"One" (Version 1) [04:34]

Links to Video

Videos are not hosted on u2songs.com, if you find a broken link, or a video unavailable in your region, please report it to us. (Due to U2's current YouTube refresh not all videos are available at this time, and we will be waiting on replacement of some of these videos.)

Video Information

There were a number of videos released for “One”, the first was released to MTV the week of March 4, 1992. This was the video by Mark Pellington featuring the running buffalo. Two weeks later MTV would put a second version of the video produced by Phil Joanou into heavy rotation instead, and would not return this version to heavy rotation until April 1, where it appeared along side the other video. On the week of May 20 a third version of the video, by Anton Corbijn would air and be placed into heavy rotation.

This version by Anton Corbijn is listed on the “Achtung Baby” video as Version 1, however, it was the third version that was released. The video was filmed in Berlin, where the song had originated, and this is the video that features trabants, the band in drag, and Bono’s father, and a lot of interior shots at Hansa studios where the band had worked on the song initially, and where they are shown performing during this video.

The proceeds of the single were going to AIDS charities, and while happy with the video. The Edge explains, “we didn’t want to be involved in putting back the AIDS issue into the realm of sexuality and all that because thank God it seems to have gone beyond that. It wasn`t worth the risk of people imagining we were saying something about the AIDS issue through the drag footage which was totally not what we were trying to say. So unfortunately we had to stop it.”

So instead of the Corbijn video, the band looked into other options. And the Corbijn video was held back for several months while he edited the footage to remove some of the images of the band in drag and also removed some of the image of Bob Hewson. The band first looked at using the video footage they had on hand for the Zoo TV tour, filmed by Mark Pellington, and attempted to add some footage of the band, but finally decided to release the footage as a video without. And in a rush called in Phil Joanou to make a different video for the song. The Anton Corbijn version would eventually air, but several months after the song debuted as a single. The original cut of the video wasn’t made available until 2005 when the video “The Work of Director Anton Corbijn” was released. With that release we saw that a number of shots of the band in drag had been removed. Those wishing to identify this “Directors Release” can do so – the initial image on the directors cut is Bob Hewson’s head in silhouette, in this edit we instead see a zoomed out image of Bob.

Video Shooting Locations

Quick Start - Leaflet

Additional Screen Captures

Video Credits

  • Director: Anton Corbijn
  • Producer: Richard Bell
  • Production Company: State Ltd.
  • D.O.P. Mike Southon
  • Editor: Daniel Goddard
  • Date: 1992