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Pride (In the Name of Love)

"Pride (In the Name of Love)"
Pride (In the Name of Love) (U2 single) coverart.jpg
Single by U2
from the album The Unforgettable Fire
B-side "Boomerang II"
Released 3 September 1984
Format 7" vinyl, 12" vinyl, cassette, CD single (re-release only)
Recorded 1984, Ireland, at Slane Castle in County Meath, and Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin
Genre Rock, post-punk
Length 3:48
Label Island
Writer(s)
Producer(s) Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois
U2 singles chronology
"Sunday Bloody Sunday"
(1983)
"Pride (In the Name of Love)"
(1984)
"The Unforgettable Fire"
(1985)

The Unforgettable Fire track listing
"A Sort of Homecoming"
(1)
"Pride (In the Name of Love)"
(2)
"Wire"
(3)
Music video
"Pride (In the Name of Love)" on YouTube
Music sample

"Pride (In the Name of Love)" is a song by Irish rock band U2. The second track on the band's 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire, it was released as the album's lead single in September 1984. Written about Martin Luther King, Jr., the song received mixed critical reviews at the time, but it was a major commercial success for the band and has since become one of the band's most popular songs. "Pride" appeared on the compilation The Best of 1980-1990 as the opening track, and on the 2006 compilation U218 Singles.

The song ranked number 388 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

The melody and the chords were worked up in a November 1983 War Tour sound check in Hawaii and completed in Windmill Lane Studios during The Unforgettable Fire recording sessions. The guitar part is subtly varied through each verse, chorus, and melody, such that no riff is exactly repeated.

The song had been intended to be based on Ronald Reagan's pride in America's military power, but Stephen B. Oates's book Let The Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and a biography of Malcolm X caused the lyricist Bono to ponder the different sides of the civil rights campaigns, the violent and the non-violent. In subsequent years, Bono has expressed his dissatisfaction with the lyrics, which he describes, along with another Unforgettable Fire song "Bad", as being "left as simple sketches". He says that he was swayed by the Edge and producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, who played down the need to develop the lyrics as they thought their impressionistic nature would give added forcefulness to the song's feeling, particularly when heard by non-English speakers. In U2 by U2, Bono said: "I looked at how glorious that song was and thought: 'What the fuck is that all about?' It's just a load of vowel sounds ganging up on a great man. It is emotionally very articulate - if you didn't speak English."


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Wikipedia

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