In 2006, the members of U2 shared some of the songs they wished they had written in November 2006 issue of Q magazine. Asked to only name one, The Edge called out Oasis‘ “Wonderwall,” Adam Clayton chose Soul II Soul’s 1989 hit “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me),” and Larry Mullen Jr. picked “Block Rockin’ Beats by The Chemical Brothers.
Then, Bono took it step further and listed six songs he wished he had written first—everything from mid-’80s era Bob Dylan, ’90s Brit pop, and a song by a independent Canadian artist who made the first music video in space.
To mark his 60th birthday in 2020, Bono shared a more extensive playlist of favorites titled 60 Songs That Saved My Life featuring Patti Smith, the Ramones, Kraftwerk, Prince, R.E.M., INXS, and dozens more, including some of the artists featured on the list of songs he said he wished he had written.
Here’s a look at the six songs Bono said he wished he wrote, along with several “open letter”-style commentaries on some of the tracks.
Videos by American Songwriter
[RELATED: American Songwriter Interview With The Edge: U2’s Songs Surrendered]
1. “Brownsville Girl,” Bob Dylan (1986)
Written by Bob Dylan and Sam Shepherd
During Bob Dylan‘s sessions for his 1985 album Empire Burlesque, he started penning “New Danville Girl,” inspired by his hero Woody Guthrie’s 1940 song “Danville Girl.” Dylan later reworked the song and wrote it with playwright Sam Shepard—who joined him more than a decade earlier for the Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975 and co-wrote Renaldo and Clara, the 1978 film starring Dylan that surfaced from that tour. Newly titled “Brownsville Girl,” Dylan released the 11-minute song on his next album Knocked Out Loaded in 1986.
The lyrics are a first-person narrative of a long-lost love—You know I can’t believe we’ve / Lived so long and are still so far apart / The memory of you keeps callin’ after me like a rollin’ train—and scenes from am unamed Gregory Peck western.
Something about that movie though
Well I just can’t get it out of my head
But I can’t remember why I was in it
Or what part I was supposed to play
All I remember about it was Gregory Peck and the way people moved
And a lot of them seemed to be lookin’ my way
“It could be ‘Brownsville Girl’ with Sam Shepard,” said Bono in his open letter about the song to Dylan. “A brand new song format as well as another song where the protagonist is not at the centre of the action—‘Now I know she ain’t you, but she’s here, and she’s got that dark rhythm in her soul.’”
Dylan later gave “New Danville Girl” a home on the 2021 compilation, The Bootleg Series Vol. 16: Springtime in New York 1980–1985.
2. “Unfinished Sympathy,” Massive Attack (1991)
Written by Robert Del Naja Grantley Marshall, Shara Nelson, Jonathan Sharp, Andrew Vowles
In 1991, Massive Attack temporarily changed their name to “Massive” to avoid any controversy during the Gulf War, the same year they released their debut Blue Lines. Considered the first trip hop album, Blue Lines hit the top 20 in the UK and featured another Bono favorite, the orchestral, drum and synth-pulsing “Unfinished Sympathy,” which went to No. 3 on the UK dance chart.
The title was inspired by a piece Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828) never completed before his death in 1828, “Symphony No. 8” in B minor, which became known as the “Unfinished Symphony.”
“I hate putting a title to anything without a theme, but with ‘Unfinished Sympathy,’ we’d started with a jam, and added an orchestral score later,” said Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja. “The title came up as a joke at first, but it fitted the song and the arrangements so perfectly, we just had to use it.”
3. “Live Forever,” Oasis (1994)
Written by Noel Gallagher
I think you’re the same as me / We see things they’ll never see,’ said Bono, reciting some of lyrics from Oasis’ 1994 hit “Live Forever.” He continued, “I don’t know what this song is about. I don’t want to know. ‘I know you wrote this song but it belongs to me.’ Well, it doesn’t really. It belongs to us, or anyone who was ever in a band.”
Written by Noel Gallagher, “Live Forever” was released on the band’s 1994 debut Definitely Maybe and went to the Top 10 in the UK.
“Whatever you say, this song is about being in a band,” added Bono. “And it’s us against the world—a very different feeling from me against the world. The last gang in town versus the man alone. I love the singing and the playing and the lyric and Liam and Noel [Gallagher] and Tony [McCarroll] and the two Pauls [Arthurs and McGuigan]. I love it all. And now I don’t need to live forever as much.”
