Q magazine, November 01, 2000
BEAUTIFUL DAY: Synth swirls, guitar glimmers, then chorus explodes with snare drums and Joshua Tree widescreen splendour. Bono reckons it's about a man who loses everything and feels better. "See the bird with the leaf in her mouth/After the flood all the coulurs come out" backs him up.
STUCK IN A MOMENT YOU CAN'T GET OUT OF: Theme of overcoming crisis ("this time will pass") and forging on established. Modern pop-soul sound an agreeable shock. Edge keeps it Steve Cropper simple. A keyboard rings out like a bell. Clayton and Mullen punctuate sparsely. Dusty Springfield in the house.
ELEVATION: Reminiscent of Achtung Baby's "The Fly" in its rock 'n' roll funksomeness; also features staccato SexBono. Evil guitars like The Breeders' "Cannonball." Sonar "boink" enhances beneath-sea-level ambience. Brilliant, Euro house-style sound-galloping-in-from-the distance bit. Putative single.
WALK ON: "Love is hard but what else have we got?" ponders Bono, sort of, incorporating shades of "We Shall Overcome." "A place that has to be believed to be seen" is the very clever line. Edge bullied into playing poignant guitar solo. Graceful, noble, and leads aptly into...
KITE: Derives (as does "Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of" and parts of "Elevation") from the first nine months of recording. Bono plays complex POV games while the band establish tidal ebb and flow, building on a wistful wobbly synth sample. A song about the year 2000, as if written in 2030.
IN A LITTLE WHILE: Guitar, bass and hip hop drum loop lope languidly in a modernised Al Green-style. Bono gives it 100% vocal ache. "It's a bit cheesy, a bit lounge," says the singer, "So I had to be soulful or it would have been...funny." Spice Girls' Biff Stannard credited with the purging of "pastiche" elements.
WILD HONEY: Playful, acoustic guitar-driven, lovelorn cousin of Van Morrison circa Moondance. All temptations to add anything superfluous overlooked, barring momentary operatic explosion from Bono. Bono's "I'm singing like a bird" claim not without foundation.
PEACE ON EARTH: Jesus is interrogated, not unbitterly, about the Omagh bomb. Muted sleigh-ride into screams "Christmas Number 1!", and primary-colour melody wouldn't look bad on Robbie Williams. "Hear it every Christmas time/But hope and history won't rhyme" is killer line, adapted from Seamus Heaney.
WHEN I LOOK AT THE WORLD: A more urgent revisitation of "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" 's melodic territory and the record's biggest "grower." Lyric about envying another's more organic way of dealing with life, embroidered with echo box-guitar, naive keybord seesaws and occasional child-wailing guitar interjections.
NEW YORK: Curious, under-a-blanket drum loop unveils conversastional, man-loses-himself novella with apt "Where The Streets Have No Name" guitar quote. Poignant Sinatra anecdote (Bono: "He picked up this napkin, said 'I remember when my eyes were that blue' and put it in his pocket") missed off album version.
GRACE: The album's most Enofied moment, with the soft guitar, distant synth and stroked bass counterpoint recalling, if anything, The Unforgettable Fire. "Grace is the idea I get most excited about," says Bono. "More so than karma. If I have to live by karma then I'm coming back as a frog."
THE GROUND BENEATH HER FEET: Delightful high-point of the Million Dollar Hotel soundtrack (i.e. there's no Milla Jovovich on it), and a single in some territories. "We just felt more people should hear it," reasons Clayton, reasonably.
good idea 
