U2 - Community rankings - FIN - #4 Sunday Bloody Sunday, #3 - One, #2 - Bad, #1 - Where the Streets Have No Name -Spotify links, thanks to Krista4 (2 Viewers)

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

If nothing else, I am pleased to see that my favorite U2 song, and one of my 10 favorite songs by anyone ever, will finish in the top 4 here.  I figured it would be top 20, maybe even top 10, but wasn't sure top 5 was realistic. 

Getting close. Is it this one?

I am really hoping it's not the one I have at, far and away, #1.  My favorite #2 - #500 U2 songs change daily, if not hourly.  But my #1 song has always been my #1 song since I heard it.  I'm hoping you rankers made the right choice....

Well its either the other one or the one I am just about to post....lets see

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

By the way I have 5 lists already and I havent even specified full specifics etc. thank you.

All have a different number of picks, which I love. Stop when the songs start to get meh or suck. 

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

#4 - Pride (In the Name of Love) (1984)

Highest Rank - 3

Lowest Rank - 17

Where to Find it - The Unforgettable Fire LP

Vulture.com ranking and comment -10/218 - It’s both surprising and not surprising that the lyrics to one of U2’s most powerful songs would prove to be timeless and enduring: “One man caught on a barbed-wire fence / One man he resist / One man washed up on an empty beach / One man betrayed with a kiss” might have seemed vague and generalized when the song was written, but given that every line has its direct equivalent in 2017, there was clearly some kind of universal wisdom pushing Bono forward.

It is one of those songs that from almost anyone else would have felt contrived, but U2 meant it and continue to mean it. It is a tremendous thing to hear 80,000 people in a stadium singing along to it, but my favorite moment remains standing in the subzero cold watching the band sing the song on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial the day before Obama’s inauguration — not because of Obama, but because seeing that band sing that song in the place where Martin Luther King Jr. had stood was not a small thing.

Comment - OK. I had heard Gloria, I Will Follow, New Year’s Day and whatever else was on Under a Blood Red Sky. Really keen on what was coming next. Coincidentally I had been watching a Martin Luther King Documentary which I recorded on VHS and had just read a book about MLK. Once I heard Pride.....holy crap. I was amazed. This band is pretty effing good. Still I only had enough money for one album so I bought the new one by Berlin lol. All my cool school friends loved the new U2 album and I was too stubborn to listen or buy it as I was anti cool. Still I loved Pride and played it loud and proud at home from my recording on tape off the radio. As an aside years later a girlfriend recorded over my MLK documentary thinking the tape was blank. I wrote a letter to the TV Station asking if they had a video or copy I could watch. They apologised and said no they didnt as it was 7 years ago and theyd lost the rights. They did send me a 20 page booklet they had on the documentary, which I still have lol. Maybe this song is too high, but i dont think so. There are two #3 rankings to go with the others in the teens.

Next up, 3 similar songs left, the only question is the order. As a warning I will be doing #1 and #2 together. 

 

[Pip's Invitation]

By the way I have 5 lists already and I havent even specified full specifics etc. thank you.

All have a different number of picks, which I love. Stop when the songs start to get meh or suck. 

I figured I would stop at 50, but then I kept saying “well, what about this one” and got all the way to 80. 

 

[Anarchy99]

By the way I have 5 lists already and I havent even specified full specifics etc. thank you.

All have a different number of picks, which I love. Stop when the songs start to get meh or suck. 

I’d say 2004, but I know that’s not what you meant. 

 

[Pip's Invitation]

#4 - Pride (In the Name of Love) (1984)

Highest Rank - 3

Lowest Rank - 17

Where to Find it - The Unforgettable Fire LP

Vulture.com ranking and comment -10/218 - It’s both surprising and not surprising that the lyrics to one of U2’s most powerful songs would prove to be timeless and enduring: “One man caught on a barbed-wire fence / One man he resist / One man washed up on an empty beach / One man betrayed with a kiss” might have seemed vague and generalized when the song was written, but given that every line has its direct equivalent in 2017, there was clearly some kind of universal wisdom pushing Bono forward.

It is one of those songs that from almost anyone else would have felt contrived, but U2 meant it and continue to mean it. It is a tremendous thing to hear 80,000 people in a stadium singing along to it, but my favorite moment remains standing in the subzero cold watching the band sing the song on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial the day before Obama’s inauguration — not because of Obama, but because seeing that band sing that song in the place where Martin Luther King Jr. had stood was not a small thing.

Comment - OK. I had heard Gloria, I Will Follow, New Year’s Day and whatever else was on Under a Blood Red Sky. Really keen on what was coming next. Coincidentally I had been watching a Martin Luther King Documentary which I recorded on VHS and had just read a book about MLK. Once I heard Pride.....holy crap. I was amazed. This band is pretty effing good. Still I only had enough money for one album so I bought the new one by Berlin lol. All my cool school friends loved the new U2 album and I was too stubborn to listen or buy it as I was anti cool. Still I loved Pride and played it loud and proud at home from my recording on tape off the radio. As an aside years later a girlfriend recorded over my MLK documentary thinking the tape was blank. I wrote a letter to the TV Station asking if they had a video or copy I could watch. They apologised and said no they didnt as it was 7 years ago and theyd lost the rights. They did send me a 20 page booklet they had on the documentary, which I still have lol. Maybe this song is too high, but i dont think so. There are two #3 rankings to go with the others in the teens.

Next up, 3 similar songs left, the only question is the order. As a warning I will be doing #1 and #2 together. 

Interesting that the highest ranking rocker comes in at 4.

Its remarkable that U2 could pull off something so earnest without sounding cheesy. The forthright musical arrangement certainly helps in this regard. I especially love the interplay between Edge and Adam at the beginning. This just barely missed my top 10.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Hard to not love Pride... I had it at 15, and it could have been higher.  

Two of the three left are also two of my top three. 

 

[Alex P Keaton]

I’d say 2004, but I know that’s not what you meant. 

At moments like this I mourn the loss of the laughing emoji.

Mrs APK stopped her list at 1991.

 

[Grace Under Pressure]

Pride might be the overall most important U2 song in the catalog IMO. Maybe tied in that category with one song that's left, and the song likely to be #1 isn't a bad choice either because of how strong and rich it is. But I do think Pride might have been their most impactful overall song leading into the Joshua Tree. I mean, Pride is as big as it gets. From the instantly recognizable first few notes all the way through, Pride is an amazing song that holds up well to this day.

"Free at last, they took your life, but they could not take your Pride"

For the Reverend Martin Luther King. Sing. 

 

[Anarchy99]

Pride might be the overall most important U2 song in the catalog IMO. Maybe tied in that category with one song that's left, and the song likely to be #1 isn't a bad choice either because of how strong and rich it is. But I do think Pride might have been their most impactful overall song leading into the Joshua Tree. I mean, Pride is as big as it gets. From the instantly recognizable first few notes all the way through, Pride is an amazing song that holds up well to this day.

"Free at last, they took your life, but they could not take your Pride"

For the Reverend Martin Luther King. Sing. 

Appropriate given the holiday this week.

 

[Nemesis]

#5 - Where the Streets Have No Name (1987)   Highest- 1    Lowest- 23     TJT
V-1/218 - sheer elation of this song. No way that U2 knew what this song was going to be when they recorded it.  Brian Eno was so sick of the song he almost erased the tape so they’d get on w it, — “Streets” became once it was performed in front of an audience that was its transfiguration & its transmogrification.   “Streets” is aspiration, it is joy incarnate. ”It does not matter how many times you have seen it performed live; “Streets” can still catch you by surprise — like it did in 2017, when it careened off the stage & hit you straight in the heart.

Comment - This is how you craft a song. Hooks, excellent build up, soaring chorus, great musicality. The fact they had no idea of the power of the song amazes me. They opened the album w the song, they were expecting the album to do great things. Yet they consider Red Hill Mining Town among others ahead of it? I am glad common sense prevailed & it became a single & 1 of their most famous tracks. Not only my #1, its vultures as well. 

Songfact:
Streets was the 3rd single from TJT, following WOWY and ISHFWILF.  Opening w nearly 2 minutes of the Edge’s shimmering guitar, the 1st song on TJT is an evocation of freedom at its most open-ended. Edge came up w the basic track in his home studio, w the finished product growing out of a characteristically painstaking process that proved so trying, co-producer Brian Eno later said half the time recording the JT album was spent on that song.
Daniel Lanois: “It was a bit of a tongue-twister for the rhythm section, w strange bar lengths that got everybody in a bad mood. I can remember pointing at a blackboard w the arrangement written on it, walking everybody through the changes like a science teacher”.

In 1985, Bono visited Ethiopia & South Africa after performing at Live Aid. Many assumed this song is about that trip, since the streets there really don't have names, just numbers. The song is actually about Ireland. In Ireland (& N. Ireland), many cities are divided: rich/poor, Catholic/Protestant, etc. By knowing which street a person lives on you can tell their religion, wealth & beliefs: literally by which side of the road they live on, because the further up the hill the more expensive the houses become. That said something to me, & so I started writing about a place where the streets have no name."

Brian Eno produced this & played the organ intro. Edge did a D-chord delay arpeggio on his 4-track recorder at home to create the rest of the track.   Steve Lillywhite, who produced U2's first three albums, was brought in to do the final mix.

