"All That You Can't Leave Behind" - U2

Album

Track Listing:

Alternative Tracks:

Background Information

“All That You Can’t Leave Behind” was U2’s first release of the new decade, on October 30, 2000 in Europe, and October 31, 2000 in North America. The name of the album is taken from a lyric in the song “Walk On” which is contained on the album. The album was developed from start to finish with producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Recording for the album started with the recording of demos in Hanover Quay studio in Dublin in late 1998. The album work continued into 2000 with interruptions for Bono’s Jubilee 2000 work, and a two-month break while Bono worked on the “Million Dollar Hotel” Soundtrack. Recording locations included Hanover Quay (HQ), Windmill Lane Studios, Westland Studios, and Totally Wired Studios, all in Dublin, and at the bands houses in the South of France. The primary producers were Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, although Steve Lillywhite, Mike Hedges, Richard Stannard and Julien Gallagher are all listed under additional production.

Initially U2 desired to release the album in 1999, but wary of the issues they had had with “Pop” refused to set a release date until they were comfortable the album was complete. The album release date was finally set for October 30 / 31, 2000. About two weeks prior to the album was due to be released, the entire album leaked onto the internet from a promotional copy of the album which had been circulated by Island Records. “Pop” had seen the first internet leaks of songs from an album, but this was the first time the entire album was released ahead of the planned release date.

The cover of the album is a photograph of the band taken at Charles De Gaulle International Airport in Paris, France at the entrance to gates F21-36. The black and white photography was a contrast to the 1990s output by U2 and was a design choice by Shaughn McGrath and Steve Averill of Four 5 One Design (now Amp Visual) who had been chosen to design the cover of the album, and who have worked with U2 on most of their albums over the years. The gate label “F21-36” has been edited out of the Anton Corbijn photograph used for the cover, and has been replaced with “J33-3” a reference to the bible verse Jeremiah 33:3, ““Call unto me and I will answer thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.”

The album was released in a number of formats. It was issued on cassette, and vinyl in the EU, and on single disc CD in most regions. In Australia, Japan and the UK, the CD contained an extra bonus track, “The Ground Beneath Her Feet” a track written by Salman Rushdie and earlier released on “The Million Dollar Hotel” soundtrack. In the USA two versions were released with bonus CDs on the first day of sale, one came with a CD that contained “Always” and the other came with a CD that contained “Summer Rain”. After the album had been released for a few months, Interscope made another push to market the album in the USA, by releasing yet another version with a bonus disc, this time releasing the album with a CD that contains “Big Girls Are Best”. In Colombia a bonus disc was also issued, this time a four track EP with live tracks from the PopMart Mexico concert.

Four singles were released to promote the album, starting with “Beautiful Day”, released worldwide in advance of the album. The second single was “Walk On” in North America with a commercial release only in Canada, and “Stuck in a Moment” in the remainder of the world. The third single was “Elevation” released worldwide as a tie in to the movie “Tomb Raider”. It is not the album version of “Elevation” which was released as a single, but rather the “Tomb Raider Mix”. The final single was a reversal of the single where North America got “Stuck in a Moment” with a commercial release only in Canada, and the rest of the world got “Walk On” as the final single. Videos were produced for all of the singles, with two videos being produced for “Stuck in a Moment” and “Walk On” due to their multiple releases. A fifth commercial single was not produced, however to promote the “Elevation Live from Boston” release, a promotional video was sent to video channels for the song “Kite”, taken from the live concert video. Special promotional items for the release of the album generally had a travel theme, and included luggage tags and a leather passport wallet. In the USA no commercial singles were released on CD, and in January 2002, U2 teamed up with Target stores to produce a seven-track EP titled “7: Rare & Remixed” which compiled the b-sides released in other countries on the singles.

