This Major U2 Hit Was Almost Abandoned, Bandmates Called the Earliest Version of the Song “Difficult”

One of the most difficult parts of making a record is knowing how to identify diamonds in the rough. Picking out a diamond in the rough that will also be a breakthrough hit? That can feel next to impossible. Fortunately for Irish rockers U2, they were able to save their first major hit from the cutting room floor during their sessions for The Joshua Tree.

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U2 had released two albums before The Joshua Tree, but they hadn’t had a true breakout hit in the U.S. That changed in early 1987 after they released the lead single from that album, “With Or Without You”. The song was the band’s first No. 1 hit in the U.S. and Canada. Even today, it is among the best-known tracks in U2’s catalog.

But for a brief moment in time earlier that year, “With Or Without You” almost saw its journey end in the garbage. “Progress was difficult,” guitarist Edge said about this period of the band’s career, per U2 By U2. “It was really bits and pieces where you just get a glimpse of what might be and slowly piece it together. Each time we felt like we had run out of road, there would be a breakthrough. Some were total accidents.”

Of all these serendipitous studio moments, Edge cited “With Or Without You” as one of the most important.

How a New Piece of Gear Helped Save “With or Without You”

U2 bassist Adam Clayton described the bare bones of U2’s song, “With Or Without You”, as “very traditional” in the band’s biography. “The chords just went round and round and round. It was hard to find a different take on it or a new way into it. It was just a promise of a song.”

Around the same time they were woodshedding their future breakthrough hit, Edge was also experimenting with a new piece of gear. A newfangled “infinite guitar” gave Edge endless sustain as he played. It was a tricky piece of equipment, the wiring of which often led to Edge’s guitar tech getting a nasty bite while he serviced the instrument.

However, when that infinite guitar combined with Clayton’s bass and Larry Mullen Jr.’s drums, it gave “With Or Without You” the oomph it had been missing. “We were really at an impasse in search of the right arrangement,” Edge recalled. When they heard the wall of sound that was accumulating in the playback, they said, ‘That’s it! But what the f*** is it?’”

Bono’s friend and collaborator, Gavin Friday, managed to answer that question. “He personally rescued ‘With Or Without You’,” Bono later said. “He pulled it out of the wastepaper bin, organized it, structured it, and was the one who believed it could be a big hit.”

Friday, of course, was right. And U2 was right to listen to him.

Photo by Frederic GARCIA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)