U2
The Unforgettable Fire

Let's put it this way: "War" the masterpiece of youth; "Joshua" the popular masterpiece; "Achtung Baby" the masterpiece of maturity; "The Unforgettable Fire" the missed masterpiece.

After the stratospheric success of the previous album (11 million copies sold and a year at the top of the UK charts), U2 decided to make a “different” album. As Adam Clayton said: "We didn't want to become another "arena-rock band". So instead of "War part II", we decided to do something more artistic”.

How can you not admire the sincerity of U2, and their desire not to rest on their laurels. However, when there is a desire to innovate just for the sake of doing something new, without having the foundation to do so, the result will be a failure: “Spirit of novelty, spirit of stupidity.” But U2 were not stupid, and so, to realize their ideas, they contacted Brian Eno, who, after some initial reluctance, agreed to produce the album – in collaboration with Daniel Lanois, who was the mediator between the four raw guys and the sophisticated producer. It was Edge, the group's guitarist, who contacted Eno.

Recorded from May 7th to August 5th, 1984, and released in October of the same year, in this album despite the presence of several masterpieces, a number of songs are only "sketches", as U2 themselves said, who have always denigrated much of this record.

It starts with "A Sort of Homecoming", a song about a journey. In the album version, Bono's voice is in top form and dominates the music, which, although effective, is there primarily as an accompaniment for the voice. There was too little time to arrange it with the arrangement that would have highlighted it more. After playing it live for a few months, during the 1985 tour, they realized how it was supposed to be done and, during a sound-check, they made a real remake – in my opinion better than the original. This version, cleaner and shorter even if with a little less character than the studio version, with Edge's guitar more prominent. You can find it in "Wide Awake America". Audience applause was added later, to make it seem like a live. De gustibus to decide the most beautiful: for me, more beautiful the studio version for the vocals, more beautiful the remake version for the music. In neither case is it a masterpiece, but just an excellent song.

"Pride" (dedicated to Martin Luther King) is the most famous song on the album. One of U2's masterpieces. The initial riff was also appreciated by some guitar heroes. A song that was written by the old U2, those of the "War Tour", during a sound-check in Hawaii in 1983. Brian Eno didn't like it because it was "too conventional". If you read the first two verses of the lyrics, you understand that Bono is not talking about Martin Luther King at all, but about Christ: "One man come in the name of love, one man come to justify, one man betrayed with a kiss." Then the first two verses of the third sentence actually concern Martin Luther King, killed in Memphis in April 1968. The last two verses of the third stanza are really beautiful, referring again to Christ: "They took your life, they could not take your pride", which very well describe the humility with which Jesus accepted death. The title is terrible: everything is talked about, but not of "pride". Equally terrible the position: this song deserved – for its beauty and especially for its liveliness – to open the album.

"Wire" begins with an Edge-like riff, and then turns into a mighty pop-rock. It is a song against drugs, seen from a friend who tries to shake a friend who continues to use. The song was improvised by Bono at the microphone, and you can see that certain verses needed to be polished. Anyway, a good text. An excellent song, but, as energetic and fast pop-rock, it does not reach at all "Like a Song" from the previous album.

“The Unforgettable Fire”. Simply beautiful. Electronics used brilliantly. The keyboard notes, combined with Edge's very delicate arpeggios, and choirs that seem like panting breaths make it a masterpiece that gets inside you from the very first listen. Beautiful melody, but sober at the same time. The lyrics are one of my favorites: it seems like a man at the window, observing and describing the city, with his lover next to him, with whom he drinks wine, and asks her to stay (in the lie), but she decides to go back "home again" to her real partner, and then he says to her: "If you want to save your love, save it all", stopping living two lives. Bono's singing gives you the shivers: to me, his most emotional performance. This song would have been a magnificent ending.

"Promenade" was written by Bono who, with the first money earned with "War", bought a house by the Dublin waterfront. The lyrics see the first verse with Bono observing the world from his window, saying he finds it boring and would prefer to go upstairs, where there was the bedroom… The second verse is Bono approaching his wife behind her face. And the third verse is the two of them going to the bedroom to watch a movie, drink a coke, and listen to music. In short, the story of a romantic evening. An absolutely useless text, given the song: a beautiful slow folk-electric, very melancholic, that deserved a much better topic. One of U2's minor masterpieces.

"Bad" is without a doubt one of U2's greatest masterpieces. There are few chords, but it is one of those "masterpieces based on nothing" that leave you enchanted, because they show you the greatness that hides in small things. It talks about drugs in more merciful terms but also more desperate compared to "Wire". It is addressed to a friend who has fallen into a difficult-to-overcome spiral. It says in a few words: "If I could help you, I would send away your despair, isolation, desolation, and inner condemnation…" The best title would be: "If I could…" Hats off.

"Indian Summer Sky" is another excellent song, very well-paced – with Clayton and Mullen prominently featured. As for the lyrics, as Bono said: "The lyrics were meant to convey the sense of spirit trapped in the concrete jungle of modern cities". The idea is splendid, but the result much less so. Another sketch.

"Elvis Presley and America" is an acoustic song constructed by slowing and playing "A Sort of Homecoming" backwards. Certainly amongst the best melodies on the album, and for me of U2’s entire production. Clearly superior to "A Sort of Homecoming", from which it originated, but as a slow acoustic, clearly inferior to "The Drowning Man" from the previous album. Additionally, the song, unlike "Bad" drags on unnecessarily (over 6 minutes), and this made some critic say: "Here, U2 were guilty of self-indulgence". I completely agree. The lyrics are, once again, thrown down. It seems like Elvis is delirious, and in the end, asks someone to pick him up off the floor. You could have written a masterpiece talking about the fat and desperate Elvis of the last years. You can't waste a song like this with a text so mediocre.

"MLK" is a slow organ. Magnificent. Dedicated to Martin Luther King, hence the title, which is the acronym of his name. It is a simple, yet genius text. They seem to be the words said in front of his body in '68. “Rest in peace and may your dreams of the end of all discrimination come true.” There needed to be an additional verse: yet another song that needed to be perfected. Musically, an excellent slow finale, although as I already said, I would have preferred the title-track.

Pure madness not to include the splendid "Love Comes Tumbling" on the album, which was released first as a B-side and then on "Wide Awake America".

Even sadder is the fact that, during the sessions, U2 wrote the beautiful "Heartland", but due to a simple lack of time, they didn't finish it. It was not published even on "Joshua", but had to wait for "Rattle and Hum" to see the light of day. Unbelievable.

U2 could have taken more time and released the album six months later, but they had scheduled the tour months in advance – according to the infamous marketing strategy that dictates that you must capitalize on success and says that after the first major commercial success, you must immediately release the follow-up, “because people quickly forget”. And so, instead of releasing it in 1985, they released it immediately, under pressure and without true conviction. There was a clash between the production and the four who wanted more time to complete things properly. But there was nothing to be done, and in the last two weeks before the deadline, the four worked 18 hours a day.

It's useless to be scandalized: it is not the first and it will not be the last great album aborted for venal reasons.

Put very simply: a missed masterpiece that does not reach "War" in terms of the number of great songs ("War" had 7 masterpieces out of 10 pieces) and does not reach "Joshua" in terms of care, and especially in terms of lyrics – although, in terms of musical creativity, it is (on average) superior to the "Tree". It's a 4.5, which I can't round up to 5.

If there had been "Love Comes Tumbling" and "Heartland", and if there had been more time to take care of everything properly, it would have been another story.