U2 have announced the release of Songs Of Surrender – a collection of 40 seminal songs from across the band’s catalogue, re-recorded and reimagined for 2023 in sessions spanning the last two years, to be released in full on Friday 17th March. The first track to be made available from this brand new set of recordings is the anthemic “Pride (In The Name Of Love)”.
Songs Of Surrender is curated and produced by The Edge and sees the band revisit some of the most celebrated songs of their 40+ year career, including “With Or Without You”, “One”, “Beautiful Day”, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Invisible”, for a musical reimagining resulting in a completely new recording of each track, to include the arrangements and, in some cases, new lyrics.
The Edge said of the project: “Music allows you to time travel, and we became curious to find out what it would be like to bring our early songs back with us to the present day and give them the benefit, or otherwise, of a 21st century reimagining.
What started out as an experiment quickly developed into a personal obsession as so many of our songs yielded to a new interpretation. Intimacy replaced post punk urgency. New tempos, new keys, and in some cases new chords and new lyrics arrived. A great song, it turns out is kind of indestructible.
The process of selecting which songs to revisit started with a series of demos. I looked at how a song would hang together if all but the bare essential elements were taken away. The other main aim was to find ways to bring intimacy into the songs, as most of them were originally written with live concert performance in mind.
Reviewing these sketch recordings with producer Bob Ezrin, it was very easy to see the ones that worked straight off the bat and those that needed more work. We all got into the sensibility of less is more.”
The 40 newly recorded tracks are collected together under each of the four band member names across four separate ‘albums’, with The Edge adding – “Hearing the songs interact, and finding the running orders for the four albums was really thrilling; finding the surprising segues, getting a chance to DJ. Once we had four distinct albums it was easy to see who would be the figurehead for each one.”
The complete Songs Of Surrender track listing:
Side 1 – The Edge
One
Where The Streets Have No Name
Stories For Boys
11 O’Clock Tick Tock
Out Of Control
Beautiful Day
Bad
Every Breaking Wave
Walk On (Ukraine)
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Side 2 – Larry
Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
Get Out Of Your Own Way
Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of
Red Hill Mining Town
Ordinary Love
Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own
Invisible
Dirty Day
The Miracle Of Joey Ramone
City Of Blinding Lights
Side 3 – Adam
Vertigo
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Electrical Storm
The Fly
If God Will Send His Angels
Desire
Until The End Of The World
Song For Someone
All I Want Is You
Peace On Earth
Side 4 – Bono
With Or Without You
Stay
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Lights Of Home
Cedarwood Road
I Will Follow
Two Hearts Beat As One
Miracle Drug
The Little Things That Give You Away
40