The documentary It Might Get Loud has a sequence where Edge listens to his old 4-track demos of "Streets", & even at this stage of its development, it’s blindingly obvious that the circling, cathartic opening lick the guitarist had summoned from his sonorous 1973 Strat was a ready-made classic. Perhaps it was the pressure to do it justice that meant the song’s birth was a painful one – it took 2 wks of work to get it across the line, frustrating producer Brian Eno to the point that he wanted to erase the multi-track. “He’d actually decided to do it,” Edge recalled. “But the assistant engineer wouldn’t go. He stood in front of the tape machine, saying, ‘Brian, you can’t do this.’ And so he didn’t, but it was close.”

This is the 1st track on TJT, which became the fastest-selling album in both the US and UK.

Bono revealed that he views the lyrics as unfinished: "Musically it's great & the band deserve credit for that, but lyrically it's just a sketch & I was going to go back & write it out, he said.

Bono added: "Half of it is an invocation, where you say to a crowd of people 'Do you want to go to that place? That place of imagination, that place of soul? Do you want to go there, cos right now we can go there?' To this day when I say those words you get hairs on the back of your neck stand up because you're going to that place."

Bono said that producer Brian Eno reassured him about the unfinished lyrics. "Brian said, 'Incomplete thoughts are generous because they allow the listener to finish them. As a songwriter I have to realize that the greatest invitation is an invocation."  He added: "'Where The Streets Have No Name' is not a great lyric. I just wouldn't have rhymed 'hide' w 'inside.'"

Bono spoke further of his disdain for the opening lyrics & how they're indicative of his impromptu songwriting style of the '80s. He said: "There were a lot of lyrics that were written in 5 minutes instead of 5 hrs. I remember the '80s for that. The 1st 2 lines of 'Where The Streets Have No Name' were just written on the mic:
          I want to run, I want to hide
          I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside
It's teenage poetry! The idea behind the song, the idea that you can transcend where you are, the idea of music as a sacrament, is so powerful, but it's this inane couplet."

Bono explained the song's Ethiopian influence. "All this stuff about deserts & the parchedness of the earth... I wrote those things on Air India sick bags & scraps of paper, sitting in a little tent in a town called Ajibar in N. Ethiopia," he said. "It's a sort of odd, unfinished lyric, & outside of the context of Africa, it doesn't make any sense. But it contains a very powerful idea. In the desert, we meet God. In parched times, in fire & flood, we discover who we are."

In 1991, Pet Shop Boys did a mashup of this song w the Frankie Valli hit "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," which they called "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)." Released as a single in the US, it charted at #72. In the UK, it reached #4.

In 2002, U2 performed this at halftime of the Super Bowl between the Patriots & Rams. As they played, names of victims in the September 11 attacks were scrolled on a giant screen. At the end of the performance Bono opened his jacket to reveal an American flag in the lining.

This was used in the movies Fearless (1993) & How To Be A Senior (2019).

Recording:   The music for originated from a demo that guitarist Edge composed the night before the group resumed TJT sessions. In an upstairs room at Melbeach House—his newly purchased home—he used a 4-track tape machine to record an arrangement of keyboards, bass, guitar, & a drum machine. Realizing that the album sessions were approaching the end & that the band were short on exceptional live songs, he wanted to "conjure up the ultimate U2 live-song", so he imagined what he would like to hear at a future U2 show if he were a fan. After finishing the rough mix, he felt he had come up w "the most amazing guitar part & song of [his] life". With no 1 in the house to share the demo w, he recalls dancing around & punching the air in celebration.

Release:   The sleeve design for the single was similar to that of both “WOWY” & “ISHFWILF.” It featured a black-&-white photo of Adam Clayton, taken by Anton Corbijn & framed by black borders & gold accents.   This single version has a shorter fade-in & fade-out at the beginning & end of the song & gives the keyboards slightly higher prominence in the mix. Most notably, the track includes backing vocals from Edge on the chorus that are not present on the album version.

The b-side on the Streets single........The Sweetest Thing, which became a hit when it was re-released in 1998.

Charts-peaked at:    UK # 4     US: #13      Canada:  #11     IRE: #1

Video:   The iconic video directed by Meiert Avis shows U2 putting on an impromptu concert on the roof of of the Republic Liquor Store on the corner of 7th & Main Street in LA. This was an innovative way to shoot a video, leading to some surprised looks as some onlookers were delighted, while others were upset because they were stopping traffic.

The concert/video shoot took place March 27, 1987. U2 played the song 4 times, & also played "People Get Ready," "In God's Country," "Sunday Bloody Sunday" & "Pride (In The Name Of Love)." It won the Grammy for Best Performance Music Video in 1989.

Prior to filming, a week was spent reinforcing the roof of the liquor store to ensure it would not collapse if it were to be intruded by a group of fans. A backup generator was put on the roof so the shooting could continue in the event that the authorities shut off the power on the primary generator, which happened during filming.  According to Avis, the events depicted in the video show what actually happened that day "almost in real time", & that "getting busted was an integral part of the plan." Band manager Paul McGuinness revealed in 2007 that much of the confrontation w the police was exaggerated; the group were hoping to get shut down by the authorities in order to dramatize the music video, but the police continually gave them extensions for shooting the video.

The concept was similar to the Beatles famous Apple Records rooftop concert on January 30, 1969, which they used in their movie Let It Be. When asked about the similarity between U2's rooftop video & The Beatles rooftop concert, Bono said, "We've ripped off The Beatles many times before."

The video won the Grammy Award for Best Performance Music Video at the 1989 Grammy Awards

Live Versions / Remixes:
Streets - Official Music Video (Liquor Store rooftop)
Streets - live from R&H
Streets - Live from Slane Castle 2001
Streets - extended mash up from several concerts  Tempe, Chicago, Boston, LA, Slane, Mexico City, Sydney.....see how Streets has been played in concert thoughout many tours  (this is interesting to look back)
Streets - live on the 2017 JT Anniv Tour  .......if you haven't seen it, watch the giant video screen behind them

Streets - Muse cover featuring Edge - Live at Glastonbury - 06-26-10

When Rolling Stone ranked their Top50 U2 songs:  6

Been played live  907 times
For the Vertigo Tour, the group originally considered dropping the song from their set lists, but Mullen and Clayton successfully argued against this

 

[Nemesis]

Pride..........It's my #2 song..........and if you call me on my phone , it's my ring tone.

Whatever I felt for U2 up until TUF album......the hook was swallowed bigtime when I first heard Pride. 

 

[Anarchy99]

Pride..........It's my #2 song..........and if you call me on my phone , it's my ring tone.

Whatever I felt for U2 up until TUF album......the hook was swallowed bigtime when I first heard Pride. 

It only took me 30 years to figure out that Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders sings on it.

 

[Nemesis]

#4 - Pride (In the Name of Love) (1984)    Highest- 3   Lowest- 17     TUF
V-10/218 - lyrics to 1 of U2’s most powerful songs would prove to be timeless & enduring: “1 man caught on a barbed-wire fence / 1 man he resist / 1 man washed up on an empty beach / 1 man betrayed w a kiss”.  Tremendous to hear 80,000 people in a stadium singing along.  

Comment - I had heard Gloria, IWF, NYD & UABRS..Really keen on what was next. Once I heard Pride.....holy crap. I was amazed. This band is pretty effing good. played it loud & proud at home from my recording on tape off the radio. Maybe this song is too high, but i dont think so. There are two #3 rankings to go w the others in the teens. 

Songfact:
This anthem of resistance & love was inspired by a biography of MLK (Let the Trumpet Sound) given to Bono by Rolling Stone writer Jim Henke. An exhibit dedicated to the civil rights leader was on display at the Chicago Peace Museum in 1983 when the band visited.  Also at the Chicago museum, there was also a display about victims of the Hiroshima bombing called "The Unforgettable Fire," which would inspire the song of the same name & provide the album title.

Bono described the lyrics as just a “simple sketch.” But it took flight in 1 of the band’s 1st recordings w Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois.  This began as a song about US president Ronald Reagan & Bono had lyrics written condemning Reagan for an arrogant pride that led to nuclear escalation, but it just wasn't working. "I remembered a wise old man who said to me, don't try & fight darkness w light, just make the light shine brighter". "I was giving Reagan too much importance, then I thought MLK, there's a man. We build the positive rather than fighting w the finger."

In the '80s, Bono said this was "The most successful pop song we've ever written." He added, "You can see there is a certain craft to the songwriting. I use the word "pop" in the best possible sense; pop for me is an easily understood thing, you listen to it & you comprehend it almost immediately. You relate to it instinctively. A lot of the album isn't like that at all."

Edge : "Because of the situation in our country nonviolent struggle was such an inspiring concept. Even so when Bono told me he wanted to write about King. At 1st I said, 'Whoa, that's not what we're about.' Then he came in & sang the song & it felt right, it was great. When that happens there's no argument. It just was."

U2 sound engineer Joe O’Herlihy recorded an Edge chord progression during a soundcheck in Hawaii on the War tour & the idea eventually became the seed for Pride (In The Name Of Love), the centrepiece of TUF album and 1 of U2’s torch songs. Edge had recently upgraded his erstwhile Memory Men in favor of the superior clarity & modulation possibilities of 2 Korg SDD-3000 rackmounted digital delays, & on this, their triplet repeats enable Edge’s deceptively simple parts to either chime out across the mix or provide a storm of percussive propulsion. The guitarist has said it’s 1 of his favorite guitar parts & it’s surely 1 of the most outright epic guitar performances ever committed to tape.

Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders contributed backing vocals....She was married to Jim Kerr of Simple Minds at the time & was credited on the album as "Mrs. Christine Kerr."

