Where did "One" actually originate from? "Mysterious Ways" or "Ultraviolet"?

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Where did "One" actually originate from? "Mysterious Ways" or "Ultraviolet"?

In U2 by U2, it says that the song came from chord progressions that Edge was playing for the bridge of "Ultraviolet", but I've read in just as many places that the song was actually "Mysterious Ways". Does anyone have any comment on this?


EDIT: Not sure how I posted this in the wrong forum. My bad.:doh:
 
My guess is that One came from the same medley that Ultraviolet, The Fly, LWTSH, apparently Zoo Station, and the title for Wake Up Dead Man all came out of (on the Salome bootleg). The bridge from that song became the opening verse of Ultraviolet (it's interesting hearing those lyrics launch into the riff from The Fly and LWTSH!), and I can imagine Edge playing around with One's riff in that bridge.

I've never heard the Mysterious Ways connection.
 
Gotta be Ultraviolet, makes sense melodically. In fact, I think One--->Ultraviolet would be a pretty fantastic live transition. :hmm: I know Axver would agree. :wink:
 
Edge played two parts from two different songs and tried to put them together for One.
 
Gotta be Ultraviolet, makes sense melodically. In fact, I think One--->Ultraviolet would be a pretty fantastic live transition. :hmm: I know Axver would agree. :wink:

Add Stuck In A Moment somewhere and you've got gold! :happy:
 
To really confound Axver, they should play a long medley of the most obscure, 17th century Irish ballads, mixed in with some new, untitled songs, topped off with some covers of Polish and Thai bands' B-sides, and then turn to the blond-Afro dude in the 18th row in NZ and say, "Chronicle that track on yer website, lad!"
 
I have heard they were working on a chord progression for Mysterious Ways when they came up with the riff for One.
 
If you listen to the bridge of Mysterious Ways ("one day you'll look...") that chord progression is very similar to the verses of One.
 
From memory, the "one day you will look..." chord progression is B-flat, D#, G#, C#.
Again, from memory, these are all major chords.

It's corresponding chords, in a chord progression would be (A or B major), (D or E), (G or A), (C or D)

So the comparison would be either A, D, G, C or B, E, A, D

If you've played One more than a few times, you know the supposed similarity here.
the verses for One are
Am - Dsus or Dm?- F- G.

So
1- They are in different tuning
2- You have major chords only in MW and more than major chords used in One (minor or sustain, might even be a 6th or 7th in there - going from memory etc.)
3- Beyond these two, if you knock MW down a step and make them in the same key, and ignore the fact that One isn't using standard major chords,
The 3rd and 4th chords in the progression are totally different.
F-G (in One) vs (even after augmenting MW to make the comparison) G-C

So, yeah. Not "very similar" IMO.
 
This is obviously jumping forward, but I always thought the verse/outro bass line from 'Stay' was extremely similar to the chorus/outro bass line from 'One'. It might be in a different key, and I think there's one note that's different, but otherwise the progression is identical, and the second half of each bar sounds exactly the same to my ears.
 
I've read that Edge was working on the middle eight of Mysterious Ways, and one of the alternatives turned out to be the basic melody of One. What I understand is that the song didn't belong to MW, but it was supposed to be inserted as "the middle" of the song.
 
'One' came out of 'Ultraviolet'.

From the book - U2 At The End Of The World. Page 11.


At Hansa studios -

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 both sound 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, on into the other. Larry and Adam fall in behind him on the drums and bass. Bono fells 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", as strong a song as U2 has every written. It came to them all together and it came easily, as a gift.

"Phew," Edge jokes, "the roof for the house in the west of Ireland is looking good! I'll be able to change the car this year after all!"
 
As if this topic is not complicated enough, I found a quote of the Edge's that says it was "The Fly". This is from 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time and the Artists, Stories, and Secrets.

1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All ... - Google Books - go to page 416

In the midst of all this I go off into another room to put together some ideas for 'The Fly'. I came back with two, neither of which worked where they were meant to, but on Daniel Lanois' suggestion, we put them together and Bono was really taken with it.
 
As if this topic is not complicated enough, I found a quote of the Edge's that says it was "The Fly". This is from 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time and the Artists, Stories, and Secrets.

1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All ... - Google Books - go to page 416

The Fly, Ultraviolet, Lady With The Spinning Head, One, apparently Zoo Station, and the title of Wake Up Dead Man all came from the same root outtake, labeled as Wake Up Dead Man (mix) in my copy of the Salome bootleg, but typically called Take You Down here. So speaking of The Fly's development is also speaking of Ultraviolet's development. My guess is that Edge came up with the riff some time after Take You Down was recorded but before it really broke off into The Fly, Ultraviolet, and LWTSH.
 
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