"Songs of Surrender" - U2

Album

Track Listing (Edge Disc | Larry Disc):

Track Listing (Adam Disc | Bono Disc):

Full Track List:

The album on super deluxe pressings will contain 40 songs spread across four disc, with 10 tracks on each disc, chosen by the band member on the album. We’ve presented these below sorted by band member. Non-super deluxe pressings will contain 16 or 20 songs and will not be in the order below, see the notes below for more information.

(These are not the same 40 songs that are used for chapter titles in Bono’s memoir, 12 of them do differ. Of the tracks listed above three have subtitles added. “Walk On” is labeled “Ukraine” on most services now. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” is listed as “The Endless Journey” on some Japanese sites. And “Where the Streets Have No Name” has been listed as “The Promised Land” on some Japanese sites. These appear as follows: “Walk On” (Ukraine).)

Background Information

U2’s newest release is Songs of Surrender. It will be released on March 17, 2023. The album will include newly recreated versions of older U2 songs. The album comes in multiple formats, with 40-tracks, 20-tracks, or 16-track versions available in most regions. A 17-track option in Japan. The album features old U2 songs, re-recorded and re-imagined by the full band during the COVID-19 lockdowns. It opens with “One” and closes with “40”. In an attempt to appeal to a wider audience a wide variety of colours and formats of the album were made available. The album is produced by The Edge, and co-produced by Bob Ezrin. Bono, Duncan Stewart, Declan Gaffney and Richard Rainey are also credited with production on various tracks.

News of the album and its title first leaked on April 1, 2022 via U2Songs.com. However, prior to that Adam Clayton revealed the band were working on such a project in 2021 via U2 X-Radio, sharing, “Well, you know we are playing around with rearranging some of the songs that we have and setting them in a more acoustic environment. Edge got a bit of a bee in his bonnet and said you know, no pun intended, said let’s look at these songs and imagine them in a different context. So we are playing around with that. He’s putting a lot of work into changing the keys, and moving them onto piano and that sort of thing. And hopefully we will have something towards the end of the year that will show a different light on U2. I think it’s an opportunity to explore different versions of the band in a way. Because it’s very much the early days, it’s embryonic, it could go somewhere between Leonard Cohen or Johnny Cash – very stripped down and bare – towards something that is very lush.” At the time Adam was not confident on how the material would be released, and whether it would be a single album, or a series of EPs.

Additional press shares that the album was a lock down project by The Edge, who started working on re-creating some of U2’s work while unable to work in person with the band. Adam Clayton shared in Mojo, “It was very much a Bono and Edge project. It started out being, ‘How could we do something that mirrored the chapters in Bono’s book?’ The songs had to show some sort of perspective and development.” Recording took place remotely in 2021, and early 2022 on the album. Bono and The Edge were in studio a number of times, Adam joined at some of these sessions. Most of Larry’s parts were recorded remotely. The Edge shared with U2.com, “Well, myself, Bono and Duncan Stewart did some sessions together, and we had a week with Declan Gaffney which was hugely helpful. The different lockdowns made life complicated but Adam was able to join us for some sessions while Larry did his recording remotely, which was a first, but it worked out great.” Previews of the songs were included in Bono’s audiobook recording of his memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.

On January 9, 2023, the first tease of the album announcement happened as 40 fans around the world each received a letter from The Edge. In the letter The Edge shared, “Music allows you to time travel and so we started to imagine what it would be like to bring these songs back with us to the present day and give them the benefit or otherwise, of a 21st century re-imagining. What started as an experiment quickly became a personal obsession as so many early U2 songs yielded to a new interpretation. Intimacy replaced post-punk urgency. New keys. New chords. New tempos and new lyrics arrived. It turns out that great song is kind of indestructible.” On the same day videos embedded in Spotify changed, showing the name of the album in Morse code, giving clues to the full track listing via a puzzle. A further tease happened on January 10, 2023, when a countdown clock appeared on U2’s store, and a one-minute video set to the new version of “Beautiful Day” was shared to social media platforms showing the evolution of U2 over 40 years. (The countdown originally counted down to 8am on the following day, but was later shifted to 12 noon Eastern.)

The full announcement was made via press release, and announcements on U2’s social media streams on January 11, 2023. At that time, the first full track from the album, “Pride (In the Name of Love)“ was released commercially and sent to radio for promotion. “With or Without You“ was the second single from the album, released commercially and to radio on January 27, 2023. “One“ was the third single commercially released from the album on February 12, 2023, however it was not sent to radio. Instead the song was released ahead of the Super Bowl, and was spotlighted in the video introduction to the Walter Payton award during the broadcast. The fourth single delivered commercially and for promotion was “Beautiful Day“, released on March 3, 2023. “Two Hearts Beat As One” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday” will be highlighted on a split vinyl single being released in April for Record Store Day which will be the first known physical release of a single from the album.

