U2 have reimagined 40 songs from throughout their catalog for a brand new album, Songs of Give up, meant to enhance Bono’s latest memoir, Give up: 40 Songs, One Story. The album is about to reach on March 17.
The band introduced the undertaking Tuesday, Jan. 10, with a minute-long trailer on YouTube. The clip options an atmospheric rendition of “Stunning Day,” paired with a transferring collage crammed with video and pictures of U2 all through their profession, plus key moments from historical past and different bits of pop ephemera.
U2 didn’t share an official monitor checklist for Songs of Give up — although it appears fairly protected to imagine that it’s going to roughly correspond with the 40 U2 songs Bono used to title the chapters in his e-book.
Moreover, some choose U2 followers have began receiving handwritten letters from the band that supply a bit extra perception into Songs of Give up. One letter, signed by the Edge and shared on the fan account, U2Songs, reads partially: “The very fact is that the majority of our work was written and recorded once we have been a bunch of very younger males. These songs imply one thing fairly totally different to us now. Some have grown with us. Some we’ve outgrown, however we’ve not overpassed what propelled us to put in writing these songs within the first place.”
The Edge went on to say that the undertaking “began as an experiment” however rapidly grew to become an “obsession as so many early U2 songs yielded to a brand new interpretation.” He continued: “Intimacy changed post-punk urgency. New keys, new chords, new tempos and new lyrics arrived… As soon as we surrendered our reverence for the unique model, every tune began to confide in a brand new anthemic voice of this time, of the folks we are actually, and notably the singer that Bono has change into.”
Bono additionally teased the undertaking on the finish of his e-book (which was launched final November), writing that the periods for Songs of Give up came about throughout lockdown. The undertaking “gave me an opportunity to dwell inside these songs once more as I wrote this memoir,” he defined. It additionally meant I may cope with one thing that’s been nagging me for a while. The lyrics on a couple of songs that I’ve at all times felt have been by no means fairly written. They’re now. (I believe.)”
As for fully new music, it’s attainable U2 have been engaged on a few of that as effectively (their final LP, Songs of Expertise, arrived in 2017). Again in a November 2021 interview with Rolling Stone, the Edge mentioned, “We’re firmly locked within the tower of tune and dealing away on a bunch of latest issues. I’m simply having a lot enjoyable writing and never essentially having to consider the place it’s going to go. It’s extra about having fun with the expertise of writing and having no expectations or limitations on the method.”