"If God Will Send His Angels" (1993)
Demo Song
Background Information
In Bill Flanagan’s book, U2 At The End of the World Flanagan spends some time with the band in the studio while they are working on Zooropa. Two of the songs he discusses are “If God Will Send His Angels” and “Wake Up Dead Man” which would both be developed further for the Pop album.
In the book there is a passage discussing the two songs:
U2 start another song. Sam O’Sullivan, Larry’s drum tech, runs into the control room to ask Flood what this one’s called. “If God Will Send His Angels,” Flood says. Sam rapidly flips through a stack of papers and says, “We don’t have a tempo for this!” “It used to be called ‘Wake Up, Dead Man,’” Flood says calmly.
Also in Flanagan’s book he gives a list of songs that are being worked on for the album. Many are familiar as songs that make it onto the album, but some are not, or would only show up later in life. “If God Will” is one of these songs. Each song listed is under one of three categories, and “If God Will” falls under “Vibes” as opposed to “Songs” or “Soundtracks”.
In BP Fallon’s book Faraway So Close, Fallon tells stories of visiting the control room while U2 is working on Zooropa. He says the band had a number of songs they were working on:
Titles float around like confetti, like ‘Last Night on Earth’ and the crazed instrumental ‘Nosejob’. Another song is called ‘Untidy Life’ and ‘Daddy’s Gonna Pay For Your Car Crash’ has lyrics that go “dressed up like a car crash, leather and chrome…” and then there’s the poignant beauty of “If God Will Send His Angels’.