"You're the Best Thing About Me" is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the first single from their upcoming fourteenth studio album, Songs of Experience.

Guitarist the Edge said that "You're the Best Thing About Me" originated from an attempt to write a song in the spirit of Motown, combining rhythmic music with a joyful mood, although he said there was nothing "obviously Motown" about the end result. Lead vocalist Bono referred to the song as "defiant joy", something that he and the Edge said was more important than ever in the "difficult times" in which they were living. The song first emerged in August 2016 as a collaboration between U2 and Norwegian DJ Kygo, which he played during his performance at the Cloud 9 Festival. The song was mentioned in an April 2017 issue of Mojo as a potential contender for Songs of Experience, albeit with a slightly different title.

According to the Edge, the song was one of several from the album for which Bono wrote lyrics to his friends and family after having a "major scare where he really wasn't sure he would be around very much in the future". Bono composed the lyrics after having a dream that he "had destroyed something that's most important to [him] – [his] relationship" with his wife Ali. The song title was inspired by a comment that Irish media personality Eamon Dunphy made to Bono in a Dublin bar, telling him the best thing about him was Ali.

"You're the Best Thing About Me" was completed one week prior to its release as a single. The Edge said the prior version of the song had a more elaborate, complicated arrangement with a "mellow", "low-key" beginning. When U2 began discussing how to arrange the song for live performances, the guitarist found an early demo of it when they were first testing out various arrangement ideas. After listening to it, the group decided to revert to the song's original, simpler guitar-driven arrangement, using what the Edge called "the primary colors of U2" of guitar, drums, and bass. He said that as a result of the musical change, the lyrics "came to life" and the song had a counterbalance, as he believed the prior version was lyrically too reflective when it was mellower. The Edge said the band worked "furiously" on the new version of the song for two days to meet their deadline for submitting it.

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Wikipedia