Worst Song Survivor: THE RESULTS

[Axver]

Worst Song Survivor is already done and dusted, with a good voting turnout for the grand final. It equalled the vote we saw for most rounds of Best Song Survivor v2, and fell short of its grand final by just fourteen votes. Yet what we saw were fewer songs amassing lots of votes, with voters typically selecting fewer songs than they selected in Best Song Survivor. What this suggests to me is that even when it comes to U2's relatively unpopular tracks, EYKIW - for all the suggestions it's full of cynicism and disdain - actually feels pretty positively towards them and is not inclined to slag off a wide selection. Or perhaps it's just that some of these tracks were too obscure to garner many votes.

We have only run Worst Song Survivor once before, in 2005. It followed the original format of Survivor, working through every album until one track from each made the final, plus some non-album rounds. That time, Viva Davidoff won, with Theme From The Swan second and J. Swallow third. The results this time are an interesting contrast and feature a tonne of ties. So without any further ado, Interference's Bottom Twenty U2 Songs!

(Total voters: 48)
20. Desert of Our Love - 4
=14. All Because of You - 5
=14. Angels Too Tied to the Ground - 5
=14. Beautiful Ghost/Introduction to Songs of Experience - 5
=14. Love Rescue Me - 5
=14. Near the Island - 5
=14. The Refugee - 5
=12. Wave of Sorrow (Birdland) - 6
=12. Winter - 6
=10. Grace - 7
=10. Plot 180 - 7
9. Viva Davidoff - 9
8. Red Light - 11
7. Ito Okashi - 12
=4. Boy/Girl - 13
=4. J. Swallow - 13
=4. Stand Up Comedy - 13
=2. Big Girls Are Best - 18
=2. Elvis Ate America - 18
1. Drunk Chicken/America - 24

Drunk Chicken was the only song to be selected by at least half the voters. Only two album songs made the top five, Elvis Ate America and Stand Up Comedy, and of those two, only Comedy is on an album actually credited to U2. Viva Davidoff, despite topping the nineties round this time and winning last time, could not even crack the top five, while Elvis Ate America actually earned more votes than in the nineties round to secure a joint second placing. This is a very rare example across the recent Survivors of a song improving on its vote in the finals relative to its qualifying round.

So how did your least favourites fare?

Also, are we burnt out on survivors, or would people enjoy a survivor of b-sides and non-album tracks? There's no need to start immediately, but I think these have breathed a bit of life into EYKIW and have been fun, so I'd be happy to run such a tournament if the interest is there.

 

[the tourist]

Glad that Babyface is nowhere to be found.

 

[LadySpinHead]

Not a lot to argue with for the top (or bottom) 10 or so.

 

[Von Schloopen]

Good work folks.

Top notch stuff.

 

[Galeongirl]

BGAB truly doesn't deserve all the hate it gets around here. It's a fun little song. Same with SUC.

The rest however, I can agree on. Thanks for running Ax, it was fun! Now hope the album news stuff picks up pace so this place will live again without the aide of survivor competitions.

 

[namkcuR]

Also, are we burnt out on survivors, or would people enjoy a survivor of b-sides and non-album tracks? There's no need to start immediately, but I think these have breathed a bit of life into EYKIW and have been fun, so I'd be happy to run such a tournament if the interest is there.

I'm definitely interested. In fact, I think I said this when the idea was first brought up, but I'd love to run it if it's ok with you. There's probably no one better here at running these things than you, but I'd like to give this one a go, I think it'd be fun. I haven't ran any survivor of any kind in years and this seems like a really interesting one to do.

 

[Aardvark747]

Winter and Wave of Sorrow?

 

[U2DMfan]

The Refugee is a great song.

Fuck the haters.

 

[brooklynmike]

Glad that Babyface is nowhere to be found.

i agree. I have no idea why the song gets shit on so much

 

[brooklynmike]

I wouldn't mind another Survivor. It's like an oxygen pump for the forum. Thanks you Ax and Digitize for running them.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

I had a Survivor idea come to mind recently, then I forgot it, then it came to mind again.

How about a solo projects Survivor? Every solo track (Edge's stuff on the Captive soundtrack, Larry and Adam's Mission Impossible Theme, Bono on about a million charity singles)...I think it should also include tracks that were later credited to U2 as B-sides (such as "I've Got You Under My Skin" with Sinatra). Would be interesting to see what the finalists would happen to be.

I'm sure U2 Wanderer is mostly comprehensive on this issue and our forum members could fill in the rest of the gaps in order to make the list.

My other idea was to have a Best Version Survivor. There's no overall winner...we just find out which is the preferred version of Streets (Single mix vs. album mix) or if the extended versions of tracks like Pride are preferred over the album mixes, etc. The end goal is to have every track represented by its best version. We could maybe even throw official live versions in and/or remixes, etc.

 

[LemonMirrorSky]

The Refugee is a great song.

Fuck the haters.

Haha agreed 100%. I love The Refugee!

WHOOOAAAA OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

 

[Axver]

I'm definitely interested. In fact, I think I said this when the idea was first brought up, but I'd love to run it if it's ok with you. There's probably no one better here at running these things than you, but I'd like to give this one a go, I think it'd be fun. I haven't ran any survivor of any kind in years and this seems like a really interesting one to do.

Haha, if the idea had come up in 2012 I'd have been quick to handball it to you, since then I wasn't too enthused about running anything and happily passed on Survivor v1 when digitize offered to do it. But I've actually really enjoyed Best v2 and Worst Song Survivors, so I'm keen to stick with it and do the non-album one. I'll probably need some help though, so if you want to work together that'd be cool. I'll be on a work trip for over a week at the end of this month and might not be around to start polls, so I'd definitely need a hand then.

BMP has some good ideas too; I particularly like the best versions idea. It's a bit different to a survivor - give it a different name even, so it seems properly distinct, and we could run it at the same time. The more happening on EYKIW, the better.

The Refugee is a great song.

Fuck the haters.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a "great song", but I don't get the hate. It's not a bad tune.

I wouldn't mind another Survivor. It's like an oxygen pump for the forum. Thanks you Ax and Digitize for running them.

Yeah cheers, they're definitely a good way to keep this forum stuttering along between albums. Swear it wasn't this dead back around 2003 though... I guess the decline in traffic is partly because messageboards aren't as prominent a part of fan communities or the Internet as they used to be a decade ago.

 

[namkcuR]

Haha, if the idea had come up in 2012 I'd have been quick to handball it to you, since then I wasn't too enthused about running anything and happily passed on Survivor v1 when digitize offered to do it. But I've actually really enjoyed Best v2 and Worst Song Survivors, so I'm keen to stick with it and do the non-album one. I'll probably need some help though, so if you want to work together that'd be cool. I'll be on a work trip for over a week at the end of this month and might not be around to start polls, so I'd definitely need a hand then.

That's cool. I have some ideas for how to do the non-album survivor if you don't my sharing here.

