The Joshua Tree - U2
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| The Joshua Tree Album Cover |
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| Band Members of U2 |
The album draws its influences
from American rock, Irish folk music, acoustic blues and gospel. Released in
1987, it broke the shackles and extended the horizons of alternative rock with
its motley nature of themes ranging from love, spirituality to violence, war, politics
and social malaises like drug addiction, inequality and unemployment. This is
the record which catapulted U2 from heroes to legends and drew multitudes to
their fan base.
The album opens with ‘Where The
Streets Have No Name’, a stadium anthem which has become a permanent staple in
U2’s live concerts. Starting with a chiming guitar arpeggio and modulated
synthesisers the song eventually builds up to its climax guided by Bono’s
passionate vocals, Adam Clayton’s pulsating sound of the bass and sheer
wizardry with the guitar by The Edge to create a ‘wall’ of sound. The name of
the song may sound odd, but it stems from Bono’s belief that a person’s income
in Belfast can be estimated by knowing his address. The band dreams of a world
without inequality, social encumbrances; where the streets have no name.
‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m
Looking For’ deals with spiritual yearning, the void that is sometimes created
in spite of success. The chiming sound created by The Edge’s use of the delay
effect strongly reminds you of chrome bells ringing on Christmas Eve and Bono’s
choir-like singing accentuates the spiritual imagery brought to your mind by
the song. The chorus is breathtakingly beautiful. ‘With Or Without You’, a
troubled love song inspired by Bono’s conflicting lives he led as a musician and a family man
is notable for The Edge’s use of the delay effect and a prototype of the
Infinite Guitar enabling ‘infinite sustain’. The main guitar riff is
intoxicating and the song regularly features in ‘Greatest Hits of All Time’
lists.
If you care not to break the
chronology, you will be caught off guard by the abrupt conceptual shift of the
album with ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’. It is a rebel song with strong political
overtones as The Edge ‘puts the El Salvador Civil War through an amplifier’. It
successfully synthesises an image of war- Bono’s angry vocals and Adam
Clayton’s aggressive bassline are redolent of roaring cannonballs, screeching
fighter-planes and ricocheting bullets. ‘Running to Stand Still’, a slow piano
ballad describes the plight of a heroin-addicted couple. The subtle guitar
notes and the harmonica at the end are soothing and gradually grow on you. ‘Red
Hill Mining Town’ speaks about the relationships strained and lives torn apart
by unemployment.
‘In God’s Country’ ups the tempo
with racy guitar strumming and energetic vocals. The song dishes out innuendos
regarding the dearth of political ideas in the West. ‘Trip Through Your Wires’,
packed with harmonica, is an unconventional love ballad while ‘One Tree Hill’
is an epitaph, a tribute to the departed, a celebration of life.
As we approach the end, the album
skews again. ‘Exit’ is a song about a psychotic killer. Clayton’s bassline and The Edge’s riffs succeed to
create an eerie and surreal aura. The song’s up there with Metallica’s ‘Enter
Sandman’ and Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’. ‘Mothers of the Disappeared’ is the
concluding track of the album. It is a token of empathy to all the mothers
whose children have been taken by sporadic occurrences of violence like war and
riots. Bono’s choir-like vocals, the morose guitar notes and synthesisers bring
the album to a melancholy finale.
The Joshua Tree is notable for
utilising the complete range of Bono’s voice and tonal quality and The Edge’s
delay effect, creating chiming cadences which went on to become his trademark
sound. The album is implicitly critical of The USA’s foreign policy and
describes the band’s love-hate relationship with The United States. Overall,
the album takes you through various human emotions and packs a punch. Happy
listening!
MY PICKS: Where The Streets Have No Name, With Or Without You, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
INTERESTING FACT: Writer Derek
White conducted a mathematical study of The Edge’s rhythmic delay. He found
that by dividing the number of delay notes per minute by the songs tempo in
beats per minute, he arrived at ‘e’, an important fundamental mathematical
constant!
Joshua Tree Full Track
Contributed by Niranjan Thakurdesai --