Videos were also filmed for all 40 of the songs on the album, by various social media popular content generators. One minute clips of these videos have started debuting on February 21, 2023, with new clips being added daily. Each clip has been roughly one minute in length. We are tracking these clips in our video section.

A documentary titled Bono and The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming will be released on March 17 via Disney Plus to promote the album. The documentary, hosted by David Letterman, was filmed in New York in October, and inn November and December in Dublin. It will include performance footage from concerts held at the Ambassador Theatre and at McDaid’s Pub in Ireland, featuring the new arrangements of songs from the album. Additional promotional concerts have been given and will air via NPR and the BBC the week of the album release.

A number of audio formats were announced. The basic release contains 16 tracks. (One / Where the Streets Have No Name / Stories for Boys / Walk On (Ukraine) / Pride (In the Name of Love) / City of Blinding Lights / Ordinary Love / Invisible / Vertigo / I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / The Fly / If God Will Send His Angels / Stay (Faraway So Close!) / Sunday Bloody Sunday / I Will Follow / “40”). In Japan a 17-track version will add “With or Without You” to this 16-track listing. There is also a deluxe version with 20-tracks in vinyl and on CD which includes the 16-tracks above as well as Beautiful Day, Red Hill Mining Town, Until the End of the World and With or Without You. The deluxe box (CD and vinyl versions) will include all 40 tracks listed above.

The versions announced on the date of launch were:

  • 4LP Super Deluxe Collector’s Boxset (Limited Edition) (40 Tracks)
  • 4CD Super Deluxe Collector’s Edition (40 Tracks) [Available in SHM in Japan]
  • 2LP Black Vinyl (16 Tracks)
  • Deluxe CD (Limited Edition) (20 Tracks) [Available in SHM in Japan]
  • CD (16 Tracks)
  • SHM-CD (17 Tracks, Japan Only, “With or Without You” is the extra bonus track)
  • Digital Album (40 Tracks)
  • 2LP Crystal Clear Vinyl (Limited Edition) (20 Tracks – Fan Club Subscriber Exclusive for first 48hr)
  • White Cassette (16 Tracks)

Various bundles were also available in the UK shop (see below), packaging together various configurations of the album, which are all available separately elsewhere. Digital versions also are available including audio mastered for Dolby Atmos and high resolution audio formats.

Since the initial announcement of the album, a number of additional items have been added, mostly a variety of coloured vinyl pressings. All of these new announced formats contain the basic 16-tracks listed above. When the U2 store launched three items were put on sale and later quickly removed. This included a mint green cassette, a purple splatter and marble effect vinyl, and a transparent green vinyl set. These were put on sale in error, and at this time the purple vinyl and green cassette have since been relisted. The mint green cassette and purple splatter vinyl were announced for sale on March 1, 2023 through U2.com and Universal Music stores. The green vinyl was put on sale via Universal Records as a Spotify exclusive on March 12/13.

On January 23, three additional formats were announced, and were available for pre-sale. All three were vinyl formats. The “Transparent Orange Vinyl” 2LP set (16 tracks) was sold via Amazon online. The “Opaque White Vinyl” 2LP set (16 tracks) is an Independent retailer exclusive in the UK, US and Europe available at shops such as Rough Trade, Assai, Sister Ray and others in the UK, as well as Tower and Spindizzy in Ireland and Amoeba, Easy Street, and Bull Moose in the USA. The “Transparent Blue Vinyl” 2LP set (16 tracks) is an exclusive for larger chains such as Target (USA), FNAC (France, Portugal), JB Hi-Fi (Australia and New Zealand), Music Records (Czech Republic), Golden Discs (Ireland) and HMV (UK). On February 24 a gold and blue vinyl set was announced in conjunction with the University of Notre Dame, limited to 2500 copies, available through the university’s bookstore, and online at Interscope. On March 2 a seaglass blue vinyl set was announced in conjunction with Sirius XM, available via Interscope and limited to 1500 copies. On March 14, another pressing, this time on red vinyl with a red cover, was announced to be a “Sphere Exclusive” for those who signed up for the verified fan process when U2’s appearance at the MSG Sphere was announced. It was sold via U2.com’s USA store. Also going on sale on March 14 was a pressing in conjunction with the Boston Celtics, limited to 2500 copies, in green and white vinyl. (The vinyl had briefly appeared on sale on March 9.)

The album entered the UK charts at #1, giving U2 their 11th #1 album, tying them with the Rolling Stones. Only The Beatles as a group had more number one albums to date. U2 sold 11,042 CDs, 6,000 vinyl albums, 1,008 cassettes, 1,407 downloads, and the equivalent of 1,112 albums in streamed music in the UK in the first week on sale.

Liner Notes

Related Promotional Videos

Related News

Catalog of Releases