"Sad" (1979)

Demo Song

Background Information

“Sad” was a song from the early days of U2, first developed in the late 1970s. Gavin Friday discussed the song in an interview:

One of the first things that the Virgin Prunes wrote, was something we did with U2, a song called ‘Sad’. I don’t think it was ever recorded by either band. We had collaborated on that, and we took that forward with ‘Boy-Girl’. We took that title and wrote two separate songs. Ours was dealing with bi-sexuality and that gender-bending thing, where they were talking about a more conventional form of love, with a strong boyhood-to-manhood theme going down.

We are not aware that “Sad” was ever developed, but the name does crop up in an early list of songs that was shown in U2 by U2. The song “Sad” is included in a list of songs that are written in Bono’s handwriting, but crossed out, including songs we know U2 had worked on as well as songs from other artists such as “Mannequin” and “Jumping Jack Flash” that they had worked on in live shows. We suspect this list dates from early 1979.

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