The Story Behind the Lengthy Evolution of “Vertigo” by U2

Some bands may be comfortable with putting out music that is less than perfect, but those bands aren’t U2. The Irish superstars have built a reputation for second-guessing their own work and spending months—or even years—tweaking their compositions. Perfectionism hasn’t always translated into perfect songs, but in the case of their 2004 hit “Vertigo,” it resulted in one of their biggest chart successes. One could plausibly argue that “Vertigo” was U2’s last truly big hit.

Two years elapsed from the time The Edge came up with the guitar riff that would become the centerpiece of “Vertigo” to the song’s unveiling in the fall of 2004. The method by which U2 introduced “Vertigo” to the listening public was as notable as the song’s protracted evolution, as it foreshadowed the most notorious moment in the group’s career. Before we relive that moment, let’s dig into the process that led U2 to record dozens of versions of the song that would become a staple of radio playlists and concert setlists.

First “Full Metal Jacket,” Then “Native Son”

U2 began the new millennium with a bang, releasing their phenomenally successful album All that You Can’t Leave Behind in 2000 and spending most of 2001 on their Elevation Tour. By late 2002, the songs for U2’s follow-up album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb started to take shape. “Vertigo” was in its infancy stage at this point, as it merely existed as a demo made by The Edge called “Full Metal Jacket.” By November 2002, only The Edge and Bono had heard the demo, but Bono had already declared it to be “the mother of all rock ‘n’ roll tunes” in an interview with the Irish website hotpress.com.

U2 started recording How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in February 2003 with the intention of releasing it that summer. For “Full Metal Jacket,” Bono wrote lyrics about the 1977 conviction and lifetime imprisonment of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, and with this focus the song became “Native Son.” Like many other songs written about Peltier, Bono’s lyrics questioned the circumstances around his trial and verdict and highlighted the injustices endured by Native Americans (It’s so hard / Is it so hard for a native son to be free?).

Dozens of Course Corrections

So how did a song about Leonard Peltier turn into a tune about late-stage capitalism (as Bono explained in U2 by U2) with a Spanish-language count-in? It was a slow, piecemeal process. The first step occurred when U2 decided to shelve the work they had done on How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb with producer Chris Thomas. Uninspired by the results with Thomas, they replaced him with Steve Lillywhite, who had produced U2’s first three albums. Lillywhite asked the band to rerecord “Native Son,” as he thought he could make the song with “10 percent better production.” Part way through rerecording his vocals, Bono stepped away from the mic and realized he wasn’t going to be able to “sell” his lyrics about Peltier in live performances.

This began a lengthy period of experimentation, as U2 recorded more than 75 iterations of the song with various lyrics and vocal melodies. One of those versions was written completely in Spanish. That explains the origins of the Unos, Dos, Tres, Catorce (1, 2, 3, 14) intro, which at one stage was a more straightforward Unos, Dos, Tres, Cuatro. The pieces of the song came together gradually. When Bono recorded the vocals for what became the song’s hook—Hello, hello / I’m at a place called Vertigo—neither he nor the rest of the band assumed it would make the final cut. However, according to Lillywhite, when they played that version for some friends, their positive reaction to it convinced U2 to keep it as part of the chorus.

The Impact of “Vertigo”

Many listeners may remember “Vertigo” getting sprung on them by way of television ads for the Apple iPod, but that wasn’t actually when the song debuted. The Irish radio station 2FM was the first to play “Vertigo,” airing it on September 23, 2004—more than a year later than U2 had originally planned to release How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The following day, the song was released to radio stations in the U.S., and 18 days after that, the song became ubiquitous on iPod ads. While the ads were stylish and novel for the time, U2 would make even bigger waves 10 years later when Apple put copies of Songs of Innocence into the iTunes libraries of more than 500 million customers—a public relations gaffe U2 is still paying for.

Some may point to the iTunes fiasco as the source of U2’s relative commercial funk in recent years, but we can go back to the release of “Vertigo” as the end of a lengthy dominant period for the band. Peaking at No. 31, it was U2’s last appearance on the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. Despite its relatively low peak, only “Beautiful Day” had a longer stay on the Hot 100 among U2 songs than “Vertigo’s” 20 weeks. “Vertigo” was also U2’s last No. 1 entry on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart and their final Top-10 track on the Mainstream Rock chart, peaking at No. 3. It was also U2’s last Gold-certified single.

“Vertigo” cleaned up at the 2005 Grammy Awards, earning U2 honors for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Best Rock Song, and Best Short Form Music Video. Though How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb didn’t generate other hits of a similar magnitude, it would top the Billboard 200 and spend 56 weeks on the chart. U2’s recording of “Native Son” would see the light of day when it was included on their digital box set The Complete U2, which was released in Apple’s iTunes Store (where else?) one day after How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb came out.

U2 would return to their perfectionist ways for their next album No Line on the Horizon, but they would not produce a hit as big as “Vertigo” on that record or the ones that followed. Perhaps “Native Son” or one of the other versions of the song could have resonated with listeners as well. What we know for sure is that “Vertigo” did not suffer from all of the attention U2 gave to it.

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