Bullet the Blue Sky
| "Bullet the Blue Sky" | |
|---|---|
| Song |
"Bullet the Blue Sky" is the fourth track from U2's 1987 album, The Joshua Tree, and is one of the group's loudest and most aggressive songs.
History
The song was originally written about the United States' military intervention during the 1980s in the El Salvador Civil War. Bono told The Edge to "put El Salvador through an amplifier". The song is a combination of The Edge's guitar slides, Adam Clayton's laid back bassline, Larry Mullen Jr.'s cold drumming and Bono's aggressive and growly vocals during the verses, and a haunting poem during the bridge. Clayton played the song in a different key from the rest of the band: Clayton's bass riffs are in E flat minor while The Edge is playing D flat.[1] Bono was thinking of American President Ronald Reagan as he sang "This guy comes up to me / His face red like a rose on a thorn bush / Like all the colors of a royal flush / And he's peeling off those dollar bills / Slapping them down."[2]
Although it was never released as a single, "Bullet The Blue Sky" has been played at nearly every one of the band's live concerts since its first performance at the opening night of the Joshua Tree Tour on April 2, 1987. It is almost always followed by Running to Stand Still. During that tour, Bono would frequently grab a large spotlight and shine into peoples' faces in the audience. U2's following album, Rattle and Hum, featured one such performance of this song, with a pre-recorded intro of Jimi Hendrix's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner". "Bullet" then took on new meanings throughout the subsequent years. In the Zoo TV Tour, it was about nazism; In the Elevation Tour, it became an indictment against handgun violence, illustrated by references to John Lennon's assassination. In the Vertigo Tour, it was about religious violence.
The Edge has always used his black Fender Stratocaster (with the exception of the PopMart Tour, during which he used a Gibson Les Paul). Since the Zoo TV Tour in the early 1990s, Edge has played a faster, bluesy solo after the second chorus instead of the distorted solo found on the album version near the end of the song.
Covers
- Thrash metal band Sepultura covered this song in their 2002 Revolusongs EP.
- P.O.D. covered this song on their 1999 album The Fundamental Elements of Southtown.
- Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine covered this song on their 2000 album, Lounge Against the Machine.
References
- ^ Bono, On 60 Minutes in November 2005.
- ^ Bono, November 2006 in an HBO interview .