from Bill Flanagan's U2 - At the End of the World
The big problem is that the four members of U2 cannot agree on the value of the new material that Bono and Edge play for Larry and Adam, or on the sense of the new direction in which Bono and Edge want to steer the band. . . .
A division is quickly established between the Hats, Edge and Bono, and the Haircuts, Larry and Adam. Lanois, who became almost a fifth member of U2 on Unforgettable Fire and Joshua Tree, is clearly leaning toward the Haircut position, which only makes Bono and Edge more defensive.
Thus the Hansa sessions crawl along, with Berlin getting darker and colder. Everyone's freezing all the time and it seems to never stop raining. They eat most nights in a gray oppressive gruel hall. With nothing else to do short of disbanding, U2 keep plodding along, trying to figure out a way to take their music into the nineties and feeling like they're getting nowhere. . . .
Edge starts thinking that maybe the rumors that U2 was going to disband after the New Year's show were prophetic. "Maybe this is what we should do," he admits. "Maybe we should break up and see what happens."
It seems like every time U2 starts to get going musically something goes wrong, someone makes a mistake. When that happens Bono - not known for keeping his feelings to himself - howls his frustration. This really gets on his partners' nerves. Finally they get together and impose a band ruling: the hyped-up Bono is permanently forbidden to drink coffee.
U2 need some objective ears. Brian Eno, producer with Lanois of their two best albums and the historic Mensa of Hansa, is drafted to come in for a few days and listen to what they've done. It turns out to be a great relief. Eno - thin, pale, and ascetic - has the patience of a university professor taking over a class of unruly freshmen. . . . He goes to the board and shows how, by adding oddball vocal effects and a few jarring sounds, it's possible to bring some of the more conventional material U2 has been fiddling with into fresh sonic territory. Eno assures the frustrated band that they're doing better than they think, and that Edge's desire to get into new acoustic areas is not incompatible with Danny and Larry's desire to hold on to solid song structures.
. . .
Eno's input gives U2 encouragement to keep working, but it does not settle their stomachs. One night they are struggling with a track called "Ultra Violet" and it's going nowhere. Edge figures the song needs another section and goes to the piano in the big room to come up with a middle eight. After playing for a while he has two possible parts and isn't sure which one would be better for the song. He comes back into the control booth, picks up an acoustic guitar, and plays both of them for Lanois and Bono to see which they prefer. They say that those are both pretty good - what would it be like if you put them together?
Edge goes back out into the studio and starts playing the two sections together, one into the other. Larry and Adam fall in behind him on the drums and bass. Bono feels the muse knocking on his head as surely as in one of those old Elvis movies where the king jumps up in the middle of a clambake and starts rocking. Bono goes out to the microphone and begins improvising words and a melody: "We're one, but we're not the same - we get to carry each other, carry each other."
U2 plays the new song for about ten minutes. "Is it getting better," Bono sings, "or do you feel the same? Is it any easier on you now that you've got someone to blame?" Edge feels that it's suddenly all jelling - the band is clicking and all four of them know. They come into the booth and listen to a playback with a relief close to joy. By the next morning they have recorded "One," a strong a song as U2 has ever written. It came to all of them together and it came easily, as a gift.
. . .
There's still an enormous amount of work to do, but at least U2 knows they can still bring good music out of each other.
