In December 1982, the band arrived in Sweden with director Meiert Avis to shoot a video for New Year's Day, first single from the their third album 'War'.
The song, which made its 360 debut in Dublin a few days ago, was inspired by Lech Walesa, the leader of Solidarity, the trade union in Poland which helped bring down communism.
'Snow as an image of surrender,' explained Bono, talking about the lyric. 'And these little glimpses of narrative, which are really just excuses for the overarching theme, which was Lech Walesa being put in prison and his wife not being able to see him...'
Adam remembers the video: 'We needed snow so the director suggested northern Sweden. It was very basic, us performing in the snow, just kind of wrapped up, so you couldn't really see us. I think Bono sussed that to be in a video you had to look like yourself, so he wasn't wearing wooly hats or anything. I don't even think he was wearing thermal underwear, just the same clothes he had on when we got off the plane from Dublin.'
Edge: 'Bono's mouth almost froze solid; if you watch him lip-syncing his mouth won't quite work. But the video has an epic quality, there was something about that song that seemed to conjure up images of Dr Zhivago and European winterscapes. People always ask me: 'Was it difficult riding the horse, in the video?' And I have to tell them that was shot the day after we left. Apparently the four figures on horseback were all women, dressed similarly to ourselves.'
So there you go.... a random U2 connection from Sweden to Poland. (Maybe you can think of a better one...)
View the video here