First off, as for how to divide them up...going by albums would create too many problems(some albums don't have enough non-album tracks, some tracks aren't easily associable with any album, some came from Best Ofs, etc), so I feel it should come out of the gate going by eras. Doing that, you'd have:

Early 80s:

1. Street Mission
2. The Fool
3. Speed Of Life
4. Saturday Night
5. Cartoon World
6. Boy/Girl
7. Another Day
8. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock
9. Touch
10. Things To Make And Do
11. J.Swallo
12. A Celebration
13. Party Girl
14. Treasure(Whatever Happened To Pete The Chop)
15. Endless Deep
16. Angels Too Tied To The Ground

Late 80s:

1. The Three Sunrises
2. Love Comes Tumbling
3. Bass Trap
4. Boomerang I
5. Boomerang II
6. Sixty Seconds In Kingdom Come
7. Disappearing Act
8. Yoshino Blossom
9. Silver And Gold
10. Sweetest Thing(Either Version)
11. Race Against Time
12. Spanish Eyes
13. Deep In The Heart
14. Luminous Times(Hold On To Love)
15. Walk To The Water
16. Beautiful Ghost
17. Wave Of Sorrow
18. Desert Of Our Love
19. Rise Up
20. Drunk Chicken
21. Hallelujah(Here She Comes)
22. A Room At The Heartbreak Hotel

90s:

1. Alex Descends Into Hell For A Bottle Of Milk
2. Lady With The Spinning Head(Either Version)
3. Salome
4. Where Did It All Go Wrong
5. Blow Your House Down
6. Heaven And Hell
7. Oh Berlin
8. Near The Island
9. Down All The Days
10. Slow Dancing(Either Version)
11. Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me
12. Viva Davidoff
13. Holy Joe
14. North And South Of The River
15. I'm Not Your Baby
16. Two Shots Of Happy, One Shot Of Sad

00s:

1. The Ground Beneath Her Feet
2. Stateless
3. Always
4. Summer Rain
5. Big Girls Are Best
6. Levitate
7. Flower Child
8. Love You Like Mad
9. Electrical Storm(any version)
10. The Hands That Built America
11. Are You Gonna Wait Forever
12. Smile
13. Native Son
14. Fast Cars/Xanax And Wine(either one)
15. Window In The Skies
16. Winter(Either Version)
17. Soon

Now, ordinarily, you'd take x tracks from each group to feed the final 30-song poll. However, I feel like if we set quotients, then at the end people will say, 'how come North And South Of The River isn't here but Smile is', things like that. I feel like, for this particular survivor anyway, we'd get a more accurate result if we ran all of the above polls, and then only after they're all done, take the 30 overall highest vote-getters from all said polls combined and advance them.

Then you have a 30-song poll, and from there we can do like the Best Song Survivor where it's one poll only, and afterward the song with the most votes is the winner of the competition, or, if we want to spice things up a little, we could do something that lies in between this new format and the old song-by-song-take-forever-to-finish format: run the poll, and then the top 16 of the 30 advance, run that poll, the top 8 advance, run that poll, etc, until we get to a final two-song poll.

So that's my idea for how it could be run. There are a few questions I pose though:

1. Should songs that have never had an official release, but for which we do have easily accessible studio versions(not like the Salome outtakes, but actual finished versions), be included? I'm thinking of the pre-Boy stuff that hasn't been officially released yet(The Dream Is Over, Lost On A Silent Planet, Alone In The Light, False Prophet, Jack In The Box), Be There, Wild Irish Rose, and of course, Mercy. There are other songs that have been played live but that we have no studio version of(Womanfish, She's A Mystery To Me, the new songs from 360, etc), but imo those obviously shouldn't be included since there are no studio versions. But I'm torn about the ones for which there are finished studio versions but no official release. What say you? I didn't include them in my lists above but if people want them we could include them.

2. For songs for which there are multiple versions(Sweetest Thing, Lady With The Spinning Head, Slow Dancing, Electrical Storm, Fast Cars/Xanax And Wine, Winter), do we include all versions in the poll, or do we list it once in the poll like I did with a parenthetical 'either/any version'? I feel like including multiple versions of the same song could dilute the vote and, if a vote is split between two versions, neither might get through, whereas if it were combined, it might. On the other hand, if we included it once, we wouldn't know which version of the song was truly being preferred. Also, as a sidenote regarding multiple versions of songs, I decided not include the alternate versions of Bomb songs from 'Unreleased & Rare' on my list because they're still versions of album songs, and this is a non-album survivor. The only exception I made was Native Son, which I feel is different enough from Vertigo to warrant inclusion.

3. Do we include songs that aren't credited to the whole band? I say no, which is why Falling At Your Feet(Bono & Lanois), the In The Name Of The Father songs(Bono & Gavin Friday), etc aren't included in my lists. Now, I know there are a couple b-sides that are really all or mostly Bono - Slow Dancing, Two Shots Of Happy - but they're credited to the whole band(and Edge helped write TSOHOSOS anyway), so they stay, imo. The other stuff would be more suitable for the other, side-project survivor that was suggested, I think.

Ok, that's all for now. Looking forward to your response.

 

[Axver]

Lots of good stuff there, man. I agree that an album-by-album division is not going to be effective, and splitting into eras like we did for this Worst Song Survivor is the more effective way to go. I was wondering how long a tournament we wanted - i.e. a quickfire one like Best v2 and Worst, or return to a long format like Best v1. I really like the Best v2 system and think it produces better results, but it's just so quick. Incidentally, I'm not sure a top thirty is necessary for a tournament like this. Top twenty should do. Maybe each era should feed semi-finals like I originally intended to do with Worst Song?

I really like the idea of just taking the top songs overall, rather than a seeding system. The seeding worked spectacularly well in Best v2, but I'm not convinced it would hold as well here.

As for your points:

1. For this tournament, it may be interesting to include the unreleased material. Perhaps the top reason why I have never wanted to include unreleased songs in Best Song Survivor is because of their relative obscurity, meaning that perfectly good songs that are popular amongst the people who know them will get flogged by lesser songs that happen to have an official release. However, in a tournament like this that is already dealing with some pretty fucking obscure b-sides, bonus tracks, whatever, most unreleased tracks are not going to be at a significant disadvantage, and some may do quite well. I would suggest a criteria of either being played live or having a finished studio version. I'll make a proposed list in a later post. It will perhaps throw your proposed categories out of whack and justify semi-finals and shit.

2. For songs with multiple versions, I reckon let's stick with what we've been doing lately - just let people vote the way they want, on what they think is most representative of the song to them. When we've divided songs in the past it's led to some silly results, and insisting upon people not considering live versions just doesn't work because some people still will.

3. I've never seen fit to include songs not credited to the whole band. Two reasons: it's meant to be a competition of U2 songs, and because it leads to a minefield of digging up any old obscurity that happens to be credited to at least one member of the band. For this tournament it may be worth considering including these tracks though - perhaps by instating a criteria that at least one band member must have a writing credit for the song AND take a lead role in the song's performance (so that we're not including songs a band member wrote but didn't perform, or songs that just happen to have Bono for one line like Do They Know It's Christmas).