The Elevation tour supported the release of the album “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” and started in March 2001, and continued into December 2001 touring indoor arenas, and a small number of larger outdoor venues in Europe including the Slane Castle Festival in Dublin. U2 has played all of the songs from the “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” album in concert with the exception of “Peace on Earth”, “When I Look at the World” and “Grace”. “When I Look at the World” has been included as a small snippet of “Bad” at once performance. “Peace on Earth” has been snippeted a number of times, but has never been performed in full. The Elevation tour has been documented with two video releases, “U2 Live from Boston 2001” and “U2 Go Home: Live from Slane Castle”. The fan club release “U2 Go Home” presents the audio from the Slane Castle Festival taken from the DVD release.

The album was released to positive reviews, with many reviewers comparing the album to “The Joshua Tree” and “Achtung Baby” as one of U2’s “masterpieces”. The album reached number 1 the week of release in 32 different countries including the US Billboard Top 200, and the official UK Charts. The album won “Best Rock Album” at the 2002 Grammy Awards. It is the only album to have two singles win “Record of the Year” at the Grammy’s in consecutive years.

During the production of “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” Brian Eno kept a production notebook that listed many of the songs and song ideas that were being worked on. The notebook listed over fifty different song titles that did not come to be on the album, including songs such as “Miracle Drug”, “A Man and a Woman” (described as “Boomerang 3”), “Sometimes You Can’t Make it On Your Own” (called a Doo Wop version), and a song called “Night Shift / Harder / Love + Peace” which we know better as “Love and Peace or Else”. The notebook also mentions “Scott Walker” which went on to be developed into “City of Blinding Lights”. Another listed song, “Levitate” was released as part of “The Complete U2” on a digital album called “Unreleased & Rare” where it was marked as having been a demo from “All That You Can’t Leave Behind”. Other songs released in that set from the “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” sessions were “Flower Child” and “Love You Like Mad”. The notebook also listed “Are You Gonna Wait Forever” which was released as a b-side to “Vertigo”.

Several songs were renamed along the way. “Beautiful Day” started out as “Always”, which was released as a b-side to the single. “Elevation” started out life as “Busy Bee” and the final version also incorporates some elements of the song “Bulldozer”.

Alternative titles for the album included “At Heart Zero”, “U2:40”, “Soul Sur Mer” or just “Sur Mer”, “Beautiful Day”, “Travel Log”, “Grand Canal Docks”, and “Love and Peace”. All of these titles made it to the mock up stage of creating an album cover by the Four5One design group.

Liner Notes

Beautiful Day:
Music: U2. Lyrics: Bono. Synthesizers / programming: Brian Eno. Backing vocals: The Edge and Daniel Lanois. Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Engineered by Richard Rainey. Assisted by Chris Heaney. Additional production by Steve Lillywhite. Mixed by Steve Lillywhite. Additional Engineering: Tim Palmer and Stephen Harris.

Stuck in a Moment:
Music: U2. Lyrics: Bono and the Edge. Synthesizers: Brian Eno and Bono. Additional Guitar: Daniel Lanois. Brass by Paul Barrett. Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Engineered by Richard Rainey. Assisted by Chris Heaney. Mixed by Tim Palmer in Scream Studios, Los Angeles. Assited by Jay Goin.

Elevation:
Music: U2. Lyrics: Bono. Synthesizers: Brian Eno and The Edge. Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Engineered by Richard Rainey. Assisted by Chris Heaney. Mixed by Tim Palmer. Assisted by Alvin Sweeney. Thanks to Richard Stannard and Julian Gallagher for their help with the middle 8.

Walk On:
Dedicated to Auug San Suu Kyi. Music: U2. Lyrics: Bono. Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Engineered by Richard Rainey. Assisted by Chris Heaney. Additional production by Steve Lillywhite. Mixed by Steve Lillywhite. Additional engineering: Stephen Harris. Assisted by Alvin Sweeney.

Kite:
Music: U2. Lyrics: Bono and The Edge. Strings: The Edge. Backing vocals: The Edge, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois. Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Engineered and mixed by Richard Rainey. Assisted by Chris Heaney.

