"Beautiful Day (Songs of Surrender)" - U2
SOS Single
Track Listing:
- "Beautiful Day" (Songs of Surrender Version) - U2 (03:53)
- "One" (Songs of Surrender Version) - U2 (03:36)
- "With or Without You" (Songs of Surrender Version) - U2 (03:14)
- "Pride (In the Name of Love)" (Songs of Surrender Version) - U2 (03:57)
Background Information
The fourth single released commercially from Songs of Surrender is a new version of “Beautiful Day”. Like the earlier singles, “Pride”, “With or Without You” and “One”, “Beautiful Day” is one of the most well known songs of U2. The song is reinvented here, and is produced by The Edge, Bob Ezrin and Duncan Stewart and features a choir of voices on the song, as well as additional keyboards by Duncan Stewart and Bob Ezrin. The choir is sampled from the U2 Live at the BBC recording, done at Abbey Road Studios, a session recorded by Bob Ezrin on November 16, 2017.
A new lyric in the song, “I saw Adam asking Eve for a pardon, It wasn’t a woman that threw God out of the garden” may have roots in another song Bono was involved in during the lockdowns, “Eden (To Find Love)”. In that song, written with Linda Perry for the Citizen Penn film, Bono sings, “It was Adam not Eve that threw God out of the garden”.
“Beautiful Day” debuted at midnight in each region, on March 3, 2023. On most services it is a standalone single, featuring just one track, but on Spotify it was released as a four track release, which included the previous three singles as well. The song is available in CD-quality and high resolution audio formats, as well as in a Dolby Atmos mix on services that support that multichannel format.
“Beautiful Day“ was initially released as a single in October 2000, as the first song from All That You Can’t Leave Behind.
Liner Notes
Beautiful Day:
Produced by The Edge, Duncan Stewart and Bob Ezrin.
Vocals: Bono. Guitar, keyboard, piano, vocals: The Edge. Bass guitar: Adam Clayton. Drums and Percussion: Larry Mullen Jr.
Additonal Keyboards: Duncan Stewart, Bob Ezrin. Background vocalists: Chloe Dale Poswilo, Hollis Howard. Choir: Anil Sebastian, Anna Holloway, Caitlin Sinclair, Cerian Holland, Connor Going, Didier Rochard, Jeremy Franklin, Kate Westall, Liv Barath, Lydia Clowes.
Mixed by: Duncan Stewart. Engineering: Duncan Stewart, Alastair McMillan, Toby Arlington, Jonathan Pfarr. Additional Engineering: Rab McAllister, Julian Shank. Mastering Engineering: Scott Sedillo.
London Contemporary Voices taken from U2 Live At The BBC. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios. First broadcast on 19th December 2017. Licensed courtesy of BBC Studios