[RELATED: 9 Songs You Didn’t Know Bono Wrote for Other Artists]
4. “The Last Song I’ll Ever Sing,” Gavin Friday (1995)
Written by Gavin Friday and Morris Roycroft
Gavin Friday was 14 when he first met Bono while they were coming of age, and into music, in Dublin. Both, along with their friend Guggi, formed a performance group called Lypton Village, which later branched out with Bono in U2 and the punk band the Virgin Prunes (with Friday and Guggi). After parting ways with the Prunes in ’86, Friday, who also collaborated with members of the Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Sinéad O’Connor, and more, became creative director for U2 and the band’s longtime collaborator.
In 1993, Friday and Bono co-wrote “You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart,” performed by O’Connor, for the 1993 Daniel Day-Lewis film In the Name of the Father. Both also wrote and recorded the songs “Billy Boola” and the title track for the soundtrack and later penned “There’s Nothing to Be Afraid Of” for the HBO animated feature Peter and the Wolf in 2023.
Friday also wrote a song Bono wish he had written: “The Last Song I’ll Ever Sing.” Released on Friday’s third solo album Shag Tobacco, the song reads as an artist’s adieu to performance.
Come let me entertain you all
Leave your troubles big and small
Life’s a ball, life’s a ball
Hitch a ride on my crooked merry-go-round
Hear the clinking-clanking sound
Of the song that I bring
Take my song, take my hand, never let me down,
Like love let me down, like love pushed me around
So long, goodbye, I lost, did try
This is the last song I’ll ever sing
The last song I’ll sing
On Shag Tobacco, which also features a cover of T. Rex’s “The Slider,” The Edge also sing backing vocals on “Little Black Dress.”
5. “Lucky Man,” The Verve (1997)
Written by Richard Ashcroft
Though “Bittersweet Symphony” was the bigger hit—and made Bono’s 60 list—from the Verve’s No. 1 album Urban Hymns, “Lucky Man” also left an impression on the U2 singer. Happiness, more or less / It’s just a change in me, something in my liberty sings Richard Ashcroft on “Lucky Man,” a song Bono wishes he wrote and one that prompted a vivid memory of when he saw the Verve live years earlier in Dublin.
“Years ago I remember someone using the word ‘mad’ to describe what you were on about,” said Bono. “Well in a world of war, greed and suffering, all I could hear was a higher form of sanity. I was with some atheists that night at the Olympia who thanked God for you and your music, as I do.”
6. “Almighty Love,” Emm Gryner (2006)
Written by Emm Gryner
In 2013, Canadian singer and songwriter Emm Gryner played piano on a cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” a cover by astronaut Chris Hadfield, which became the first music video filmed in space. Gryner, who released her debut And Distrust It in 1995, had previously toured with Bowie as a backing singer and keyboardist from 1999 through 2000.
In 2006, Gryner released her tenth album, The Summer of High Hopes, and received some unexpected praise for her alt-rock heartbreaker “Almighty Love.”
You don’t write back when you promise to
The moon has overdosed on night-time like me on you
I got bars of your punk rock running through my veins
I got symphonies and science but no way to explain
How you broke my life in two different worlds
You move quicker than the lightning illuminates a girl
Got cigarettes you smoke burned into my veins
I got sympathy and silence but no way to explain
This almighty love
Sometimes it seems enough
But baby, baby it’s all wrong
This almighty love can’t deny it when it comes
But baby, baby it’s all wrong
I saw a movie in your eyes a long goodbye
I won’t find a toxic angel like you a second time
You come down all at once like your Vancouver rain
To Gryner’s surprised, Bono listed “Almighty Love” as one of the songs he wished he wrote. “I was really surprised to hear about it,” said Gryner of Bono’s reaction to the song. “As an independent artist you don’t really know where your music is going and who it is reaching all the time, so it’s a good indicator that you can make independent music and it can reach far distances even if you don’t have a lot of money behind you or marketing,” she added.
She added, “I just hope he records it, so I can buy a house. So, get back to me Bono.”
Photo: Bono of U2, Ireland December 21, 1981 (Steve Rapport/Getty Images)
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