The Unforgettable Fire by U2
The Unforgettable Fire is the fourth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was released in October 1984. The band wanted a different musical direction following the harder-hitting rock of their 1983 album War. They employed Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois to produce and assist them experiment with a more ambient and abstract sound. The resulting change in direction was at the time the band's most dramatic. Recording began in May 1984 at Slane Castle, where the band lived, wrote, and recorded to find new inspiration. The album was completed in August 1984 at Windmill Lane Studios. It features atmospheric sounds and lyrics that lead vocalist Bono describes as "sketches". Two songs feature lyrical tributes to Martin Luther King Jr. The Unforgettable Fire received generally favourable reviews from critics and produced the band's biggest hit at the time, "Pride (In the Name of Love)", as well as the live favourite "Bad", a song about heroin addiction. A 25th Anniversary edition of the album was released in October 2009. The title is a reference to "The Unforgettable Fire"-an art exhibit about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The band saw the exhibit in November 1983 in Japan while on the War Tour. U2 feared that following the overt rock of their 1983 War album and War Tour, they were in danger of becoming another "shrill", "sloganeering arena-rock band". The success of the 1983 Under a Blood Red Sky live album and the Live at Red Rocks video, however, had given them artistic-and for the first time-financial room to move. Following a show at Dublin's Phoenix Park Racecourse in August 1983, one of the final dates of the War Tour, lead vocalist Bono spoke in metaphors about the band breaking up and reforming with a different direction. In the 10th issue of U2 magazine, issued in February 1984, Bono hinted at radical changes on the next album saying that he couldn't "sleep at night with the thought of it all" and that they were "undertaking a real departure". As bassist Adam Clayton recalls, "We were looking for something that was a bit more serious, more arty." The band had recorded their first three albums with producer Steve Lillywhite, and rather than create the "son of War", they sought experimentation. Both Lillywhite and the band agreed that it was time for a change of producers and not to "repeat the same formula". The band had considered using Jimmy Iovine to produce a new record. However, they found their early musical ideas for the album to be too "European" for an American producer. They also considered approaching Conny Plank, whose previous credits included Can and Kraftwerk, and Roxy Music producer Rhett Davies. Guitarist The Edge had a long appreciation of musician Brian Eno's work, and admired his ambient and "weird works". The band were also fond of his work with Talking Heads. Having never worked with music such as U2's, Eno was also initially reluctant. When the band played him Under a Blood Red Sky, his eyes "glazed over" at its overt rockness[clarification needed]. Eno had brought along his engineer Daniel Lanois to his meeting with U2 intending to recommend Lanois work with the band instead. Eno's earlier doubts were resolved by Bono's power of persuasion and his increasing perception of what he called "U2's lyrical soul in abundance", traits which had become less evident on the War album. Eno commented that the band were "constantly struggling against it as if as if they were frightened of being overpowered by some softness". Eno was impressed by how they spoke, which was not in terms of music or playing, but in terms of their contributions to the "identity of the band as a whole". Eno and Lanois eventually agreed to produce the record. Eno explained that he focussed on the ideas and conceptual aspects, while Lanois handled the production aspects. In Bill Graham's words, Eno's task was to "help them mature a new, more experimental and European musical vocabulary". Island Records boss Chris Blackwell initially tried to talk them out of hiring Eno, believing that just when the band were about to achieve the highest levels of success, Eno would "bury them under a layer of avant-garde nonsense". Nick Stewart, also of Island Records, said that at the time he thought they were "mad", but that the group's decision to stretch themselves and find an extra dimension became the "turning point in their career".
By the mid-’80s, it had become clear to the members of U2 that <i>War</i> was over. That 1983 album had given the group an early taste of international fame—not to mention its first hit single, thanks to “New Year’s Day”. But the thrills of victory had been short-lived: After a lengthy stint on the road, bandmates Bono, the Edge, Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton returned to Ireland, unsure of where U2 could go next. All they knew was that the brittle, ear-bending guitar attack they’d perfected over several years was starting to bore them. In search of inspiration, the band members decamped to the 200-year-old Slane Castle, a vast and isolated space not too far outside Dublin, where they could try out ideas round the clock. They also decided to part ways with producer Steve Lillywhite—who’d overseen their first three efforts—and partner with Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Both men were unlikely recruits: By that point, Lanois had worked mostly with a series of well-regarded (but hardly world-beating) Canadian acts. The enigmatic Eno, meanwhile, had spent the early ’70s playing with art-glammers Roxy Music, and had recently been collaborating with the ever-daring Talking Heads. It was hard to imagine Eno <i>listening</i> to <i>War</i>—much less finding a common musical language with the guys who’d made it. But U2 needed to be pushed and prodded a bit. And Lanois and Eno—as producers, players and in-studio philosophers—helped draw out the sounds that would define not only <i>The Unforgettable Fire</i>, but also U2’s future. During the Slane sessions, the group’s sucker-punching guitar approach was dialed back, as the Edge discovered an airier, more restrained guitar style (as announced by “A Sort of Homecoming”. the album’s gently urgent opening track). And while Bono’s lyrics remained bluntly to the point—never more so than on the MLK-adoring anthem “Pride (In the Name of Love)”—he allowed his songwriting to grow more diffuse, sometimes even abstract: The lulling “Promenade”, with its floating guitar chimes and synths, is one of U2’s all-time great love songs—a scribbled mash note of fleeting images and desires. Still, no song highlights U2’s baptism by <i>Fire</i> like “Bad”, a six-minute-long tale of addiction and affection—built on a simple but diabolically catchy Edge riff—that finds the band finally converting all of its raw aggression into panoramic passion. “Bad” would become a monster hit, especially on the road: The group’s 12-minute live rendition during 1985’s Live Aid would have marked that festival’s apex, had Queen not been waiting in the wings. And, like all the songs crafted with Lanois and Eno during the <i>Unforgettable Fire</i> sessions, it somehow gets louder the <i>quieter</i> it gets—and vice versa. <i>The Unforgettable Fire</i> wouldn’t be U2’s <i>biggest</i> album of the ’80s, but it remains its most <i>important</i>. The band members could easily have kept tapping into all the youthful fury that had fueled so much of their early work. Instead, they opted to twist and turn away, confident that listeners would follow along. And within the next few years, they’d redirect all of that anxious energy toward a new goal: conquering America once and for all.