In a Little While:
Music: U2. Lyrics: Bono. String arrangement and synthesizer: Brian Eno. Additional guitar: Daniel Lanois. Produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. Engineered by Richard Rainey. Assisted by Chris Heaney. Additional production by Richard Stannard and Julien Gallagher. Mixed by Steve Fitzmaurice, Richard Stannard, and Julien Gallagher at Biffco Studios.

Wild Honey:
Music: U2. Lyrics: Bono. Additional Guitar: Daniel Lanois. Synthesizer: Brian Eno. Produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. Engineered and mixed by Richard Rainey. Assisted by Chris Heaney.

Peace on Earth:
Music: U2. Lyrics: Bono. Synthesizers: Brian Eno. Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Engineered by Richard Rainey. Assisted by Chris Heaney. Additional production by Mike Hedges. Mixed by Mike Hedges. Engineered by Ger McDonnell. Assisted by Keith McDonnell.

When I Look at the World:
Music: U2. Lyrics: Bono and the Edge. Synthesizers: Brian Eno. Additional Guitar: Daniel Lanois. Produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. Engineered by Richard Rainey. Assisted by Chris Heaney. Mixed by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno.

New York:
Music U2. Lyrics: Bono. Synthesizer: Brian Eno. Additional Guitar: Daniel Lanois. Produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. Engineered by Richard Rainey. Assisted by Chris Heaney. Mixed by Tim Palmer. Assisted by Alvin Sweeney.

Grace:
Music: U2. Lyrics: Bono. Synthesizers / programming: Brian Eno. Additional guitar: Daniel Lanois. Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Engineered by Richard Rainey and Alex Haas. Assisted by Chris Heaney. Mixed by Brian Eno.

Whole Album:
Produced by: Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Additional production: Steve Lillywhite, Mike Hedges, Richard Stannard and Julian Gallagher.

Recorded at HQ, Windmill Lane Recording Studios, Westland Studios and Totally Wired in Dublin, and South of France. Studio Crew: Studio Manager/Drum Tech: Sam O’Sullivan. Studio tech: Rab McAllister. Guitar tech: Fraser McAlister. Mastered by Annie Acosta at The Mastering Lab, Los Angeles. Audio Post Production Manager and Technical Guru: Cheryl Engels at Partial Productions Inc.

Artwork

Sleeve designed at Four 5 One Design, Dublin by: Shaughn McGarth, Art Direction: Steve Averill. Color and interior photography by Anton Corbijn. Photography at Roissy Hall 2F, Charles de Gaulle Airport – Paris – Architect Payul Andreu / ADP.

Recognition and Awards

  • #46, Q Magazine’s 250 Best Albums of Q’s Lifetime (Q Magazine, February 2011)
  • Listed in Q Magazine’s Recordings of the Year (2000)
  • #15, Rolling Stone’s Readers Top 100 Albums (Rolling Stone Magazine, October 2002)
  • #2, Best Albums, Rolling Stone’s Critics Picks (Rolling Stone Magazine, 2000, Out of 10)
  • #1, Best Albums, Rolling Stone’s Readers Picks (Rolling Stone Magazine, 2000, Out of 3)
  • #139, Top 500 Albums (Rolling Stone Magazine, December 2003)
  • #280, Top 500 Albums (Rolling Stone Magazine, April 2012)
  • #13, Best Albums of the Decade (2000-2009) (Rolling Stone Magazine, 2010)
  • #20, Best Albums of 2000 (Spin Magazine, 2001)
  • Listed in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2005 and 2008 ed., Robert Dimery)
  • #82, Top 100 Albums [Voted by Listeners] (BBC Radio 2, UK, August 2006)
  • Nominated and Won, Best Rock Album (Grammy Awards, 2002)
  • Nominated (Did Not Win), Album of the Year (Grammy Awards, 2002)
  • Best Album, Meteor Awards, 2001
  • Best Rock Album, Meteor Awards, 2002
  • Best Irish Rock Group Album (Hot Press Awards, 2001)
  • #87, 100 Greatest Irish Albums of All Time (Hot Press Magazine, February 25, 2005)

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