 

[Axver]

Here's my proposed list of unreleased songs to include - every one of these songs has either a finished studio version or was performed live and either has an officially released live version or exists on bootlegs. Soundcheck demo songs that were not complete and not performed to the public are excluded, e.g. My Time Hasn't Come.

I have excluded songs for which we have 1978 studio demos but no live versions. They were no more finished than the Axtung Beibi stuff. I'm counting the 1979 unreleased studio songs since the band evidently thought them finished enough to release one song from that session (the b-side version of Twilight). I'm not sure whether to include Trevor and The Silver Lining, since they became Touch and 11 O'clock Tick Tock. I guess if Native Son is in, maybe they should be too? Or are they so obscure nobody will care if they are bundled in with their later versions? I'm inclined to the latter.

PRE-BOY
Inside Out - 1978 demo, Cork 1979 bootleg
Jack in a Box - 1978 demo, two 1980 bootlegs
Life on a Distant Planet - 1979 studio version, 1979 TV performance, multiple 1980 bootlegs
Alone in the Light - 1979 studio version
False Prophet - 1979 studio version
The Dream Is Over - 1979 studio version, multiple 1980 bootlegs
The King's New Clothes - Cork 1979 bootleg
Cartoon World - multiple 1979-80 bootlegs, live version on Boy remaster
Pete the Chop - multiple 1980 bootlegs

BOY AND LATER
Father Is an Elephant - multiple 1980 bootlegs
Carry Me Home - London, 9 June 1981 bootleg
Be There - 1982 studio recording
Womanfish - TV Gaga performance
She's a Mystery to Me - 1987 studio version, numerous live performances over the years
Wild Irish Rose - 1988 studio version
We Love You - 6 August 2001 live version
Mercy - 2004 studio version, 2010 live versions
Boy Falls From the Sky - 3 October 2010 live version
Every Breaking Wave - 2010 live versions
Glastonbury - 2010 live versions
North Star - 2010-11 live versions
Return of the Stingray Guitar - 2010-11 live versions

Have I missed anything?

Oh, and one other thing I forgot to point out re: namkcuR's earlier list - Fast Cars and Xanax and Wine have been taken separately in recent survivors and I think they (like Vertigo and Native Son) are sufficiently distinct for that separation to be maintained. The voting in Best v2 was very telling; Fast Cars made the 2000s semis while Xanax and Wine struggled to get any votes.

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

i want a round of twilight demo vs. album version. the former would get like a million votes, surely.

 

[namkcuR]

Lots of good stuff there, man. I agree that an album-by-album division is not going to be effective, and splitting into eras like we did for this Worst Song Survivor is the more effective way to go. I was wondering how long a tournament we wanted - i.e. a quickfire one like Best v2 and Worst, or return to a long format like Best v1. I really like the Best v2 system and think it produces better results, but it's just so quick. Incidentally, I'm not sure a top thirty is necessary for a tournament like this. Top twenty should do. Maybe each era should feed semi-finals like I originally intended to do with Worst Song?

I really like the idea of just taking the top songs overall, rather than a seeding system. The seeding worked spectacularly well in Best v2, but I'm not convinced it would hold as well here.

Yeah, I would avoid the long format, it just takes too long, and people lose interest. But again, I like the idea of, once the preliminary rounds are finished and the final field is set, of going to an in-between kind of format, where big chunks of songs are eliminated - i.e. going from 30 to 16 to 8 to 4 to 2 to 1.

Also, I think we should have a top 30, only because I can't think of a reason why not to. Would it make anything more difficult? Would it sway the end results in any way?

As for your points:

1. For this tournament, it may be interesting to include the unreleased material. Perhaps the top reason why I have never wanted to include unreleased songs in Best Song Survivor is because of their relative obscurity, meaning that perfectly good songs that are popular amongst the people who know them will get flogged by lesser songs that happen to have an official release. However, in a tournament like this that is already dealing with some pretty fucking obscure b-sides, bonus tracks, whatever, most unreleased tracks are not going to be at a significant disadvantage, and some may do quite well. I would suggest a criteria of either being played live or having a finished studio version. I'll make a proposed list in a later post. It will perhaps throw your proposed categories out of whack and justify semi-finals and shit.

I agree, although I'm more in favor of studio tracks than live-only tracks.

2. For songs with multiple versions, I reckon let's stick with what we've been doing lately - just let people vote the way they want, on what they think is most representative of the song to them. When we've divided songs in the past it's led to some silly results, and insisting upon people not considering live versions just doesn't work because some people still will.

Agreed.

3. I've never seen fit to include songs not credited to the whole band. Two reasons: it's meant to be a competition of U2 songs, and because it leads to a minefield of digging up any old obscurity that happens to be credited to at least one member of the band. For this tournament it may be worth considering including these tracks though - perhaps by instating a criteria that at least one band member must have a writing credit for the song AND take a lead role in the song's performance (so that we're not including songs a band member wrote but didn't perform, or songs that just happen to have Bono for one line like Do They Know It's Christmas).

I don't really think they should be included...isn't that what the potential 'side-project' survivor is going to be for? Also, it's not like there are that many songs like this. Aside from some MDH tracks, the ITNOTF songs, and the Captive soundtrack, I can't even think of anything else outside of the band that any of the band has had a writing credit in.

Here's my proposed list of unreleased songs to include - every one of these songs has either a finished studio version or was performed live and either has an officially released live version or exists on bootlegs. Soundcheck demo songs that were not complete and not performed to the public are excluded, e.g. My Time Hasn't Come.

I have excluded songs for which we have 1978 studio demos but no live versions. They were no more finished than the Axtung Beibi stuff. I'm counting the 1979 unreleased studio songs since the band evidently thought them finished enough to release one song from that session (the b-side version of Twilight). I'm not sure whether to include Trevor and The Silver Lining, since they became Touch and 11 O'clock Tick Tock. I guess if Native Son is in, maybe they should be too? Or are they so obscure nobody will care if they are bundled in with their later versions? I'm inclined to the latter.

PRE-BOY
Inside Out - 1978 demo, Cork 1979 bootleg
Jack in a Box - 1978 demo, two 1980 bootlegs
Life on a Distant Planet - 1979 studio version, 1979 TV performance, multiple 1980 bootlegs
Alone in the Light - 1979 studio version
False Prophet - 1979 studio version
The Dream Is Over - 1979 studio version, multiple 1980 bootlegs
The King's New Clothes - Cork 1979 bootleg
Cartoon World - multiple 1979-80 bootlegs, live version on Boy remaster
Pete the Chop - multiple 1980 bootlegs

BOY AND LATER
Father Is an Elephant - multiple 1980 bootlegs
Carry Me Home - London, 9 June 1981 bootleg
Be There - 1982 studio recording
Womanfish - TV Gaga performance
She's a Mystery to Me - 1987 studio version, numerous live performances over the years
Wild Irish Rose - 1988 studio version
We Love You - 6 August 2001 live version
Mercy - 2004 studio version, 2010 live versions
Boy Falls From the Sky - 3 October 2010 live version
Every Breaking Wave - 2010 live versions
Glastonbury - 2010 live versions
North Star - 2010-11 live versions
Return of the Stingray Guitar - 2010-11 live versions

Have I missed anything?

