"Last Night on Earth" is the third single from U2's 1997 album, Pop. The song features excerpts from "Trayra Boia," written by Naná Vasconcelos and Denise Milan.

"Last Night on Earth" was first written during the Zooropa sessions as documented by rock DJ and journalist BP Fallon in his book U2 Faraway So Close. but was put aside until a later date, then when the band started work on Pop sessions which took place from 1995 to early 1997 they dug it up again. Assuming they had plenty of time to finish recording the songs for the album, the band told manager Paul McGuinness to go ahead and book their PopMart Tour, which was to begin in later April 1997. As time got closer and closer to the start of the tour, the band began running out of time to finish recording the album, which was to be released that March. The band immediately regretted their decision to let McGuinness book the tour, and had to rush their recording sessions to release the album in time. "Last Night on Earth" was one of the last songs to be recorded for the album. As the band and their associates had been working up until the last minute to finish recording and mixing the album, Bono did not come up with the song's chorus until four o'clock in the morning during the last night in the studio. After being up all night, Bono began singing the line "You've got to give it away," and decided to use it as part of the song's chorus. Once the chorus has been written, it needed to be recorded immediately, however Bono had completely lost his voice at the time, so echoes were added to his voice, as well as backing vocals by the Edge.

Since the initial recording of the song was done at the last minute, the band went back into the recording studio during the tour to record the song for its single release. Out of Pop's five single releases, this was the first of three songs to be re-recorded for its single. The single was released in July 1997, and its cover featured a pop art-like parody of The Scream featuring the Edge. Following the single's release, "Please" and "If God Will Send His Angels" were later also re-recorded and released as singles in October and December 1997, respectively.

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