King was killed on a Memphis motel balcony on April 4, 1968. Bono sings "early morning, April 4," but King was actually shot at 6:01 p.m. local time. Bono has acknowledged the mistake & in 2012, he re-recorded the song & fixed his error in the original lyrics & sings “early evening April 4”, instead of “early morning April 4”.

In 1987, U2 began their JT Tour in Tempe, Arizona, where the governor was opposed to MLK Day being made a US federal holiday. By the time the band headed back to Tempe to close out the tour, they were receiving death threats for supporting the proposed holiday. Things took a serious turn before their gig at Sun Devil Stadium when someone claimed he would shoot Bono on stage if he sang the King-inspired song. Bono recalls: "1 night the FBI said: 'Look, it's quite serious. He says he has a ticket. He said he's armed. And he said if you sing 'Pride' he's going to shoot you.'    So we played the show, the FBI were around, everyone was a little unnerved. You just didn't know. During 'Pride,' I was singing the 3rd verse, 'Early morning April 4, a shot rings out in a Memphis sky.'    Bono said he found out just what he meant to 1 of his bandmates: "I just closed my eyes & sang.... & when I look up, I see Adam Clayton standing in front of me, holding his bass like only Adam Clayton can hold his bass. And y'know, there's people in this room who'd tell you they'd take a bullet for you, but Adam would've taken a bullet for me. And I guess that's what it's like to be in a truly great rock n' roll band."

• In 1985, the song was used in an episode of Miami Vice on the 2-hr premiere the 2nd season.
  
• In April 1998, part of this was used on the 200th episode of The Simpsons, "Trash Of The Titans." U2 played some of this at a concert in Springfield.
  
• In 2001, Ewan McGregor sings a line of this in the "Elephant Love Medley" section of the movie Moulin Rouge. Bono also appears on the soundtrack, singing "Children Of The Revolution" w Gavin Friday. That song was written by Marc Bolan & originally recorded by his band, T-Rex.
  
• In 2005, this song appeared in the movie Elizabethtown when Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) is visiting the site of MLKs assassination.
  
• In 2010, Dierks Bentley recorded this for his 2010 bluegrass album Up on the Ridge. His take on the song was nominated for a Grammy for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals.  11 yrs later, Bentley performed his cover at the 2021 ACM Awards.  Link
  

Recording:    The recording process was very difficult. U2 & their producers, Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois, experimented w many unworthy takes before scrapping it, taking a break, & nailing it after starting from scratch.

Lanois:  "It took us a while to get that track..We tried it in at Slane Castle, we tried it in a rehearsal room, & in the end, we got it at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin."   "Windmill Lane was a conventional studio - very nice place - but not very cavernous w its drum sound, let's say. You hit a drum in the room, & it wouldn't be that inspiring. I invited the U2 crew to build me a concrete wall, so they built this cement-block wall behind the drums so we could get a little bit of punch happening. That's how extravagant things got! And in the end, we had a pretty good drum sound.

Release:    "Pride" was released as a single a month before the album. It was their first Top 40 hit in the US.  When the song was released, Coretta Scott King, the widow of MLK, invited the band to the MLK Center in Atlanta. They made their visit during their 1984 US tour.

Interestingly, the single version of “Pride” is longer (4:40) than than that found on the album (3:48),

Charts-peaked at:    UK # 3    US:  #33        Canada:  #26     IRE: #2  (<--was kept out of #1 spot by “I Just Called to Say I Love You” by Stevie Wonder)

Video:    There are 2 main videos for the song that were released.....JML's link AND

Pride - Slane Castle Version  - in the first couple of seconds of the video, it shows the lengths that they went to place Edge's amps on the balcony (i had a story about that when it describes the making of the TUF album)

Actually.....it appears that there was a Pride - 3rd Version video, made by Anton Corbijn in London, in 1984.  But it was never really released.  Corbijn:  "I had to do it near Heathrow Airport, before they boarded a plane to Japan. I was given a couple of hrs in the basement of a hotel. I did it in 1 shot, mostly close-ups of their faces. It’s terrible. And Paul McGuinness, swore that I would never be allowed near U2 again w a film camera.”

Live Versions / Remixes:
Pride - live Denver Aug 11, 1987 - Rattle & Hum
Pride - live Tempe, AZ 12/20/1987  outtake footage from R&H
Pride - live from Sydney 1993-11-27 - ZooTV tour
Pride - live from the 2017 JT Anniv Tour

When Rolling Stone ranked their Top50 U2 songs:  12

Been played live:       1024 times…........on every tour since release

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

Bono said he found out just what he meant to 1 of his bandmates: "I just closed my eyes & sang.... & when I look up, I see Adam Clayton standing in front of me, holding his bass like only Adam Clayton can hold his bass. And y'know, there's people in this room who'd tell you they'd take a bullet for you, but Adam would've taken a bullet for me. And I guess that's what it's like to be in a truly great rock n' roll band."

Amazing story.

At moments like this I mourn the loss of the laughing emoji.

Mrs APK stopped her list at 1991.

Im pretty sure there are people out there who say U2 sold out....every album War onwards. When people do their lists they can list their faves as the first 25 or more songs  or the last 25 or more songs

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

#3 - All I Want is You (1988)

Highest Rank - 1

Lowest Rank - 13

Where to Find it - Rattle and Hum LP

Vulture.com ranking and comment -9/218 - Once again, U2 end a record with a hymn. It’s a gorgeous, sophisticated melody that would fit on one of the later-era albums; it certainly feels more advanced than anything else on Rattle and Hum. The credit for that goes to none other than Van Dyke Parks, who came in and contributed that haunting string arrangement that elevates the song above anything else on the album. The vocals are full of love and longing, and Edge contributes an achingly wistful guitar line that is the definition of heartbreak. Thematically, a song about love and commitment is the natural conclusion to an album all about wandering and big skies.

Comment - Such a beautiful song. Tender, loving. They have success with this formula in future, but still sounds great. One thing always fascinated me about the video. How did the deceased leave this earth? 

Next up, as a warning both the #2 song and the #1 song will be listed together, or right after each other. Once the #2 song is revealed there is no suspense left so let’s close it off with a bang. We only have 2 left, surprised at what songs they are? 

 

[Nemesis]

All I Want Is You……it’s U2’s version of “Purple Rain”. (the song).  OR the 1985 song Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits)

a great 6 minute song placed as the very last song on the album.  Like finding a hidden gem & then asking yourself “Why did they put it there?”

my #10 ranked song 

 

[Pip's Invitation]

All I Want Is You……it’s U2’s version of “Purple Rain”. (the song)
a great 6 minute song placed as the very last song on the album.  Like finding a hidden gem & then asking yourself “Why did they put it there?”

my #10 ranked song 

Similarly, as I recall, this was played over the closing credits in the Rattle and Hum movie. 

 

[Pip's Invitation]

#3 - All I Want is You (1988)

Highest Rank - 1

Lowest Rank - 13

Where to Find it - Rattle and Hum LP

Vulture.com ranking and comment -9/218 - Once again, U2 end a record with a hymn. It’s a gorgeous, sophisticated melody that would fit on one of the later-era albums; it certainly feels more advanced than anything else on Rattle and Hum. The credit for that goes to none other than Van Dyke Parks, who came in and contributed that haunting string arrangement that elevates the song above anything else on the album. The vocals are full of love and longing, and Edge contributes an achingly wistful guitar line that is the definition of heartbreak. Thematically, a song about love and commitment is the natural conclusion to an album all about wandering and big skies.

Comment - Such a beautiful song. Tender, loving. They have success with this formula in future, but still sounds great. One thing always fascinated me about the video. How did the deceased leave this earth? 

Next up, as a warning both the #2 song and the #1 song will be listed together, or right after each other. Once the #2 song is revealed there is no suspense left so let’s close it off with a bang. We only have 2 left, surprised at what songs they are? 

Stunning and gorgeous. It’s in my top 10. I’ve always liked it but as I’ve gotten older it’s climbed up the rankings for me. Everything about it is spine-tingling.

 

[bigbottom]

#3 - All I Want is You (1988)

Highest Rank - 1

Lowest Rank - 13

Where to Find it - Rattle and Hum LP

Vulture.com ranking and comment -9/218 - Once again, U2 end a record with a hymn. It’s a gorgeous, sophisticated melody that would fit on one of the later-era albums; it certainly feels more advanced than anything else on Rattle and Hum. The credit for that goes to none other than Van Dyke Parks, who came in and contributed that haunting string arrangement that elevates the song above anything else on the album. The vocals are full of love and longing, and Edge contributes an achingly wistful guitar line that is the definition of heartbreak. Thematically, a song about love and commitment is the natural conclusion to an album all about wandering and big skies.

Comment - Such a beautiful song. Tender, loving. They have success with this formula in future, but still sounds great. One thing always fascinated me about the video. How did the deceased leave this earth? 

Next up, as a warning both the #2 song and the #1 song will be listed together, or right after each other. Once the #2 song is revealed there is no suspense left so let’s close it off with a bang. We only have 2 left, surprised at what songs they are? 

This is such a beautiful song that for some reason stirs so many emotions for me - love, loss, hope, heartbreak. And the video is perfection. 

 

[Ghost Rider]

Damn, I was hoping this would somehow end up at number 1, which is where I'd put it. All I Want Is You is not only my favorite U2 song, but it's one of my 10 favorite songs by anyone.  Amazing song, with an incredible cinematic feel.  Awesome video as well.  Was never nearly as good live, largely because you need those last few minutes as is to get the full scope of the song's greatness. 