Oh, and one other thing I forgot to point out re: namkcuR's earlier list - Fast Cars and Xanax and Wine have been taken separately in recent survivors and I think they (like Vertigo and Native Son) are sufficiently distinct for that separation to be maintained. The voting in Best v2 was very telling; Fast Cars made the 2000s semis while Xanax and Wine struggled to get any votes.

Good job compiling that list so fast

I would argue that Boy Falls From The Sky shouldn't be included, the reason being it's a track from the Spiderman soundtrack, all of which Bono and Edge composed. The Spiderman soundtrack isn't a U2 album, but it's still a cohesive whole. I mean, if you include one Spiderman song, why not all of them, you know what I mean?

Also, the stuff from 360 I'm not sure about either, only because for all we know(which isn't much at this point), any or all of them could end up being, in some incarnation, on the new album later this year. In which case they wouldn't be non-album tracks anymore.

I don't know...like I said before, I feel like we should include songs for which we have the studio versions, but I'm really not sure about the live-only stuff. Some of those live-only tracks are so obscure they make stuff like Wild Irish Rose and Mercy look like Sunday Bloody Sunday or Where The Streets Have No Name in terms of comparative recognizability to even the people on this forum. A lot of the unreleased studio tracks are songs that a lot of us here have listened to many times, and I just don't know that the same can be said for the live-only stuff, especially the older ones. I'm open to a counter-argument though. Also, even if we decided not use the live-only stuff, I would still make exceptions for two of them - Cartoon World and Womanfish; Cartoon World because it's had an official release, and Womanfish because the one live performance of it is a broadcast live version, which makes a difference to me, because it's a high-quality broadcast recording, and because there being one easily-identifiable version of it makes it more well-known here, imo, almost as if it DID have an official release.

I think you got them all though, I can't think of anything you forgot. Actually, I'm impressed that you got "We Love You". That's one of the odder moments in U2 history, imo. They play it one time ever, out of nowhere, in the middle of a full tour gig, and it's never heard or heard of ever again. Strange.

Oh, wait, maybe you did forget one, wasn't there a song called "Dreaming With Tears In My Eyes" from sometime in the earlier 00s? I don't know if that's credited to the whole band though.

As for the Fast Cars/Xanax And Wine thing, that's fine, we can split them up(I had meant to ask that question anyway), although I don't think they're quite as different as you do.

 

[Axver]

Yeah, I would avoid the long format, it just takes too long, and people lose interest. But again, I like the idea of, once the preliminary rounds are finished and the final field is set, of going to an in-between kind of format, where big chunks of songs are eliminated - i.e. going from 30 to 16 to 8 to 4 to 2 to 1.

Also, I think we should have a top 30, only because I can't think of a reason why not to. Would it make anything more difficult? Would it sway the end results in any way?

I feel like narrowing down from 30 to 16, etc., is going to be a bit redundant - people will just keep voting for the same songs. I'd prefer to do it a slightly different way. The reason why I favour a top twenty over a top thirty is because participation will likely be lower; just compare Best v2 to Worst. Obscurity or disinterest will rule out some participants. Best to have a stronger top twenty than a top thirty with a bunch of stragglers - especially since some songs in the top thirty will look a bit silly with probably only one or two votes. Also, having a top twenty allows room for ties to progress from earlier rounds (remember, polls can only have thirty options maximum); with less voters, ties will be more common. Just look at Worst. We managed to dodge tied results proceeding to the finals, but it was a very close thing; the nineties round was going to send more songs to the grand final until a very late vote broke the tie.

I don't really think they should be included...isn't that what the potential 'side-project' survivor is going to be for? Also, it's not like there are that many songs like this. Aside from some MDH tracks, the ITNOTF songs, and the Captive soundtrack, I can't even think of anything else outside of the band that any of the band has had a writing credit in.

Good point. There's a lot of random obscure shit out there listed on U2Wanderer, but generally poorly known. I think let's leave that stuff out. Also, you mentioned Dreaming With Tears in My Eyes; U2Wanderer says that's from a Jimmie Rodgers tribute album in 1997, featuring just Bono and Larry.

I was wondering about covers played by the full band though. I'd love to see how songs like Dancing Barefoot would fare, but covers have always been excluded from Survivor. Maybe even a quick Covers Survivor would be good. (Everybody who votes for Fortunate Son gets a permaban.)

I would argue that Boy Falls From The Sky shouldn't be included, the reason being it's a track from the Spiderman soundtrack, all of which Bono and Edge composed. The Spiderman soundtrack isn't a U2 album, but it's still a cohesive whole. I mean, if you include one Spiderman song, why not all of them, you know what I mean?

Agreed. Cut it.

Also, the stuff from 360 I'm not sure about either, only because for all we know(which isn't much at this point), any or all of them could end up being, in some incarnation, on the new album later this year. In which case they wouldn't be non-album tracks anymore.

Not sure I agree. Since their fate is unknown and they are unreleased for the foreseeable future (an album this year is no certainty and we know what this band can be like), I reckon they merit inclusion this time around and they're decently well known so they'd be competitive and generate discussion. I'm willing to bet Glastonbury's dead anyway, Stingray Guitar won't appear in its live form, and Mercy may end up being another She's a Mystery to Me - a song that lingers around but never gets on an album. It's all speculation at this stage, and in theory even something like Womanfish could still contribute to a new track! We know Edge revisits his old unused stuff from time to time.

I don't know...like I said before, I feel like we should include songs for which we have the studio versions, but I'm really not sure about the live-only stuff. Some of those live-only tracks are so obscure they make stuff like Wild Irish Rose and Mercy look like Sunday Bloody Sunday or Where The Streets Have No Name in terms of comparative recognizability to even the people on this forum. A lot of the unreleased studio tracks are songs that a lot of us here have listened to many times, and I just don't know that the same can be said for the live-only stuff, especially the older ones. I'm open to a counter-argument though. Also, even if we decided not use the live-only stuff, I would still make exceptions for two of them - Cartoon World and Womanfish; Cartoon World because it's had an official release, and Womanfish because the one live performance of it is a broadcast live version, which makes a difference to me, because it's a high-quality broadcast recording, and because there being one easily-identifiable version of it makes it more well-known here, imo, almost as if it DID have an official release.

