From the Sky Down Page #5

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everything went into that solo.

I put down the guitar,

went into the control room

listened back,

and it was really bad.

And Danny looked at me,

of course he had no idea

what had gone into that

...and he said,

"Nah. That's not it, is it, Edge?"

And I went,

"Danny, you're right, it's not it. "

Ever since we were kids,

Edge tunes up at high volume,

and he doesn't know that he's doing it.

And based on the day he's having,

and his emotional life,

he tunes up more or less.

So, when he's going through bad times,

dang, dadang, dadang!

So, it's like being hit by an iron bar

on the back of your head,

just going through rehearsals.

And Larry's sitting there,

he can't even move anywhere -

he's like, "Edge, would you shut

the f*** up! We're trying to talk here. "

And Edge just goes like this,

gadang, gadang, gadang!

We were kind of going down

a lot of blind alleys,

and there was a lot of friction,

there was a lot of tension -

nobody was particularly happy.

And there begins a sort of internal

argument about where we're not going.

There was a lot of grumbling as to why

we were there in the first place,

and nothing was coming out of it.

Within the band, myself and Bono

were probably the ones

pushing hardest to try new things.

Adam was with us,

Larry was probably the most resistant,

and questioning why we were taking

the direction we were taking.

It was just not really understanding

what Bono and Edge had in mind,

where they were coming from.

I'd no idea that they were exploring,

and particularly Edge,

was exploring a particular kind of rhythmic

and dancing, I had no idea.

There was no us against them, really.

I think...

it was probably... for a moment,

each man for himself,

which is betrayal

of the concept of a band.

People just start to walk a bit differently.

Conversation is a little different.

The way they carry their cup of tea

is different -

there's just a sense of tension,

of a doubt, of...

Everyone sort of retreats somewhat

into their own little corner.

It was a long, cold existence.

It's fraught with danger,

because you can fail at any moment,

but that's the whole beauty of it.

If you're prepared

to remove the safety net,

and if you're prepared

to really expose yourselves,

because your pursuit is after

the magic moments -

those moments of,

"Wow, I would never have imagined. "

What I did was I just started to concentrate

on ways to solve the musical problems,

which is... my main sort of personality

trait is a solver of problems.

We would have

a rough kind of chord structure,

a rough melody,

and we would basically

try and get a drum take.

I was using a lot of loops

and drum machine elements.

So we were trying to mesh

Larry's live playing

with these programmed elements.

I'd never played to a drum machine

that was going to be so present.

This was a very new experience,

and I didn't really know what to do.

I didn't know how to give myself to it.

I came in with my offering

of the morning, of,

"How about these ideas

for the chorus?"

I don't know

which version we were working on.

It's starting to come into focus.

A new bridge.

OK, this is the bit that I was saying -

that never made the song.

Well, this is, this is that.

But there was another new bridge.

That's a bit mad.

The verse seemed to offer some kind of

eternal, joyful, upful melody.

Mm, interesting. Is that the first,

the first time that melody...

The first time,

those chords in that melody were tried out.

Didn't that shift into...

One.

I played these on acoustic guitar.

Everyone's like trying to decide

whether they were any good,

and then Danny said,

"Edge, why don't you

play those two ideas sequentially?

"Just play one after another

and see what happens. "

So, I did, and everyone was like,

"Ooh, that sounds really good,

let's try that.

"Let's try that in the big room. "

When you're at

that moment of inception

there's a sense of momentum,

that takes you into a different place.

You're not in the environment,

you're not in those four walls.

So, we all went into the big room

and showed Adam the chords,

and we just started playing them.

Bono got on the microphone.

Suddenly something very powerful

is happening in the room.

Something happened,

something comes into the room,

and you know it -

everyone knew it, Danny...

It was one of those

hairs on the back of your neck moments.

Bridge.

Piano, Edge.

To the C. Stay on the C.

F to G.

If you can get the piano in Edge,

that helped me the last time.

And I'd like to hear Edge, Joe.

He's calling out the chords

and moving the chords,

to figure out where

the fertile ground is melodically for him.

It's such a pivotal moment.

We'd been going through

this hard time

and nothing seemed

to be going right...

...suddenly,

we were presented with this gift

that just kind of arrived.

It steadied everyone's nerves hugely

in the studio.

We're playing these changes,

but we're really listening to what

Bono's doing on the microphone.

Every time he finds a new place

to go melodically,

we try and go with him dynamically.

We, as a band,

always seem to come alive,

when we're all aware of the fact there's

something new happening in the room.

Whatever it is, some little spark,

some angle that's new,

and then everyone's suddenly there.

It can happen very, very quickly,

or... tragically, very slowly,

but in the case of One,

things happened extremely quickly.

I don't want them to take off the echo

if there's a chance they'll lose it.

It wasn't that we'd found

a sonic identity for that,

that sort of came later.

I think it was

we found a spiritual identity -

that was the important thing,

that was what we actually needed.

There's a sort of blood pact, which is that

we have to be truthful with each other.

So, it wasn't working,

we'd run out of gas...

...and maybe just saying that was...

...you know, that maybe

we've outgrown each other.

It wasn't Adam's fault,

it wasn't Larry's fault,

it wasn't Danny's fault -

they weren't convinced,

because we weren't convincing them.

The material wasn't done,

it wasn't right.

Where's the songs?

"Cut the crap, show us your willy,"

as the cartoon said.

Ever seen that with the peacock?

Peacock's showing the big fantail,

so, he goes, "Just cut the crap

and show us your willy. "

Next time we do the chorus

I want you not to end on a G

but end on a C.

Did you hear that, Adam?

The way through writer's block

is always by being truthful -

to write a song about division,

a bitter-sweet song

about... disunity.

I think what was going on at that time,

took us a long time to come to terms with,

and I almost can't remember

what we were actually trying

to come to terms with,

but I know we carried each other

to the point where we could stand

on our own feet.

At Christmas, everybody just went,

"Fine, that's enough, go back to Ireland. "

I think there was about two months where

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