The Unforgettable Fire

The song... yes, nice.

I like this record as well. The lyric is really strange, almost as if he'd stuck together a bunch of song titles ("Walk On by", "Stay Tonight", "Don't Look Back", "Face To Face", "Silver and Gold", "Don't Push Me Too Far") but it works. And for once, Bono's OTT emoting suits the song. Nice mixture of Fairlight and acoustic instruments too.

If I could, I would...let it go...

Separation. Condemnation. Revelation. Desolation. Let it go. And so to fade away. To Let it go. And so to fade away. Wide awake. Wide awake. Wide awake, I'm not sleeping.

You know they were gods of music back then, they really were.

INDIAN SUMMER SKY
BECAUSE...
BECAUSE
I don't care.
And because I love Brian Eno.
That's why.

It's A BLUE SKY

Up toward the sky............................

Was always my fave U2 song from way back then. I think I was 12 when I 1st heard it.

http://www.icicleweb.org/cd_area/cd_favourites/u/u2-unforgettablefire/u2-unforgettable%20fire.jpg

Worship at the altar! Repent now! Early U2 is sacred!

and ESPECIALLY ELVIS PRESLEY AND AMERICA...

You've got to fucking get in a Buddhist monk when that song comes on.

Eh...ohhhhhh...woah...say stay stay...

See faces plowed like fields that once gave no resistance...

See the sky, the burning rain/she will die and live again/tonight...

I'm no dope, I give you hope, here's the rope, here's the rope...

I really didn't care much about U2 back then. Knew "Pride" and kind of found it OK, but I didn't hear "The Unforgettable Fire" until years later, and I always thought it must have been kind of a shock to their fans.

I mean, U2 was seen by their then fans as the "guitar hope" in a world of nasty synthpop bands threatening to take over the world. And then, along comes their favourite band with a song crowded with synths. They might have forgiven them because it was Eno's way of playing and producing them? Anyway, great song.

When I was 11 years old (maybe 12) and Rattle and Hum was all the rage, I was allowed to choose and have a cassette album all of my very own for the first time (had a Madonna rec as a gift before and a few others shared with my sister).

I chose </i>The Unforgettable Fire</i> and the shop assistant tried really hard to persuade me that what I actually wanted was R & H. Thankfully I stuck to my guns, and yeah it's a haunting track and a strange record.

My favorite U2 album by a longshot and a wonderful song.

Carnival, the wheels fly and the colors spin
Through alcohol.
Red wine that punctures the skin.
Face to face in a dry and waterless place.

That's a great story, Spectra. I remember having to deal with folks like that when I was a young-un' too. Kids ought to be allowed to pick their own music, no matter the consequences. Leave em alone!

I got carried away cause I just got this on vinyl again after only having it on cassette for many years. And one thing I thought was so cool is that the inner sleeve is not glossy like my old vinyl copy was. It's a much nicer kind of paper, I think. Then I was thinking about it and wondered why this was. Does anyone else have this on vinyl and can comment on the paper of the inside sleeve?

I always thought it must have been kind of a shock to their fans.

Geir is right, here. It certainly was a shock. I didn't know who Brian Eno was at the time so I couldn't even cut them slack for that. I was expecting another War and the first time I played it, I found it very confusing and disappointing. Thankfully something made me keep at it, which is something I fear might not happen in this day and age with a similar difficult album. I might just write it off and go on to the next thing, because there's too much available to linger on things. And it's not just downloading, I've been purchasing more music than I can even properly give attention to.

Fave U2 live moment: seeing them play "Wire" live on the tour for this.

Jesus, this is a great song. Or so I remember. I will put it on now to confirm.

I feel that "Wire" was where they really told post-punk to kiss their arse.
But I assume you think this thread is about a song rather than an album. No matter. Nothing wrong with the title track.

Actually there's only one thing I love more than this album and that's the EP entitled Unforgettable Fire (most of which later came out as Wide Awake In America in the US). "Three Sunrises"/"Bass Trap"/"Love Comes Tumbling"/"Unforgettable Fire"/"A Sort Of Homecoming" (live version). That is absolutely positively one of my top 10 records of all time. Desert island disc.

Although actually I see this thread is supposed to be about the single, which is a shame.