I think we can agree that all songs with finished studio versions, officially released live versions, or officially broadcast live versions are in. So that leaves the following songs debatable:

Inside Out - 1978 demo, Cork 1979 bootleg
Jack in a Box - 1978 demo, two 1980 bootlegs
The King's New Clothes - Cork 1979 bootleg
Pete the Chop - multiple 1980 bootlegs
Father Is an Elephant - multiple 1980 bootlegs
Carry Me Home - London, 9 June 1981 bootleg
We Love You - 6 August 2001 live version
Every Breaking Wave - 2010 live versions
Glastonbury - 2010 live versions
North Star - 2010-11 live versions
Return of the Stingray Guitar - 2010-11 live versions

The first four there appear on either or both of the 1979-10-05, Cork and 1980-02-26, Dublin bootlegs, the two most widely circulated pre-Boy bootlegs. Anybody who's got any interest in pre-UF U2 has probably heard them, and certainly I doubt anybody who knows Alone in the Light or False Prophet or Life on a Distant Planet isn't familiar with those four as well. If Alone in the Light is well known enough to make the tournament, how is Pete the Chop too obscure? Admittedly those songs probably won't get many votes at all so I doubt they're much of a loss if we do choose to cut them; they are hardly going to be serious contenders.

I will agree with you that Father Is an Elephant and Carry Me Home are mindbogglingly obscure, only known through poor quality bootlegs that you need to make an effort to find. We Love You is I suppose not as well known now as it used to be when I joined this site (and incidentally, it was soundchecked in July 2001 in Zurich). These three probably wouldn't be a loss at all.

As for the remaining four from 360, I needn't repeat what I said above, and I think they are well known enough to be contenders. Every Breaking Wave in particular I think has fans around here.

 

[Vlaco]

Thanks Ax! Definitely appreciate it

 

[namkcuR]

I feel like narrowing down from 30 to 16, etc., is going to be a bit redundant - people will just keep voting for the same songs. I'd prefer to do it a slightly different way. The reason why I favour a top twenty over a top thirty is because participation will likely be lower; just compare Best v2 to Worst. Obscurity or disinterest will rule out some participants. Best to have a stronger top twenty than a top thirty with a bunch of stragglers - especially since some songs in the top thirty will look a bit silly with probably only one or two votes. Also, having a top twenty allows room for ties to progress from earlier rounds (remember, polls can only have thirty options maximum); with less voters, ties will be more common. Just look at Worst. We managed to dodge tied results proceeding to the finals, but it was a very close thing; the nineties round was going to send more songs to the grand final until a very late vote broke the tie.

I understand what you're saying, but all told, there are going to be nearly a hundred songs competing here(if we include the entirety of the unreleased stuff), and I think that we should allow as many as possible to advance past the preliminary rounds. The song in twenty-first place could be just one vote behind the song in twentieth place, so why not allow it to proceed so that it gets another chance to survive. Of course the same can be said for the song in thirty-first place being just one vote behind the song in thirtieth place, but like you said the polls only take thirty, so no reason to go higher than that. I think I still advocate for a top thirty as opposed to a top twenty. If we were doing the old format with single song eliminations, that would be different, it would make the competition last much longer, but with this new format, I don't see the harm. Even if some songs don't get any votes after proceeding, it doesn't really hurt anything, imo. And in the event of a tie, we could just have a tiebreaker round, where the highest vote-getter proceeds. If you really want space though in order to avoid tiebreakers, maybe we could compromise and have a final twenty-five?

As for what happens when the preliminaries are over, I understand your argument about redundancy, but consider this: if there is a poll of, for example, sixteen songs, and then eight go through, when the eight song poll starts, maybe people, knowing that only four will go through now, will employ strategic voting; that is to say, maybe someone voted for six songs when there were sixteen to choose from, but now that only four will proceed, that person will only vote for four, choosing not to vote for two of the songs he/she voted for last time, in order to ensure that the four songs he/she wants go through. Essentially, I'm suggesting that perhaps strategic voting, diminished poll sizes, and diminished numbers of proceeding songs could end up balancing out the redundancy, at least somewhat.

Anyway, you mentioned that you'd prefer to do it a slightly different way; care to elaborate?

Good point. There's a lot of random obscure shit out there listed on U2Wanderer, but generally poorly known. I think let's leave that stuff out. Also, you mentioned Dreaming With Tears in My Eyes; U2Wanderer says that's from a Jimmie Rodgers tribute album in 1997, featuring just Bono and Larry.

Oh, my bad about that song then. And agreed, let's leave these off.

I was wondering about covers played by the full band though. I'd love to see how songs like Dancing Barefoot would fare, but covers have always been excluded from Survivor. Maybe even a quick Covers Survivor would be good. (Everybody who votes for Fortunate Son gets a permaban.)

I wouldn't include covers in this survivor because imo, it's as much(if not more) about songwriting than about performance. But a separate covers survivor could be fun. But when you look at the list...Jesus Christ, Christmas(Baby Please Come Home), Night And Day, Satellite Of Love, Paint It Black, Fortunate Son, Can't Help Falling In Love, I've Got You Under My Skin, Pop Muzik, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Don't Take Your Guns To Town, Neon Lights, The Saints Are Coming, Tower Of Song, maybe some live ones...it would probably be a single poll.

Agreed. Cut it.

Not sure I agree. Since their fate is unknown and they are unreleased for the foreseeable future (an album this year is no certainty and we know what this band can be like), I reckon they merit inclusion this time around and they're decently well known so they'd be competitive and generate discussion. I'm willing to bet Glastonbury's dead anyway, Stingray Guitar won't appear in its live form, and Mercy may end up being another She's a Mystery to Me - a song that lingers around but never gets on an album. It's all speculation at this stage, and in theory even something like Womanfish could still contribute to a new track! We know Edge revisits his old unused stuff from time to time.

Fair points. I guess we can include them.

I think we can agree that all songs with finished studio versions, officially released live versions, or officially broadcast live versions are in. So that leaves the following songs debatable:

Inside Out - 1978 demo, Cork 1979 bootleg
Jack in a Box - 1978 demo, two 1980 bootlegs
The King's New Clothes - Cork 1979 bootleg
Pete the Chop - multiple 1980 bootlegs
Father Is an Elephant - multiple 1980 bootlegs
Carry Me Home - London, 9 June 1981 bootleg
We Love You - 6 August 2001 live version
Every Breaking Wave - 2010 live versions
Glastonbury - 2010 live versions
North Star - 2010-11 live versions
Return of the Stingray Guitar - 2010-11 live versions

The first four there appear on either or both of the 1979-10-05, Cork and 1980-02-26, Dublin bootlegs, the two most widely circulated pre-Boy bootlegs. Anybody who's got any interest in pre-UF U2 has probably heard them, and certainly I doubt anybody who knows Alone in the Light or False Prophet or Life on a Distant Planet isn't familiar with those four as well. If Alone in the Light is well known enough to make the tournament, how is Pete the Chop too obscure? Admittedly those songs probably won't get many votes at all so I doubt they're much of a loss if we do choose to cut them; they are hardly going to be serious contenders.