 

[Grace Under Pressure]

I haven't been tracking which songs were remaining, on purpose, to keep some level of suspense for myself. 

I kind of forgot about All I Want is You.   What a great, great song. For my wife and I, it's our song. 

When he starts that last chorus with "You" in front of "All I Want is You", yeah it gets pretty dusty in here at that point. 

Also, I posted this yesterday but no one noticed the bolded  :

Pride might be the overall most important U2 song in the catalog IMO. Maybe tied in that category with one song that's left, and the song likely to be #1 isn't a bad choice either because of how strong and rich it is. But I do think Pride might have been their most impactful overall song leading into the Joshua Tree. I mean, Pride is as big as it gets. From the instantly recognizable first few notes all the way through, Pride is an amazing song that holds up well to this day.

"Free at last, they took your life, but they could not take your Pride"

For the Reverend Martin Luther King. Sing. 

 

[Anarchy99]

IMO, All I Want Is You is the band's true masterpiece. I had it at #1. It's one of the few U2 songs where I feel all the live versions don't do the song justice and are all steps back to what was engineered in the lab known as the studio. It starts so quiet and then layers on instrument after instrument and picks up momentum for three and a half minutes, Then, somehow, it builds up even more over the next minute, hitting a gear and an altitude that most songs quite frankly rarely, if ever, reach. Edge just goes off like he was shot out of a cannon. The song takes the listener to the moon and back in six and a half minutes. The last two minutes are a gentle glide back down to earth.

Don't get me wrong, the live versions are all very, very good . . . filled with emotion, the crowd unites to become one, and a fun time is had by all. But performed live . . . it's not Bad (the song . . . not the adjective).

For one of the kids, my wife conceived with this song on in the background (and if I ever catch the guy that did it, they'll be hell to pay!). Like the album, it was definitely saved for the end of the evening to put things over the top. I don't know how many candidates I have for Top 5 songs of all time across all genres of music, but this song would almost certainly be on the short list.

I always enjoyed the performance with Stephanie in Toronto in 2015 (it may have been posted already earlier in the thread). She still posts about her magical moment on Facebook on the anniversary of the show. I don't play guitar, so this would never have happened with me on stage. Even if I did, I would have crashed and burned in the moment. This is one of the few times I've seen a band pick someone out of the crowd and that person actually fit in and didn't butcher the song.

 

[General Malaise]

#3 - All I Want is You (1988)

Highest Rank - 1

Lowest Rank - 13

Where to Find it - Rattle and Hum LP

Vulture.com ranking and comment -9/218 - Once again, U2 end a record with a hymn. It’s a gorgeous, sophisticated melody that would fit on one of the later-era albums; it certainly feels more advanced than anything else on Rattle and Hum. The credit for that goes to none other than Van Dyke Parks, who came in and contributed that haunting string arrangement that elevates the song above anything else on the album. The vocals are full of love and longing, and Edge contributes an achingly wistful guitar line that is the definition of heartbreak. Thematically, a song about love and commitment is the natural conclusion to an album all about wandering and big skies.

Comment - Such a beautiful song. Tender, loving. They have success with this formula in future, but still sounds great. One thing always fascinated me about the video. How did the deceased leave this earth? 

Next up, as a warning both the #2 song and the #1 song will be listed together, or right after each other. Once the #2 song is revealed there is no suspense left so let’s close it off with a bang. We only have 2 left, surprised at what songs they are? 

Beautiful song.   This list is fabulous.  

I haven't followed like I promised, but is there a Spotify playlist for this?  

 

[General Malaise]

Pretty sure I know what one of the last two will be.....

 

[General Malaise]

As mentioned in the OP and header, start getting your lists ready to PM to me. Minimum 25, maximum whatever you want. 37, 56, 112, whatever number you land at.

If you prefer the Hollywood Remix of Desire or any version of a song, put it in your list eg 23 - Desire (Hollywood Remix). Links help, but aren’t necessary.

All 228 songs her are eligible, as well as anything from anarchy99s thread or anything else under the U2 banner like the song from Sing 2 or those awful covers  theyve done of late. 

I have an idea on the maths, but it really doesnt matter. Top 25 will obviously garner more points than lower, but every song ranked will contribute to a final ranking. 

My rankings will have some significant changes and I will rank 228 again. No Line on the Horizon 2 and Pop Muzik will be dropped making for 2 from anarchys thread or not listed.

More details to come

I saw Sing 2 in the theater a few weeks ago - first movie theater experience for me in 10+ years.  I had to wipe a little tear when Bono as a lion sang this one.  I'm the furthest thing from religious, but this song will always get me in the feels.

 

[Anarchy99]

Pretty sure I know what one of the last two will be.....

As a funny side note, I have been discussing this list with one of my buddies, who is also a fan. I told him there were three songs left, and he had a lot of trouble guessing what the songs were. I even gave him hints and he was really slow on the uptake. He repeated what I said, and I told him he just answered the question by repeating what I had said . . .

I told him there was one from Actung Baby, there wasn't a bad song on Unforgettable Fire, and all I want is you to guess the third song, which was from Rattle and Hum.

He guessed Pride, Even Better Than the Real Thing, and Desire. I told him to repeat what I just said . . . which he did. I again said he got it right just by uttering those words again. He still didn't get it and suggested A Sort of Homecoming, The Fly, and When Love Comes To Town.

It was a real-life Abbott and Costello "Who's On First" skit.

 

[General Malaise]

As a funny side note, I have been discussing this list with one of my buddies, who is also a fan. I told him there were three songs left, and he had a lot of trouble guessing what the songs were. I even gave him hints and he was really slow on the uptake. He repeated what I said, and I told him he just answered the question by repeating what I had said . . .

I told him there was one from Actung Baby, there wasn't a bad song on Unforgettable Fire, and all I want is you to guess the third song, which was from Rattle and Hum.

He guessed Pride, Even Better Than the Real Thing, and Desire. I told him to repeat what I just said . . . which he did. I again said he got it right just by uttering those words again. He still didn't get it and suggested A Sort of Homecoming, The Fly, and When Love Comes To Town.

It was a real-life Abbott and Costello "Who's On First" skit.

 

[The Dreaded Marco]

We only have 2 left, surprised at what songs they are? 

One of them I was certain would be in the top 5.  The other I wasn't sure how high it would be ranked.  I thought top 20 was a lock but I'm pleasantly surprised it's top 2.  It's my #1.

 

[General Malaise]

One of them I was certain would be in the top 5.  The other I wasn't sure how high it would be ranked.  I thought top 20 was a lock but I'm pleasantly surprised it's top 2.  It's my #1.

Hard to argue with his top 10 and the final 2 are also fine by me.  

I would have Even Better than the Real Thing in the top 10, probably top 5, but that song just hits me in all the right spots and can understand it not being a favorite for other ears.  

 

[Nemesis]

This list is fabulous.  
is there a Spotify playlist for this?  

A couple of weeks ago, i was thinking about this exact thing.
But I wouldn't want 228 in the same list....would recommend something like:
     Group 1:    FBG 1-50
     Group 2:    FBG 51-100
     Group 3:    101+        (or could split this further if desired)

But I don't have the time to set this up.........I already gave at the office.

Edit to add:    Maybe the better thing to do is wait until the all of the lists are re-compiled and then do the Spotify playlist off of that?      (BTBS would surely make the Top50 then, wouldn't it?)

 

[Anarchy99]

A couple of weeks ago, i was thinking about this exact thing.
But I wouldn't want 228 in the same list....would recommend something like:
     Group 1:    FBG 1-50
     Group 2:    FBG 51-100
     Group 3:    101+        (or could split this further if desired)

But I don't have the time to set this up.........I already gave at the office.

Yeah, your contributions have been above and beyond the call of duty. Your Medal of Honor medal should be arriving soon for your stoic act of bravery. The nation thanks you.

 

[Nemesis]

Final installment of U2 Tidbits:

• In 2005, Edge, Bob Ezrin & Henry Juszkiewicz co-founded Music Rising, a charity provided replacement instruments for those that were lost in Hurricane Katrina. The instruments were originally only replaced for professional musicians but they soon realized the community churches & schools needed them as well. The charity's slogan is "Rebuilding the Gulf Region note by note" & has so far helped over 100 musicians who were affected by Hurricane Katrina.
   
  
• In 2005, U2 were inducted into The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, their 1st year of eligibility.
   
  
• At the 2006 Grammy awards, U2 won 5 Grammys:  Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year ("Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own"), Best Rock Album, Best Rock Song ("City Of Blinding Lights") & Best Vocal Rock Performance ("Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own"). Though they won the most, Bono still remarked: "This is our 2nd Album of the Yr but we've lost two, AB & ATYCLB, so we know how it feels... To be in the company of Paul McCartney, who discovered the country that we're all living in, is a true honor indeed."
   
  
• In 2006, U2 announces that they are leaving Island Records after 26 yrs & 150 million albums sold.  (The back story is that Jason Iley, former General Manager of Island, & a close ally of the band, left Island Records & was appointed managing director of Mercury Records, & the band followed him there.)
   
  
• In 2007, Edge received an honorary doctorate of music from Berklee College of Music.
   
  
• In 2007, Bono accepted an honorary British knighthood during a brief ceremony in Dublin…..on 1 condition, "Don't call me sir."    (Technically, he is not entitled to be called "sir" as he is not a British citizen.)
   
