proceeds on two simple piano chords, with producer Daniel Lanois adding delicate touches of electric guitar until the end with Bono's harmonica which leaves a deep emotion within the listener, despite the pessimistic end. The lyrics talk about drugs, and it's one of Bono's peaks as an author, thanks to the vivid images he manages to create, especially the seven towers, a series of seven buildings in Dublin which in the 80s, drug addicts used to shoot up. The title perfectly describes the addict’s act of taking drugs, running (running) to get the drug and calm down (to stand still). Not a musical masterpiece, but certainly an emotional masterpiece.

The rest of the album continues with the sparkling arpeggios and angelic choirs of Red Hill Mining Town (a delicate dedication by Bono to the British miners who were laid off by the Thatcher government in 1985); with the equally sparkling, joyful chords of Trip through Your Wires (dedicated to the woman who, with her love, eternal or fleeting, can bring back life to the man who can no longer be happy); with the rock-and-roll-like of In God's Country (where Bono describes, with excellent verses, the double face of America made of dreams but also of broken dreams); with the well-rhythmed One Three Hill (dedicated to Greg Carroll, Bono's friend, who died in the summer of 1986 in an accident, and to whom The Joshua Tree is dedicated); and with the gloomy Exit (an almost accidentally born jam session with a Bono telling the story of a serial killer characterized by a splendid progression of music, in perfect symbiosis with the verses).

There is room for another jewel, unknown to many, which is the grand finale of "Mothers of the Disappeared", which begins with the sweet sound of rain falling on a roof, before Brian Eno's synthesizer and Edge's simple but spot-on acoustic guitar notes come into play. The song is dedicated to the women of Plaza de Mayo, the mothers of the Argentineans who opposed the generals’ dictatorship and were first arrested, then mysteriously "disappeared". Even today their mothers gather in Plaza de Mayo, asking to give their sons a decent burial, in what remains one of the most disgraceful pages of modern history. Bono uses simple but impactful verses: "Midnight, our sons and daughters were cut down and taken from us. We hear their heartbeat. We see their tears in the falling rain." Clayton's beautiful bass notes seriously close the great album, given the theme addressed.

50 minutes of emotion, sound coherence, along with some technical innovations that truly marked music.

The social history of The Joshua Tree you all know. To date, 28 million copies sold, and Grammy for Album of the Year in 1988. From an emerging band, U2 became the most famous group on the planet. A staggering success. Too staggering. A myth that became so heavy it almost crushed the four, who began to wonder: "Will we be able to do something at the same level?". It was very tough to overcome this mental burden, which almost led to their breakup. Their reaction to the committed (but fundamentally optimistic) The Joshua Tree will be the ironic (and deeply desperate) Achtung Baby. But that's another story.