I will agree with you that Father Is an Elephant and Carry Me Home are mindbogglingly obscure, only known through poor quality bootlegs that you need to make an effort to find. We Love You is I suppose not as well known now as it used to be when I joined this site (and incidentally, it was soundchecked in July 2001 in Zurich). These three probably wouldn't be a loss at all.

As for the remaining four from 360, I needn't repeat what I said above, and I think they are well known enough to be contenders. Every Breaking Wave in particular I think has fans around here.

Now that I think about it, I guess it won't hurt anything to include everything. Which reminds me, I thought of another song you forgot - that untitled instrumental from the UF sessions, I don't know if it has a name, but it's 5:42 in length. Does it have a name?

You mentioned Trevor and Silver Lining before. I am torn on this. Honestly, musically, there is not much to distinguish them from Touch and 11OTT. The lyrics are different in both and the vocal melody is slightly different in Trevor, but musically they're really very close. It won't hurt anything to include them, but it seems like it would be for completeness sake. Also, I'm not sure it's exactly the same thing as Vertigo/Native Son or Fast Cars/Xanax and Wine. For Trevor/Touch and Silver Lining/11OTT, I feel like they probably organically grew from one to the other as they played them live and Bono changed the lyrics and stuff, whereas with Native Son and Xanax And Wine, those were finished studio recordings that at least half the band was ready to release on an album, that the band decided to actually re-do. For this reason, they might be more separate entities then the earlier tracks, which seem like the main differences are just lyrics and titles. On the other hand, we're including the officially released Saturday Night, which turned into Fire and bares a striking resemblance, so maybe we should include Trevor and 11OTT just so we're being consistent with our logic.

By the way, since it looks like we're going to be putting a lot of obscure stuff in these polls, I was thinking that we could have a list of youtube links(most if not all of it is there) for the unreleased stuff in the OP of each poll(and I mean links, not embedded videos, that would slow the threads down). If the songs that some people are likely to be unfamiliar with are easily and immediately accessible, then maybe that would both increase participation and lead to more accurate results. I'd be willing to put to put those lists together.

Finally, I have a question...when you listed all the unreleased tracks earlier, you said that there was a studio version of She's A Mystery To Me. I had been under the impression that while there exists a U2(as opposed to Roy Orbison) studio recording of it, that it's never seen the light of day(kind of like the Bono version of The Wanderer). Is that wrong?

Last thing, I'm going to post revised versions of my lists, with everything included...all of them are still under 30 so I don't think semifinals will be necessary:

Early 80s:

1. Inside Out
2. Jack In A Box
3. Life On A Distant Planet
4. Alone In The Light
5. False Prophet
6. The Dream Is Over
7. The King's New Clothes
8. Pete The Chop
9. Trevor
10. The SIlver Lining
11. Street Mission
12. The Fool
13. Speed Of Life
14. Saturday Night
15. Cartoon World
16. Father Is An Elephant
17. Boy/Girl
18. Another Day
19. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock
20. Touch
21. Things To Make And Do
22. Carry Me Home
23. J.Swallo
24. A Celebration
25. Party Girl
26. Treasure(Whatever Happened To Pete The Chop)
27. Endless Deep
28. Be There
29. Angels Too Tied To The Ground

Late 80s:

1. The Three Sunrises
2. Love Comes Tumbling
3. Bass Trap
4. Boomerang I
5. Boomerang II
6. Sixty Seconds In Kingdom Come
7. Untitled UF Instrumental
8. Disappearing Act
9. Yoshino Blossom
10. Womanfish
11. Silver And Gold
12. Sweetest Thing(Either Version)
13. Race Against Time
14. Spanish Eyes
15. Deep In The Heart
16. Luminous Times(Hold On To Love)
17. Walk To The Water
18. Beautiful Ghost
19. Wave Of Sorrow
20. Desert Of Our Love
21. Rise Up
22. Drunk Chicken
23. Hallelujah(Here She Comes)
24. A Room At The Heartbreak Hotel
25. Wild Irish Rose
26. She's A Mystery To Me

90s:

1. Alex Descends Into Hell For A Bottle Of Milk
2. Lady With The Spinning Head(Either Version)
3. Salome
4. Where Did It All Go Wrong
5. Blow Your House Down
6. Heaven And Hell
7. Oh Berlin
8. Near The Island
9. Down All The Days
10. Slow Dancing(Either Version)
11. Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me
12. Viva Davidoff
13. Holy Joe(either version)
14. North And South Of The River
15. I'm Not Your Baby(either version)
16. Two Shots Of Happy, One Shot Of Sad

00s:

1. The Ground Beneath Her Feet
2. Stateless
3. Always
4. Summer Rain
5. Big Girls Are Best
6. Levitate
7. Flower Child
8. Love You Like Mad
9. We Love You
10. Electrical Storm(any version)
11. The Hands That Built America
12. Are You Gonna Wait Forever
13. Smile
14. Native Son
15. Fast Cars
16. Xanax And Wine
17. Mercy
18. Window In The Skies
19. Winter(Either Version)
20. Soon
21. Every Breaking Wave
22. Glastonbury
23. North Star
24. Return Of The Stingray Guitar

 

[U2girl]

Pretty good list, except SUC and Big girls don't belong there. 4 Passengers songs is interesting given the love of the forum for that side project.

 

[The Sad Punk]

i want a round of twilight demo vs. album version. the former would get like a million votes, surely.

I gleefully anticipate the sight of a thousand Khan alters descending upon the forum.

 

[cobl04]

tl;dr

 

[Galeongirl]

More survivors is always good! We can make it till september, ha!

 

[Axver]

As for what happens when the preliminaries are over, I understand your argument about redundancy, but consider this: if there is a poll of, for example, sixteen songs, and then eight go through, when the eight song poll starts, maybe people, knowing that only four will go through now, will employ strategic voting; that is to say, maybe someone voted for six songs when there were sixteen to choose from, but now that only four will proceed, that person will only vote for four, choosing not to vote for two of the songs he/she voted for last time, in order to ensure that the four songs he/she wants go through. Essentially, I'm suggesting that perhaps strategic voting, diminished poll sizes, and diminished numbers of proceeding songs could end up balancing out the redundancy, at least somewhat.

This is a good point, but I guess I've been trying to get away from strategic voting so that we can construct more of a consensus top twenty/thirty (as opposed to a competitive or strategic one).

It might be interesting, however, to go from a top thirty to give the top ten a shoot-out in traditional Survivor format, eliminating songs one-by-one. I'd like to see how different the order is. It will probably seem redundant to many people but that's I suppose what I was getting at with an alternate format.

I wouldn't include covers in this survivor because imo, it's as much(if not more) about songwriting than about performance. But a separate covers survivor could be fun. But when you look at the list...Jesus Christ, Christmas(Baby Please Come Home), Night And Day, Satellite Of Love, Paint It Black, Fortunate Son, Can't Help Falling In Love, I've Got You Under My Skin, Pop Muzik, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Don't Take Your Guns To Town, Neon Lights, The Saints Are Coming, Tower Of Song, maybe some live ones...it would probably be a single poll.