  
• In 2007, Edge & Bono began work on a broadway musical, Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark. After yrs of delays, onstage accidents, cast departures, budget overruns & scathing reviews, the show ended up the most expensive ever staged on Broadway, w total costs of ~$65 million. It seems highly unlikely that Edge will ever see any return on his investment!
   
  
• In 2008, Edge got together w Jimmy Page & Jack White to record a guitar documentary entitled It Might Get Loud, which looked at the careers & playing styles of the 3 men.
   
  
• In 2009, U2 was the highest-grossing live act in N. America w $123 million in concert earnings. They beat out Bruce Springsteen by almost $30 million.
   
  
• In 2010, Gibson ranked Edge the 23rd-best guitarist of all time, saying that he "created a sound that is distinctly his own – no small feat when you consider he's had to do it in the course of 3 decades while working shoulder-to-shoulder w one of the biggest personalities in rock, Bono".
   
  
• In 2011, Rolling Stone placed Edge at #38 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time"; calling him an "innovative mind", a "scientist, & a poet by night", & said he is "dedicated to note-taking" to "document every detail of his sound".
   
  
• In 2012, Spin ranked him #13th on their list, saying that he "masked & flaunted his willful ignorance of how guitars are meant to be played w forgiving delay pedals, forging a sonic trademark so distinctive that his band's name became an adjective".
   
  
• In Dec 2015, U2 releases 8 songs called "Essentials 01" as an expansion pack for the video game Rock Band 4. 
  This package of songs collectively was known as “U2 Essentials 01” & retailed for $13.49 in the US.
  Individual tracks could be purchased separately for $1.99.
  Video Game  -  Track Listing:
  "California (There is no End to Love)" (Studio Version) - U2 (04:00)
  "Desire" (Studio Version) - U2 (02:59)
  "The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)" (Studio Version) - U2 (04:15)
  "One" (Studio Version) - U2 (04:36)
  "Pride (In the Name of Love)" (Studio Version) - U2 (03:50)
  "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (Studio Version) - U2 (04:39)
  "Where the Streets Have No Name" (Studio Version) - U2 (05:37)
  "Vertigo" (Single Version Edit) - U2 (03:13)
   
  
• In 2016, Glamour magazine announces their "WoMan of the Year" & Bono is honored. He was the 1st man to be included on the list because of his campaigning for women's rights. 
  https://www.glamour.com/story/women-of-the-year-bono
  
  The magazine's decision came w heavy criticism on social media.......Comments like: "Bono has been named Glamour's woman of the year. To be fair with only 3.7 billion women it must be tough to find a worthy one."
  
  Bono accepts the award & reads Mean Tweets:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbFcdvvzhcc  
   
  
• In NOV 2018, 57 yr old Edge becomes a grandfather when his oldest daughter Hollie gives birth to a baby boy. 
   
  
• Bono is the only person in the history of the world to be nominated for an Academy Award, a Nobel Prize, a Grammy & a Golden Globe.
   
  
• "U2's in an absolutely unique position......They own outright every song they ever wrote, & they always will."
  - Paul McGuinness explains U2's unique contractual agreement with Island Records, April 1987.
  "U2 has made a staggering amount of money. As an established band, they have a very favorable record deal, their tours are hugely profitable, & because they write their own songs, they own the copyrights on them, meaning they get royalties when they are played on radio or TV."   
  Two unique aspects of their contractual arrangements:
         1 - U2 agreed from the start that song writing credits would be shared equally amongst the 4 band members
         2 - I'm pretty sure that when Paul McGuinness was their Manager, that he received an EQUAL CUT, like he was a band-member.
   
  
• Bono, referring to his father in an interview: "By NOT encouraging me to be a musician, even though that's all he ever wanted to be, he's made me one. By telling me never to have big dreams or else, that to dream is to be disappointed, he made me have big dreams. By telling me that the band would only last 5 or 10 minutes - we're still here."
   
  
• Bono on the difference between pop & rock: "Pop music often tells you everything is OK, while rock music tells you that it's not OK, but you can change it. There's a defiance in rock music that gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Most pop music doesn't make you want to get out of bed, I'm sorry to say. It puts you to sleep."
   
  
• Adam Clayton remained a bachelor for several decades. During the early 1990s, he dated English supermodel Naomi Campbell but their relationship was fiery & ended acrimoniously, although Campbell says she is now friends w all the band again.
  Adam also had a long-standing relationship w Suzanne "Susie" Smith, a former assistant to Paul McGuinness; they were engaged in 2006, but the pair broke up in 2007. 
  In 2010, Clayton fathered a son w his then-partner, an unnamed French woman.
  In 2013, he confirmed that he was no longer in that relationship. 
  On 4 September 2013, Clayton married former human rights lawyer Mariana Teixeira de Carvalho in a small ceremony in Dublin (in fact even Bono & Larry weren't there). Carvalho, originally from Brazil, works as a director at Michael Werner, a leading contemporary art gallery in London & New York. 
  On 25 July 2017, Clayton & his wife announced the arrival of their 1st daughter. 
   
  
• U2 have clocked up 19 #1 singles in their native Ireland, 6 more than any other act. (Both The Beatles & Westlife have scored 13 chart-toppers).
   
  
• April 2014, the Library Of Congress announced 25 new additions to the National Recording Registry bringing the total number of preserved recordings to 400. The new selections were a diverse group including spoken word & comedy recordings in addition to pop landmarks. U2's landmark 1987 album The Joshua Tree was among the additions. The album spent 9 wks at #1 on the US album chart & won the Grammy Award for Album Of the Yr & included two #1 pop hit singles.
  

 

[Nemesis]

Yeah, your contributions have been above and beyond the call of duty. Your Medal of Honor medal should be arriving soon for your stoic act of bravery. The nation thanks you.

  A labor of love and curiosity.    

In honor of the rankings coming to an end, on Saturday:  I will be wearing my U2 shirt & drinking a Guinness   
Please feel free to join me if you want to.

 

[Nemesis]

All I Want Is You is the band's true masterpiece. I had it at #1. It's 1 of the few U2 songs where I feel all the live versions don't do the song justice & are all steps back to what was engineered in the lab known as the studio.
I always enjoyed the performance w Stephanie in Toronto in 2015. She still posts about her magical moment on Facebook on the anniversary of the show. I don't play guitar, so this would never have happened w me on stage. Even if I did, I would have crashed & burned in the moment. This is 1 of the few times I've seen a band pick someone out of the crowd & that person actually fit in & didn't butcher the song.

I think i may have posted that before as Stephanie actually played a couple of songs (Angel Of Harlem)......but i love those moments.

Speaking of.......I'll see your Stephanie in Toronto link.........and I'll raise you this:
           The EPIC MOMENT when a BLIND FAN joined U2 on stage to play ALL I WANT IS YOU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s5x-PNC40o

At the July 2, 2011 show in Nashville, Bono invited a blind fan onstage to play "All I Want Is You" on guitar for his wife after normal set closer "Moment of Surrender." After the song, Bono gave the fan his Gretsch Irish Falcon guitar. 

edit to add:  Here is an another example from Boston 2015, where an audience member comes up on stage to play guitar (but not as good as Stephanie) Link

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

Also, I posted this yesterday but no one noticed the bolded  :

Yes. Very clever. Id like to say I noticed, but whoops. 

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

Beautiful song.   This list is fabulous.  

I haven't followed like I promised, but is there a Spotify playlist for this?  

I dont even use Spotify anymore. If someone else wants to have a crack, rock on. I must have turned into a hipster. I only listen to vinyl now. 

Pretty sure I know what one of the last two will be.....

Process of elimination 

I saw Sing 2 in the theater a few weeks ago - first movie theater experience for me in 10+ years.  I had to wipe a little tear when Bono as a lion sang this one.  I'm the furthest thing from religious, but this song will always get me in the feels.

Damn. They seemed to have aimed this squarely at U2 fans. 

Hard to argue with his top 10 and the final 2 are also fine by me.  

I would have Even Better than the Real Thing in the top 10, probably top 5, but that song just hits me in all the right spots and can understand it not being a favorite for other ears.  

I dont care what the others say, I knew I liked you. i had even better than the real thing at #2 on my list. The other guys spoiled the party. 

 

[Nemesis]

#3 - All I Want is You (1988)   Highest- 1     Lowest- 13    Rattle and Hum LP
V-9/218 - U2 end a record w a hymn. Gorgeous, sophisticated melody that would fit on 1 of the later-era albums; it certainly feels more advanced than anything else on R&H. Credit goes to Van Dyke Parks, contributed string arrangement that elevates the song above anything else on the album. The vocals are full of love & longing, & Edge contributes an achingly wistful guitar line that is the definition of heartbreak. Thematically, a song about love & commitment is the natural conclusion to an album all about wandering & big skies.

Comment - Such a beautiful song. Tender, loving. They have success w this formula in future, but still sounds great. 1 thing always fascinated me about the video. How did the deceased leave this earth?

Songfact:   1 of Bono’s most heartfelt love songs, the glimmering ballad “All I Want Is You” is a tender tribute to his wife, Ali. “That’s a song about commitment,” he said. Edge worked out its pensive chord progression around the same time he & Bono wrote “Desire,” but it took the cinematic string arrangements of Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks to push the song over the top.  Edge called Parks’ contribution “haunting” & “gorgeous.” “AIWIY is probably the best of what we were trying to do w [R&H], in that it has a traditional basis, but it was a truly U2 song,”

Bono wrote the lyrics about his wife Ali. The quiet verses are him telling her the words, the loud guitar pieces at the end of the verses is her reaction. At the end when he screams "All I want is you" 4 times, Edge solos for that amount of time, as her reaction.