"The Unforgettable Fire" always catches me unawares, and it might be my favorit U2 song as a piece of music. I might have better patience for Bono's banalities here had he sung them in Finnish or Wolof.

I'm talking about the title track, obv

Do you remember the video? I do. That was when MTV had that thing with those astronauts when they did their station ID.

Now I'll have this in my head all day. Lovely song, it really is. I confess I am a fan of early U2 (and also of "Zooropa" which loses me points apparently).

Maybe the backstory to this song is so well known nobody bothered to mention it but here goes. People at the Peace Museum in Chicago contacted U2 in 1983 about donating some materials to an upcoming exhibit on music called Give Peace A Chance. They showed the band some catalogs of recent exhibits, including The Unforgettable Fire, of paintings by Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors, which inspired the song. (Another catalog they showed the band, of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Peacemaker exhibit, inspired the King songs on this record.) The band became huge supporters of the museum. I volunteered there for a long time and one perk was a ticket for this tour. Which was great.

I think I read somewhere that Scott Walker's Climate Of Hunter was an influence on this record. Sort of makes sense.

Worship at the altar! Repent now! Early U2 is sacred!

I don't think of TUF as early U2. That makes me feel really old.

I think I read somewhere that Scott Walker's Climate Of Hunter was an influence on this record. Sort of makes sense.

?!?! Perhaps I need to sit down with The Unforgettable Fire sometime soon...

Eno's bits in the Scott documentary were nice. While playing Side 1 of Nite Flights: "You know, it's a bit humiliating to listen to this today! I mean, it's been thirty years and we really haven't gone any further than this, have we?"

i was going to chime in and mention how much i like this song still, and then i saw that bimble had messed himself on yet another thread. now i'm not so sure.

Google is telling me it's The Joshua Tree, not The Unforgettable Fire that Bono says was influenced by Climate Of Hunter. Hmmm. To my mind there's a similar vibe to several of those 1984 tail-end-of-post-punk albums like Climate, Unforgettable Fire, Ocean Rain, I'm sure there are more. Sort of bring the strings in, take the tempo down, melodic yet weird, melancholy...

Wait-- BONO said it was...? I automatically assumed the Climate influence would be something Eno brought in.

Bono in the NME: "Scott Walker’s Climate of Hunter, that was a great influence on our LP. Listen to With Or Without You."

Dang. How interesting. Thanks!

Yeah, that's interesting, I'd never heard of the Climate connection at all, though I had heard the backstory about the paintings of Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors.

Jess, my guess is you never really liked the song in the first place if you would let other people's posts stop you from saying so. But I'm flattered to think I have that much power over your musical tastes/what you will admit to.

never ever would I have detected Climate in JT. Unforgettable Fire, maybe…

yeah, that tune is rilly great. One day in the mid to late '80s, when I was 15 or 16, myself and another poster on ILM, one who has gone onto some renown in the world of MEE-OOZ-EEK, were driving home after school. This poster had moved on to much more outre music, and U2 had been embraced by much more conventional teenagers than he. But this song came on my car's tapedeck, and the poster sang along with BONE-O's lovely falsetto part in the chorus…It's a nice memory.

i was going to chime in and mention how much i like this song still, and then i saw that bimble had messed himself on yet another thread. now i'm not so sure.

Yeah, because displays of enthusiasm for music on an Internet forum called I Love Music are so inappropriate and unseemly, aren't they?

I mean, wtf?

funny i hadn't listened to this in years so i called up the video on youtube. what struck me is i didn't remember u2 sounding so phil collins. also i forgot that this song invented jeff buckley.

it's ok. i never liked this album all that much.

I still play this song a lot, more often than any other comparably great U2 song. It stands up magnificently and doesn't weary. It shines on, mysterious and fresh, twinkling its beginning again.

I like the way that lots of people on this thread appreciate this lovely record.

Oh BTW the version on 'Live From Paris' (Joshua Tree box set: I heard on spotify) is tremendous, from corny opening - 'welcome ... to the unforgettable fire' to the strain as he sings 'crumble' in the last chorus; but the live Edge doesn't quite seem to crack the thunderclaps of the instrumental break.

Still pretty great though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg5NqogOMwI

listening to 'the threes sunrises' now. always thought that was an underrated gem that one.