Haha yeah, if there were a Covers Survivor I expect it would be pretty quick. I'd try to break it down, maybe two or three "era" preliminaries feeding a final round of a top ten.

Now that I think about it, I guess it won't hurt anything to include everything. Which reminds me, I thought of another song you forgot - that untitled instrumental from the UF sessions, I don't know if it has a name, but it's 5:42 in length. Does it have a name?

I thought about that track when making my list but I don't know if it's finished. I don't think it is. I personally gave it the working title Flicker and Fade but that's not exactly caught on. Plus the track's so fucking obscure that I'm not sure people will recall it. I reckon leave it out.

Oh, another track that's sort of floating around is The Ballad of Ronnie Drew. Does it count as a U2 track? I left it out of Best v2 and nobody gave any shits.

Also, I'm not sure it's exactly the same thing as Vertigo/Native Son or Fast Cars/Xanax and Wine. For Trevor/Touch and Silver Lining/11OTT, I feel like they probably organically grew from one to the other as they played them live and Bono changed the lyrics and stuff, whereas with Native Son and Xanax And Wine, those were finished studio recordings that at least half the band was ready to release on an album, that the band decided to actually re-do. For this reason, they might be more separate entities then the earlier tracks, which seem like the main differences are just lyrics and titles.

I like this argument, and establishes a clear point of difference between the examples. I reckon the titles are the key, because otherwise we'll spend ages fruitlessly debating whether "I Trip Through Your Wires" (from TV Gaga) is a different enough song to merit inclusion, whether Slow Dancing should appear twice, etc., etc. I also think Saturday Night/Fire fits more under the Native Son/Vertigo relation. They completed the song, it could have been released, but then they went back and gave it a proper re-do.

By the way, since it looks like we're going to be putting a lot of obscure stuff in these polls, I was thinking that we could have a list of youtube links(most if not all of it is there) for the unreleased stuff in the OP of each poll(and I mean links, not embedded videos, that would slow the threads down). If the songs that some people are likely to be unfamiliar with are easily and immediately accessible, then maybe that would both increase participation and lead to more accurate results. I'd be willing to put to put those lists together.

Great idea.

Finally, I have a question...when you listed all the unreleased tracks earlier, you said that there was a studio version of She's A Mystery To Me. I had been under the impression that while there exists a U2(as opposed to Roy Orbison) studio recording of it, that it's never seen the light of day(kind of like the Bono version of The Wanderer). Is that wrong?

There is a studio version from 1987. I don't know if it is in wide circulation or not, but I know it is out there in some bootleg trading circles. I haven't been involved in trading for years so I've no idea what shit has leaked into wider circulation nowadays and what's still almost impossible to get your hands on without knowing certain secret handshakes and accidentally coming into possession of massively rare shit.

Last thing, I'm going to post revised versions of my lists, with everything included...all of them are still under 30 so I don't think semifinals will be necessary:

I have my own revision that I'm curious about your thoughts on. It generates some semi-finals.

PRE-BOY AND BOY
1. Inside Out
2. Jack In A Box
3. Life On A Distant Planet
4. Alone In The Light
5. False Prophet
6. The Dream Is Over
7. The King's New Clothes
8. Pete The Chop
9. Trevor
10. The SIlver Lining
11. Street Mission
12. The Fool
13. Speed Of Life
14. Saturday Night
15. Cartoon World
16. Father Is An Elephant
17. Boy/Girl
18. Another Day
19. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock
20. Touch
21. Things To Make And Do

EARLY EIGHTIES
1. Carry Me Home
2. J. Swallow
3. A Celebration
4. Party Girl
5. Treasure (Whatever Happened To Pete The Chop?)
6. Endless Deep
7. Be There
8. Angels Too Tied To The Ground
9. The Three Sunrises
10. Love Comes Tumbling
11. Bass Trap
12. Boomerang I
13. Boomerang II
14. Sixty Seconds In Kingdom Come
15. Disappearing Act
16. Yoshino Blossom
17. Womanfish

LATE EIGHTIES
1. Silver And Gold
2. Sweetest Thing
3. Race Against Time
4. Spanish Eyes
5. Deep In The Heart
6. Luminous Times (Hold On To Love)
7. Walk To The Water
8. Beautiful Ghost
9. Wave Of Sorrow
10. Desert Of Our Love
11. Rise Up
12. Drunk Chicken/America
13. Hallelujah Here She Comes
14. A Room At The Heartbreak Hotel
15. Wild Irish Rose
16. She's A Mystery To Me

NINETIES
1. Alex Descends Into Hell For A Bottle Of Milk/Korova 1
2. Lady With The Spinning Head
3. Salome
4. Where Did It All Go Wrong?
5. Blow Your House Down
6. Heaven And Hell
7. Oh Berlin
8. Near The Island
9. Down All The Days
10. Slow Dancing
11. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
12. Viva Davidoff
13. Holy Joe
14. North And South Of The River
15. I'm Not Your Baby
16. Two Shots Of Happy, One Shot Of Sad
(Should Bottoms be here too?)

2000s
1. The Ground Beneath Her Feet
2. Stateless
3. Always
4. Summer Rain
5. Big Girls Are Best
6. Levitate
7. Flower Child
8. Love You Like Mad
9. We Love You
10. Electrical Storm
11. The Hands That Built America
12. Are You Gonna Wait Forever?
13. Smile
14. Native Son
15. Fast Cars
16. Xanax And Wine
17. Mercy
18. Window In The Skies
19. Winter
20. Soon
21. Every Breaking Wave
22. Glastonbury
23. North Star
24. Return Of The Stingray Guitar

I was then thinking there could be semi finals but have a couple of ideas for how it could be done:

Option 1: two semis. Top sixty songs qualify, thirty in each. Top thirty from across the two semis progress to grand final.

Option 2: Pre-Boy and early eighties feed Semi Final 1; late eighties and nineties feed Semi Final 2; 2000s is split into two rounds (the break comes between THTBA and AYGWF) and feeds Semi Final 3. In each case the semi is the top fifteen songs from across the two qualifying rounds. The top thirty across the three semis proceed to the grand final.

We are probably thinking about this waaaayyyy too hard.

 

[namkcuR]

This is a good point, but I guess I've been trying to get away from strategic voting so that we can construct more of a consensus top twenty/thirty (as opposed to a competitive or strategic one).

It might be interesting, however, to go from a top thirty to give the top ten a shoot-out in traditional Survivor format, eliminating songs one-by-one. I'd like to see how different the order is. It will probably seem redundant to many people but that's I suppose what I was getting at with an alternate format.

I could go with going from thirty to ten and then doing a traditional survivor from there out. Maybe it could be thirty to fifteen and then a traditional survivor though?

Does that mean you're coming around on a final thirty instead of twenty?

Haha yeah, if there were a Covers Survivor I expect it would be pretty quick. I'd try to break it down, maybe two or three "era" preliminaries feeding a final round of a top ten.