Edge came up w the guitar part while working on U2's song "Desire."

Van Dyke Parks arranged the strings. He was best known for working with Brian Wilson on the Beach Boys Smile project, writing intricate lyrics for Wilson's melodies, but many other artists have called upon his services as a session musician & arranger. "All I Want Is You" is a great example of his work, as the strings bring out an emotive quality in the song without detracting from its other elements.

This plays under the credits of the U2 documentary R&H.

On The Best Of 1980-1990, the song is 8:50 long & "October" comes on as a hidden track after AIWIY.  Link

This was used in the trailer for the 2000 movie All The Pretty Horses & is also featured in the final scenes of the 2011 movie Contagion. 

It was also on the soundtrack to 1994 Reality Bites, (The popularity of the song in the film led to a re-release in 1994 where it reached #38 in the U.S. Top 40 Mainstream charts.)

Recording:  Benmont Tench (from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers) is credited for keyboards, though he said in an interview: "I couldn't figure out what to play because the song seemed complete, & eventually Edge said, ‘Why don’t you play this little figure?’ & it’s in there somewhere buried in the mix & as a result everyone always credits me w having played w U2."

Release:   “All I Want is You” was the 4th & final single released from R&H. Fittingly, it was also the final song on the album as well as the song that played over the closing credits of the film. The single was released in June of 1989 in the same format as the other singles from R&H (as well as those from TJT), w a sleeve featuring a black-&-white portrait of 1 band member. In this case the band member is Bono, whose photo also graced the final JT single. An instant collectible was created in Australia when a small run of 7-inch singles was pressed on purple vinyl. It is rumored that only 400 of these were issued. 

The b-side used on the 7-inch vinyl, 3-inch CD, and cassette was a cover of “Unchained Melody.”

Charts-peaked at:  UK # 4    US:  #83        Canada:  #67     IRE: #1   AUS #2

Video:   U2 returned to director Meiert Avis for the “All I Want is You” video, which was filmed in the town of Ostia outside of Rome. The shoot began on April 18, 1989 & lasted 4 days. The storyline of the video was developed by Barry Devlin in the style of a silent movie. Shot entirely in black-&-white, the video features a circus wintering on a beach, w only a brief shot of the 4 members of U2 walking along the beach. The story focuses on actress Paola Rinaldi & actor Paolo Rissi. Rinaldi plays a aerial performer, & Rissi plays a fellow circus worker who is enamored w her. We watch him gaze longingly at Rinaldi on the trapeze, only to discover that she is involved w another man. Rissi is later seen climbing up to the trapeze, & it appears that he falls & dies, after which the video cuts to the scene of a funeral. However, Rissi is present among the mourners at the funeral, & he throws the ring he had purchased for Rinaldi into the grave. It has been a matter of debate over the yrs as to who actually died in the film, although Edge has gone on record as saying that it was the trapeze artist played by Rinaldi who died.

Live Versions / Remixes:
AIWIY - live from Milan 2005 - Vertigo tour
AIWIY - Sydney 2010 - 360 tour
AIWIY - live Denver 2011 - 360 tour   this one has a slightly different tone to it
AIWIY - Orchestral
AIWIY - U2 at the BBC - 2017   <---check this one out

When Rolling Stone ranked their Top50 U2 songs:    25

Been played live  308 times….........not played on the 2017 & 2019 JT Anniv tours
During Zoo TV, the song was performed fully just 15 times

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

#2 - One (1991)

Highest Rank - 1

Lowest Rank - 12

Where to Find it - Achtung Baby LP

Vulture.com ranking and comment - 6/218 - “One” is an enormous emotional chameleon of a song. It changes colors from red to blue to purple depending on the lens of betrayal, dishonesty, disappointment, or despair you view the song through. “One” contains bone-deep sadness, dark melancholy, and immense regret. “We’re one, but we’re not the same,” Bono sings, a deep truth, before moving on to, “We get to carry each other.” Both Bono and Edge point at the latter lyric being essential to the song in disparate ways: “It’s a reminder that we have no choice,” Bono said. “‘Get to’ is the key,” Edge said, “‘Got to’ would be too obvious and platitudinous. ‘Get to’ suggests it is our privilege to carry one another.”

While it’s a stellar, close-to-perfect musical performance for the entire band, the MVP is Bono, who turns in an emotional tour de force from start to finish. His voice is full of deep heartache, and fairly reverberates with pain and regret. Taking all of the above into account, it is astonishing that people think this is a good song to play at their weddings.

Comment - Takes up where All I want is you left off from Rattle and Hum. Musically not lyrically. I think this was mentioned earlier, but it joins a long list of songs that have been misunderstood lyrically. Imagine getting married to this and then understanding the lyrics

Next up, our number one song may surprise, but its the only one that was ranked top 10 by all of us. 

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

#1 - Bad (1984)

Highest Rank - 1

Lowest Rank - 10

Where to Find it - The Unforgettable Fire LP

Vulture.com ranking and comment -3/218 - The opening notes of “Bad” are a clarion call: They invite the listener into the song and set a tone of warning and premonition for the scene that’s about to unfold. The minimalism of the instrumentation is remarkable in how it ebbs and flows to fit in the space around Bono’s vocals, and both those vocals and the melody pulsate with intensity. You can feel the desperation of the heroin addict, of the battle between the attraction and the hatred of the disease, of the anger and frustration of the people around them, watching them fall further into the “blue and black,” not being able to pull them out — and also the voice of someone who might find the qualities of the drug to be intriguing and dangerous. It’s all there. It’s breathtaking, how the song builds, the way Bono throttles his vocals, and how the Eno–Lanois team sonically construct the emotional dynamic.

Of course, you can’t talk about “Bad” without also talking about Live Aid, because that performance was, unintentionally, the turning point for U2. If you have never seen it, it is one of the wonders of that otherworldly day of music. Even for people who were already fans of the band, it was a remarkable moment. The song expands to fit the expanse of Wembley Stadium, and when Bono heads down into the crowd, anyone who had actually seen them thought, Oh, of course this is totally normal for Bono — while the rest of the band were furious they were left to vamp for ten minutes and had to cut “Pride” out of their set. Paul McGuinness gets the understatement of the day award for saying, “I think it is fair to say there was a bit of a row afterwards,” when describing his and the band’s reaction. It wasn’t until days later that U2 became aware of their impact, as all of their albums went back onto the charts. “Nothing was really quite the same again because now everyone knew who Bono was,” McGuinness said in 2006. There is some kind of perverse justice that “Bad” was that particular catalyst.

Comment - This song didnt come to life until played live. It’s astonishing that the band had little confidence in it until the audience made it pretty clear. It was the breakthru live aid performance outside Freddie and Queen. They weren’t short of material at that stage so it is remarkable that it made the limited set list and the extended version while Bono was crowd distracted works so well. 

Next up, we are done. Fin. Now for everyone to submit a list. I will do a separate post later illustrating details. We will see how radically the list changes.

 

[Anarchy99]

Thanks JML for all your effort. It’s been a fun 4-5 months. And we lost your namesake in the middle. 

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

Thanks JML for all your effort. It’s been a fun 4-5 months. And we lost your namesake in the middle. 

I’m just the lunchbox

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

Ok. We have a list of about 400 songs.

Rank as many as you want, but there must be a minimum of 25. Maximum whatever you want. 37, 56, 112, whatever number you land at. Stop when you either dont know the song or dont like it. PM them to me.

If you like a particular version of a song, mention it in your rankings eg 23 - Desire (Hollywood Remix)

Use this tool https://rankingengine.pubmeeple.com/ to enter however many songs you know from these lists. Or do it the old fashioned way.

There will be no deadline yet. Every song ranked by someone, I will rank too. Any song left at the end and we will use the original list for a bottom end ranking eg if Ave Maria and Big Girls are Best arent ranked by anyone, whichever was ranked lower originally will be ranked lower here. 

There won’t be a daily countdown. The songs will have their rankings compared eg Original Rankers vs the FFA in batches to be determined.

Scoring:

Your #1 ranked song will be worth 100 points

Your #2 ranked song will be worth 95 points

Your #3 ranked song will be worth 90 points

Your #4 ranked song will be worth 85 points

5 =83, 6 = 81, 7 = 79, 8 = 77........18th = 57 points.....

19th = 56, 20th = 55, 21st = 54.....50th = 25 points

51st = 24.5, 52nd = 24, 53rd = 23.5 pts......70th = 15 points

71st = 14.75, 72nd = 14.50.......100th = 7.50 points

101st = 7.40 pts, 102nd = 7.30pts etc

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

The list of songs

40

11 O'Clock Tick Tock

13 (There Is a Light)

4th of July

A Celebration

A Day Without Me

A Man and a Woman

A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel

A Sort of Homecoming

Acrobat

Alex Descends into Hell for a Bottle of Milk/Korova 1

All Along the Watchtower

All Because of You

All I Want Is You

Always

American Soul

An Cat Dubh

Angel of Harlem

Another Day

Another Time, Another Place

Are You Gonna Wait Forever

Ave Maria

Babyface

Bad

Bass Trap

Beautiful Day

Big Girls are Best

Boomerang I

Boomerang II

Boy/Girl

Breathe

Bullet the Blue Sky

California (There Is No End to Love)

Can't Help Falling in Love

Cedars of Lebanon

Cedarwood Road

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

City of Blinding Lights

Crumbs from Your Table

Crystal Ballroom

Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car

Dancing Barefoot

Deep in the Heart

Desire

Dirty Day

Discothèque

Do You Feel Loved

Dont Take Your Guns to Town

Drowning Man

Electrical Storm

Elevation

Elvis Presley and America

Endless Deep

Even Better Than the Real Thing

Everlasting Love

Every Breaking Wave

Exit

Fast Cars

Fez – Being Born

Fire

Fortunate Son

Get On Your Boots

Get Out of Your Own Way

Gloria

God Part II

Gone

Grace

Hallelujah Here She Comes

Happiness Is a Warm Gun

Hawkmoon 269

Heartland

Helter Skelter

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me

Holy Joe

I Fall Down

I Remember You

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

I Threw a Brick Through a Window

I Will Follow

I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight

I'm Not Your Baby

I've Got You Under My Skin

If God Will Send His Angels

If You Wear That Velvet Dress

In a Little While

In God's Country

Indian Summer Sky

Into the Heart

Invisible

Iris (Hold Me Close)

Is That All?

