I Will Follow
| "I Will Follow" | |||||||||||||||||||
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UK cover
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| Single by U2 | |||||||||||||||||||
| from the album Boy | |||||||||||||||||||
| Released | 24 October 1980 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Format | 7" vinyl | ||||||||||||||||||
| Recorded | March–September 1980 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Studio | Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin | ||||||||||||||||||
| Genre | Rock, post-punk | ||||||||||||||||||
| Length | 3:37 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Label | Columbia, Island | ||||||||||||||||||
| Writer(s) | U2 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Producer(s) | Steve Lillywhite | ||||||||||||||||||
| U2 singles chronology | |||||||||||||||||||
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"I Will Follow" is a song by rock band U2. It is the opening track from their debut album, Boy, and it was released as the album's second single, in October 1980. Lead singer Bono wrote the lyrics to "I Will Follow" in tribute to his mother who died when he was 14 years old.
"I Will Follow" is the only song that U2 have performed on every tour since they released their first album. The song was U2's first music video, directed by Meiert Avis in Dublin, Ireland. The song was issued five times, first in 1981 on a 7" vinyl in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, second on the same format in the United States and Canada, third in the Netherlands in 1982 with a track from 1981's October, in 1983 with a live version of the song, and finally in 2011 with a live version of the song recorded at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival.
"I Will Follow" was written three weeks before U2 began recording Boy. U2 singer Bono has said that he wrote the song from his mother's perspective and that it was about the unconditional love a mother has for her child. His mother died following her own father's funeral when Bono was fourteen, which the singer says plunged him into emotional turmoil for the next few years.
In the recording of the song for the Boy album, its producer Steve Lillywhite plays a glockenspiel.
Edge has acknowledged John McGeogh as an influence on his early sound; the guitar line on this tune evokes comparison to Magazine's "Because You're Frightened."
"I Will Follow" had a second single release as a live version in the Netherlands and Germany in 1982, and a third release in the U.S., lifted from the Under a Blood Red Sky album, in 1983. It appeared on both the compilation album and video collection The Best of 1980-1990, and in some countries, on the U218 Singles compilation.
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