It Was Twenty Years Ago

'A lot of the songs were ones that were recorded in Larry's spare bedroom or Adam's living room.' On March 9th 1987 U2 released an album called The Joshua Tree.

In the next few weeks we'll be turning the spotlight on The Joshua Tree, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of its release.

First up, here' s what they were saying about the album, just after it was finished - long before anyone realised just how successful it was to be.

'The best thing about The Joshua Tree is that they can do ten times better than that"
Paul McGuinness.

'With each record we've always looked for some sort of location to inspire the tone of what we were doing and I think the desert is so many things to us. The desert was immensely inspirational to us as a mental image for this record.'
Adam

'Whereas with Unforgettable Fire there was a real continuity between all the songs, this is slightly different. It's an album of songs, each song saying a different thing, touching areas that we haven't touched before.'
Larry

'I think since really falling in love with America we've started falling in love with the music of the place. A lot of stuff that we didn't have time for when we first formed the group.... BB King, Robert Johnson, Hank Williams, Patsy Klein, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard - all these artists who are a million miles from where we were coming from.'
Edge

'The significant thing about the record for me is that I had to come clean as a word writer. Instead of trying to capture the elusive message of the music, which is what I'd normally try to do with my words, I wanted to speak out specifically but without a placard and without my John Lennon handbook.'
Bono

Listen to every track on The Joshua Tree, and watch the videos, here

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This article is tagged to:
Early Albums, Reissued Albums