J. Swallow

Jesus Christ

Kite

Lady with the Spinning Head

Landlady

Last Night on Earth

Lemon

Lights of Home

Like a Song…

Love and Peace or Else

Love Comes Tumbling

Love Is All We Have Left

Love Is Bigger Than Anything in Its Way

Love Is Blindness

Love Rescue Me

Luminous Times (Hold on to Love)

Magnificent

Miami

Miracle Drug

Miss Sarajevo

MLK

Mofo

Moment of Surrender

Mothers of the Disappeared

Mysterious Ways

Neon Lights

New Year's Day

New York

Night and Day

No Line on the Horizon

No Line on the Horizon 2

North and South of the River

North Star

Numb

October

One

One Step Closer

One Tree Hill

Ordinary Love

Original of the Species

Out of Control

Paint it Black

Party Girl

Peace on Earth

Please

Pop Muzik

Pride (In the Name of Love)

Promenade

Race Against Time

Raised by Wolves

Red Flag Day

Red Hill Mining Town

Red Light

Rejoice

Running to Stand Still

Salomé

Satellite Of Love

Scarlet

Seconds

Shadows and Tall Trees

She's a Mystery to Me

Silver and Gold

Sixty Seconds in Kingdom Comes

Sleep Like a Baby Tonight

Slow Dancing

So Cruel

Some Days Are Better Than Others

Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own

Song for Someone

Spanish Eyes

Stand Up Comedy

Staring at the Sun

Stateless

Stay (Faraway, So Close!)

Stories for Boys

Stranger in a Strange Land

Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of

Summer of Love

Summer Rain

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Surrender

Sweetest Thing

The Blackout

The Electric Co.

The First Time

The Fly

The Ground Beneath Her Feet

The Hands That Built America

The Little Things That Give You Away

The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)

The Ocean

The Playboy Mansion

The Refugee

The Saints Are Coming

The Showman (Little More Better)

The Three Sunrises

The Troubles

The Unforgettable Fire

The Wanderer

Things to Make and Do

This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now

Tomorrow

Touch

Tower of Song

Treasure (Whatever Happened to Pete the Chop)

Trip Through Your Wires

Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World

Twilight

Two Hearts Beat as One

Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad

Ultraviolet (Light My Way)

Unchained Melody

Unknown Caller

Until the End of the World

Van Diemen's Land

Vertigo

Volcano

Wake Up Dead Man

Walk On

Walk to the Water

When I Look at the World

When Love Comes to Town

Where Did It All Go Wrong

Where the Streets Have No Name

White as Snow

Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses

Wild Honey

Window in the Skies

Winter

Wire

With a Shout (Jerusalem)

With or Without You

Yahweh

You're the Best Thing About Me

Your Blue Room

Zoo Station

Zooropa

A Different Kind Of Blue - PASSENGERS

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall - U2 WITH THE ALARM

Ahimsa - U2 & A.R. RAHMAN

All Kinds Of Everything - U2

All Of My Life - U2

All You Need Is Love - U2 & NOEL GALLAGHER

Alone In The Dark - THE HYPE (U2)

Always Forever Now - PASSENGERS

Amazing Grace - U2 & SOWETO GOSPEL CHOIR

Angels Too Tied To The Ground - U2

Are You Lonesome Tonight - U2

Back Mask - U2

Bang A Gong (Get It On) - U2 WITH ELTON JOHN

Be There - U2

Beach Sequence - PASSENGERS

Beat On The Brat - U2

Beautiful Ghost - Introduction To Songs Of Experience - U2

Because The Night - U2 / BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN / PATTI SMITH

Blow Your House Down - U2

Blowin' In The Wind - U2

Book Of Your Heart - U2

Born To Be Wild - U2

Bottoms (Wata####achi No Ookina Yume) - PASSENGERS

Boy Falls From The Sky - U2

Carry Me Home - U2

Cartoon World - U2

C'mon Everybody - U2

Corpse (These Chains Are Way Too Long) - PASSENGERS

Could It Be - U2

Dancing Queen - U2

Daydream Believer - U2 WITH DAVY JONES

Dear Prudence - U2

Desert Of Our Love - U2

Dirty Old Town - U2

Disappearing Act - U2

Doctor Doctor - U2

Don't Let Me Down / Give Peace A Chance - U2

Don't Let The Teardrops Get You Down - U2

Don't Look Back In Anger - U2 & NOEL GALLAGHER

Don't Say Goodbye - U2

Down All The Days - U2

Dream Of You - U2

Drunk Chicken / America - U2

Elvis Ate America - PASSENGERS

Everybody Loves A Winner - U2 & MARIA MCKEE

False Prophet - U2

Father Is An Elephant - U2

Flower Child - U2

Get Together Now - U2

Gimme Shelter - U2 & MICK JAGGER & FERGIE

Glastonbury - U2

Going Down South - U2

Happy XMas (War Is Over) - U2

Heaven And Hell - U2

Help! - U2

Here Come Changes - U2

High As A Kite - U2

Human Rights - U2

I Believe In Father Christmas - U2

I Feel Free - U2

I Shall Be Released - U2 & FRIENDS

I Want To Be Loved - U2

I Wanted To Be Loved - U2

Inside Out - U2

Instant Kharma - U2

Ito Okashi - PASSENGERS

t's Not Unusual - U2

Jack In The Box - U2

Jitterbug Baby - U2

Knockin' On Heaven's Door - U2

Laughing In The Face Of Love - U2

Levitate - U2

Life On A Distant Planet (AKA The Magic Carpet) - U2

Love Song / Sun City - SIMPLE MINDS & BONO

Love Will Tear Us Apart - U2 & ARCADE FIRE

Love You Like Mad - U2

Lucifer's Hands - U2

Lucille - THE DALTON BROTHERS

Macarana - U2

Maggie's Farm - U2

Mercy - U2

Morning Child - U2

Mother & Child Reunion - U2

Moving Out - U2

My Hometown - U2

My Sweet Lord - U2

My Time Hasn't Come - U2

Mysterious Ways / Where Is The Love / One - U2 & BLACK-EYED PEAS

Native Son - U2

Near The Island - U2

New Gold Dream - U2 & SIMPLE MINDS

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) - U2

Nothing Feels Like This - U2

Oh Berlin - U2

Ol' Man River - U2 & EDDIE VEDDER

One Minute Warning - PASSENGERS

People Get Ready - U2 & MARIA MCKEE

People Have The Power - U2 & PATTI SMITH

Plot 180 - PASSENGERS

Radar Love - U2

Rain - U2

Rise Up - U2

Sailing - U2

San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair) - U2

Saturday Matinee - U2

Saturday Night - U2

Seize The Day - U2

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band & - U2 & PAUL MCCARTNEY

Silver Lining - U2

Sky Up On My Head - U2

Slug - PASSENGERS

Smile - U2

Sólo Le Pido A Dios - U2 & LEON GIECO

Someone - U2

Soon - U2

Southern Man - U2

Space Baby Intermission - U2

Speed Of Life - U2

Springhill Mining Disaster - U2

Stand By Me - U2

Steering Wheel - U2

Street Mission - U2

Sugar Sugar - U2

Sun City - U2 & FRIENDS

Sunset In Colors - Chances Away - U2

Suspicious Minds - U2

Sweet Baby Jane - U2

Sweet Caroline - U2

Sweet Fire Of Love - ROBBIE ROBERTSON & U2

Sweet Jane - U2 WITH MARIA MCKEE / Sweet Jane - LONE JUSTICE WITH BONO

Take Today - U2

Take You Down - U2

Tequila Sunrise - U2

Testimony - ROBBIE ROBERTSON & U2

The Ballad Of Ronnie Drew - U2 & GUESTS

The Dream Is Over - U2

The Fool - U2

The Girl From Foggy Albion - U2

The King's New Clothes - U2

The Lost Highway - DALTON BROTHERS

The Model - U2 & SEU JORGE

The Return Of The Stingray Guitar - U2

The Times They Are A Changin' - U2

Theme From Let's Go Native - PASSENGERS

Theme From New York, New York - U2

Theme From The Swan - PASSENGERS

This Is - U2

Trevor - U2

United Colours - PASSENGERS

Untitled Instrumental - U2

Viva Davidoff - PASSENGERS

Volare - U2

Wake Up Dead Man - U2

We Love You - U2

We Will Rock You - U2

What's Going On - U2

Whiskey In The Jar - U2

White Christmas - U2

Wave Of Sorrow (Birdland) - U2

We Almost Made It This Time - U2

Wild Irish Rose - U2

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow - U2

Womanfish - U2

Women Of The World  - U2

Won't Get Fooled Again - U2

Xanax And Wine - U2

XXX - KENDRICK LAMAR & U2

Yoshino Blossom - U2

Your Song Saved My Life - U2

 

[bigbottom]

#1 - Bad (1984)

Highest Rank - 1

Lowest Rank - 10

Where to Find it - The Unforgettable Fire LP

Vulture.com ranking and comment -3/218 - The opening notes of “Bad” are a clarion call: They invite the listener into the song and set a tone of warning and premonition for the scene that’s about to unfold. The minimalism of the instrumentation is remarkable in how it ebbs and flows to fit in the space around Bono’s vocals, and both those vocals and the melody pulsate with intensity. You can feel the desperation of the heroin addict, of the battle between the attraction and the hatred of the disease, of the anger and frustration of the people around them, watching them fall further into the “blue and black,” not being able to pull them out — and also the voice of someone who might find the qualities of the drug to be intriguing and dangerous. It’s all there. It’s breathtaking, how the song builds, the way Bono throttles his vocals, and how the Eno–Lanois team sonically construct the emotional dynamic.

