The unlucky “13”. No real big deal but for the sake of fun conjecture. I agree with you about Wait Forever. How about the “homeless” Electrical Storm? If you like this option you have the pleasure of choosing between the two versions (Orbit or Band). Next, more of a really fun consideration, When The Stars Go Blue. Not written or performed by U2 (except a duet with Bono) but a wonderful love song that could go well with Man And Woman? Thirdly, I Love You by Daniel Lanois. Michael if you do not have his last album, Shine, or this mp3 I could e-mail it to you. Seeing your love for One Step Closer I believe you will love this one too. Listen to the first 54 seconds of One Step Closer and then to the first 53 seconds of I Love You. Similar in richness, earthiness, warmth, burning embers, like your favourite blanket-right-out-of-the-dryer mood / atmosphere. I believe there is a lyrical connection with One Step Closer. There is even line that goes “crash and the booming of the white bomb.” And the song sounds like a U2 song. It gives the album a little more mystery, texture, landscape, and a quieter moment (though the two of them back to back maybe too much).
A man carried metal, carried gold
More than he could handle, more than he could hold
It weighed him down to a sand shallow grave
Where his bones were eaten by a heat wave
While here it rains all night and it blows a sweet breeze
I think I'll call you up
And say please, baby, please
I love you, I love you, yeah, I love you, yeah, I love you
Ah the dream machine
Makes it hard to see
If I could stand outside myself and watch it come to me
I'd make the dream
Filter down to my fingers and rip at the fools head
and follow your scent that lingers
'cause I love you, yeah I love you, I love you, yeah I love you
'til the crash and the booming of the white bomb come sure,
come soon, come leave just one song
one song, one beat, one dust, one end, one for all
one stone for the marking for the dream when it falls
when I love you, and I love you, yeah I love you,
oh yeah I love you I love you
Bono’s answer to the album’s title is “with love.” So this song can have a fit with the album’s theme. Remember the song U2 performed on the last Tour, I believe it was Antwerp(?), where they improvised a new song that they were working on. Fans titled it “We Love You” because at the end of it Bono turned to the audience and to said to the effect “oh by the way we love you too” however the chorus of the song is “I love you.” I believe one of the lines went something like “growing up I never heard a song called “I Love You.” It would be interesting to hear either from Bono or Lanois if this new U2 song “I Love You” had any relationship with Lanois’ song “I Love You” which was released two years later.
Continuing with my “fun” conjecture: If U2 can have Johnny Cash sing a song on a U2 album why not have Lanois (a co-fifth member on Atomic Bomb) sing a song too? And if Bono can lend him Falling At Your Feet for his new album why can’t Bono borrow I Love You for Atomic Bomb?