I rank ATYCLB pretty much even with JT, right under AB, as U2's 3rd masterpiece. For me, it was my "coming of age album", as it came out when I was 18.
I was a little bit lost that year. I didn't go off to college right after high school, I stayed at home and worked a crappy but well paying job in a factory. It was a pretty lonely existence, as all my friends were off at college, or still In high school. The youngest people I worked with were 10 years older than me. That album got me through a rough patch. I actually quit my job because they wouldn't give me the day off to go see U2 in Columbus on elevation. That's when I made a plan, went to college, and started on the path that eventually lead me to the life I live now, a pretty happy one! I will always hold those songs close to my heart because of what they meant to me.
Sure, that's all circumstantial, but that's kind of the point. It's not about how a song is written, or recorded, or who produced it, or if it sounds like something else... It's all about how it moves you.
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