Of course, you can’t talk about “Bad” without also talking about Live Aid, because that performance was, unintentionally, the turning point for U2. If you have never seen it, it is one of the wonders of that otherworldly day of music. Even for people who were already fans of the band, it was a remarkable moment. The song expands to fit the expanse of Wembley Stadium, and when Bono heads down into the crowd, anyone who had actually seen them thought, Oh, of course this is totally normal for Bono — while the rest of the band were furious they were left to vamp for ten minutes and had to cut “Pride” out of their set. Paul McGuinness gets the understatement of the day award for saying, “I think it is fair to say there was a bit of a row afterwards,” when describing his and the band’s reaction. It wasn’t until days later that U2 became aware of their impact, as all of their albums went back onto the charts. “Nothing was really quite the same again because now everyone knew who Bono was,” McGuinness said in 2006. There is some kind of perverse justice that “Bad” was that particular catalyst.

Comment - This song didnt come to life until played live. It’s astonishing that the band had little confidence in it until the audience made it pretty clear. It was the breakthru live aid performance outside Freddie and Queen. They weren’t short of material at that stage so it is remarkable that it made the limited set list and the extended version while Bono was crowd distracted works so well. 

Next up, we are done. Fin. Now for everyone to submit a list. I will do a separate post later illustrating details. We will see how radically the list changes.

Thank you so much for all your hard work in this topic and the thread. I have really enjoyed it and look forward to submitting my own list for the more abbreviated second round. You are a giving person to be willing to dedicate any more time to this. 

As for Bad, I couldn’t be happier about it’s place at number one. It’s always been in my top three and during some periods at number one. As with most, it is a live version that sticks with me over the album track. Bad is beautiful, stirring and passionate with superlative musicianship. One of the all time great songs. 

 

[Pip's Invitation]

#2 - One (1991)

Highest Rank - 1

Lowest Rank - 12

Where to Find it - Achtung Baby LP

Vulture.com ranking and comment - 6/218 - “One” is an enormous emotional chameleon of a song. It changes colors from red to blue to purple depending on the lens of betrayal, dishonesty, disappointment, or despair you view the song through. “One” contains bone-deep sadness, dark melancholy, and immense regret. “We’re one, but we’re not the same,” Bono sings, a deep truth, before moving on to, “We get to carry each other.” Both Bono and Edge point at the latter lyric being essential to the song in disparate ways: “It’s a reminder that we have no choice,” Bono said. “‘Get to’ is the key,” Edge said, “‘Got to’ would be too obvious and platitudinous. ‘Get to’ suggests it is our privilege to carry one another.”

While it’s a stellar, close-to-perfect musical performance for the entire band, the MVP is Bono, who turns in an emotional tour de force from start to finish. His voice is full of deep heartache, and fairly reverberates with pain and regret. Taking all of the above into account, it is astonishing that people think this is a good song to play at their weddings.

Comment - Takes up where All I want is you left off from Rattle and Hum. Musically not lyrically. I think this was mentioned earlier, but it joins a long list of songs that have been misunderstood lyrically. Imagine getting married to this and then understanding the lyrics

Next up, our number one song may surprise, but its the only one that was ranked top 10 by all of us. 

This was the first one to grab me from Achtung, as I wasn’t sure what to do with the electronic stuff at first. It’s an achingly beautiful ballad in the tradition of Bad and All I Want Is You. It’s in my top 20. 

I was kind of shocked to see it as the highest-ranked U2 song on the Rolling Stone top 500 list that came out a little while ago. When I mentioned it in that draft thread, someone said “it’s their Imagine.” I guess that makes sense.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

#1 - Bad (1984)

Highest Rank - 1

Lowest Rank - 10

Where to Find it - The Unforgettable Fire LP

Vulture.com ranking and comment -3/218 - The opening notes of “Bad” are a clarion call: They invite the listener into the song and set a tone of warning and premonition for the scene that’s about to unfold. The minimalism of the instrumentation is remarkable in how it ebbs and flows to fit in the space around Bono’s vocals, and both those vocals and the melody pulsate with intensity. You can feel the desperation of the heroin addict, of the battle between the attraction and the hatred of the disease, of the anger and frustration of the people around them, watching them fall further into the “blue and black,” not being able to pull them out — and also the voice of someone who might find the qualities of the drug to be intriguing and dangerous. It’s all there. It’s breathtaking, how the song builds, the way Bono throttles his vocals, and how the Eno–Lanois team sonically construct the emotional dynamic.

Of course, you can’t talk about “Bad” without also talking about Live Aid, because that performance was, unintentionally, the turning point for U2. If you have never seen it, it is one of the wonders of that otherworldly day of music. Even for people who were already fans of the band, it was a remarkable moment. The song expands to fit the expanse of Wembley Stadium, and when Bono heads down into the crowd, anyone who had actually seen them thought, Oh, of course this is totally normal for Bono — while the rest of the band were furious they were left to vamp for ten minutes and had to cut “Pride” out of their set. Paul McGuinness gets the understatement of the day award for saying, “I think it is fair to say there was a bit of a row afterwards,” when describing his and the band’s reaction. It wasn’t until days later that U2 became aware of their impact, as all of their albums went back onto the charts. “Nothing was really quite the same again because now everyone knew who Bono was,” McGuinness said in 2006. There is some kind of perverse justice that “Bad” was that particular catalyst.

Comment - This song didnt come to life until played live. It’s astonishing that the band had little confidence in it until the audience made it pretty clear. It was the breakthru live aid performance outside Freddie and Queen. They weren’t short of material at that stage so it is remarkable that it made the limited set list and the extended version while Bono was crowd distracted works so well. 

Next up, we are done. Fin. Now for everyone to submit a list. I will do a separate post later illustrating details. We will see how radically the list changes.

This song is as good as any to play for someone when they ask what the big deal about U2 is. Preferably a live version. It is highly emotional and sympathetic without coming across as soft or whiny. The transcendence they strive for is here in spades, both musically, lyrically and vocally.

I never heard this song until Live Aid, and it had every bit the impact that day as Vulture said it did. US radio stations started playing it soon afterward — they may well have been flooded with requests — and they generally (appropriately) chose the live version on the Wide Awake in America EP, which had just been released. 

Thanks to JML for putting this together, it was a great read every day.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Ok. We have a list of about 400 songs.

Rank as many as you want, but there must be a minimum of 25. Maximum whatever you want. 37, 56, 112, whatever number you land at. Stop when you either dont know the song or dont like it. PM them to me.

If you like a particular version of a song, mention it in your rankings eg 23 - Desire (Hollywood Remix)

Use this tool https://rankingengine.pubmeeple.com/ to enter however many songs you know from these lists. Or do it the old fashioned way.

There will be no deadline yet. Every song ranked by someone, I will rank too. Any song left at the end and we will use the original list for a bottom end ranking eg if Ave Maria and Big Girls are Best arent ranked by anyone, whichever was ranked lower originally will be ranked lower here. 

There won’t be a daily countdown. The songs will have their rankings compared eg Original Rankers vs the FFA in batches to be determined.

Scoring:

Your #1 ranked song will be worth 100 points

Your #2 ranked song will be worth 95 points

Your #3 ranked song will be worth 90 points

Your #4 ranked song will be worth 85 points

5 =83, 6 = 81, 7 = 79, 8 = 77........18th = 57 points.....

19th = 56, 20th = 55, 21st = 54.....50th = 25 points

51st = 24.5, 52nd = 24, 53rd = 23.5 pts......70th = 15 points

71st = 14.75, 72nd = 14.50.......100th = 7.50 points

101st = 7.40 pts, 102nd = 7.30pts etc

I sent you a list of 80. Hope it’s ok that it doesn’t have Get on Your Boots on it. 

 

[scorchy]

Just a perfect ending to a really great countdown.  I love One, but Bad is among my top 5 all time by anyone (it may be #1).  At least once a month, I still feel compelled to pull out my original copy of Wide Awake in America, sit dead center between my speakers, crank up the volume, and close my eyes while falling under Bad's spell.  35+ years later, it still gives me goosebumps.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Since All I Want Is You showed at 3, Bad being at number 1 feels right.  That and ...Streets are my 2a and 2b, so I am not surprised at all that it finished at 1.  I know the Wide America in America live version is the go-to for many, but the one from the Rattle & Hum flick is mine.  Just a tremendous song. 

One is excellent as well, albeit not one that would be in my top 10, or even top 20.