Yeah, maybe 1987-1993 and 1997-present? Oh, and I'm slightly embarrassed that in my previous post I forgot Dancing Barefoot/Everlasting Love/Unchained Melody in my list of covers.

I thought about that track when making my list but I don't know if it's finished. I don't think it is. I personally gave it the working title Flicker and Fade but that's not exactly caught on. Plus the track's so fucking obscure that I'm not sure people will recall it. I reckon leave it out.

I disagree. You say it doesn't sound finished, and while I understand where you're coming from, 4th Of July doesn't sound all that much more finished to me and it made the album. And when you put this track beside the Boomerangs and Sixty Seconds In Kingdom Come, it fits, I think. Plus I like this track I say include it.

Also, I've stumbled upon "My Time Hasn't Come" from a 1987 soundcheck. Should that be included?

Oh, another track that's sort of floating around is The Ballad of Ronnie Drew. Does it count as a U2 track? I left it out of Best v2 and nobody gave any shits.

I had heard of this track by name but am unfamiliar with it. This is what Wikipedia says:

""The Ballad of Ronnie Drew" is a single by U2, The Dubliners, Kíla, and "A Band of Bowsies".[2] The single was recorded as a charitable project, with proceeds going to the Irish Cancer Society - owing to Ronnie Drew's cancer condition.[3] It was recorded at Windmill Lane on 14 and 15 January 2008. "The Ballad of Ronnie Drew" is available as a CD in Ireland only."

and

Writers: Robert Hunter, Bono, The Edge, and Simon Carmody
Artist(s): U2, The Dubliners, Kila, and A Band Of Bowsies

I don't know. If Bono and Edge both have writing credits and the whole band participated in performing it, then it's hard to find a reason not to include it. It's the other people participating with them that make it iffy. We also can't be sure wiki is right. I think there were more artists involved with the track then the four listed, and we don't know if/how much Edge/Adam/Larry were really on it. I'm on the fence. And now that I've just listened to it, my gut says this track is probably better suited for the side-project survivor.

I like this argument, and establishes a clear point of difference between the examples. I reckon the titles are the key, because otherwise we'll spend ages fruitlessly debating whether "I Trip Through Your Wires" (from TV Gaga) is a different enough song to merit inclusion, whether Slow Dancing should appear twice, etc., etc. I also think Saturday Night/Fire fits more under the Native Son/Vertigo relation. They completed the song, it could have been released, but then they went back and gave it a proper re-do.

So, you're saying Trevor and The Silver Lining shouldn't be included? Because they're still in your list.

Great idea.

I've just about got it done now. I'll PM you the list. One thing I discovered while doing this - I don't know if you're aware, but after listening to The King's New Clothes, it seems that it is to The Dream Is Over as Trevor is Touch and The Silver Lining is to 11OTT. So I'm asking the same question we asked about them, should it be included? BTW, this is one of only two tracks that wasn't on youtube(the other being the untitled instrumental). I downloaded it from the u2hub. If it is decided that it should be included, I'll upload it to youtube myself so that it can be on the list(same for the instrumental).

There is a studio version from 1987. I don't know if it is in wide circulation or not, but I know it is out there in some bootleg trading circles. I haven't been involved in trading for years so I've no idea what shit has leaked into wider circulation nowadays and what's still almost impossible to get your hands on without knowing certain secret handshakes and accidentally coming into possession of massively rare shit.

Yeah, there's certainly no studio version of it on youtube, or on the u2hub(which sometimes has rare non-live stuff), and google searches don't turn up any promising leads. I just can't imagine that someone out there has a physical cd with the track on it and hasn't put it somewhere on the internet. It just doesn't seem likely to me. I believe 100% that it exists, I'm just not sure I believe that it ever got out of the vault. The closest thing I've found is an R&H outtake clip on youtube of U2 playing it at Sun Studios where they recorded it. I mean, shit, this sounds like a studio recording. This has to be close to what it would sound like. I'm including the link with the list I'm sending you.

I have my own revision that I'm curious about your thoughts on. It generates some semi-finals.
---
I was then thinking there could be semi finals but have a couple of ideas for how it could be done:

Option 1: two semis. Top sixty songs qualify, thirty in each. Top thirty from across the two semis progress to grand final.

Option 2: Pre-Boy and early eighties feed Semi Final 1; late eighties and nineties feed Semi Final 2; 2000s is split into two rounds (the break comes between THTBA and AYGWF) and feeds Semi Final 3. In each case the semi is the top fifteen songs from across the two qualifying rounds. The top thirty across the three semis proceed to the grand final.

I feel like five preliminary rounds might be a bit much. I think it could be done in four. And I would favor your option number 1. It could be like this:

Best Non-Album Song Survivor - Preliminary Quarterfinal #1 - 1978-1983
Best Non-Album Song Survivor - Preliminary Quarterfinal #2 - 1984-1989
Best Non-Album Song Survivor - Preliminary Quarterfinal #3 - 1990-1998
Best Non-Album Song Survivor - Preliminary Quarterfinal #4 - 1999-2011

Figure out the top sixty vote-getters and then proceed to two thirty-song semifinals:

Best Non-Album Song Survivor - Preliminary Semifinal #1
Best Non-Album Song Survivor - Preliminary Semifinal #2
(for these two semifinals, I'd suggest making a list of the top sixty in alphabetical order and the splitting it in half, because if you put them in order of votes then you're going to have one semifinal with a bunch of very high vote-getters and one with a bunch of less-high vote getters, but if they're in alphabetical order, then they'll be more evenly grouped)

and then have the thirty song final field:

Best Non-Album Song Survivor - Preliminary Final

and then you take the top ten or fifteen(whatever we decide on) from that and then start a traditional elimination like you said:

Best Non-Album Song Survivor - Round 1(2,3,etc until you get to Quarterfinal/Semifinal/Grand Final).

As for how the four lists could look:

1978-1983

1. Inside Out
2. Jack In A Box
3. Life On A Distant Planet
4. Alone In The Light
5. False Prophet
6. The Dream Is Over
7. The King's New Clothes
8. Pete The Chop
9. Trevor
10. The Silver Lining
11. Street Mission
12. The Fool
13. Speed Of Life
14. Saturday Night
15. Cartoon World
16. Father Is An Elephant
17. Boy/Girl
18. Another Day
19. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock
20. Touch
21. Things To Make And Do
22. Carry Me Home
23. J.Swallo
24. A Celebration
25. Party Girl
26. Treasure(Whatever Happened To Pete The Chop)
27. Endless Deep
28. Be There
29. Angels Too Tied To The Ground

1984-1989

1. The Three Sunrises
2. Love Comes Tumbling
3. Bass Trap
4. Boomerang I
5. Booomerang II
6. Sixty Seconds In Kingdom Come
7. Untitled Instrumental
8. Disappearing Act
9. Yoshino Blossom
10. Womanfish
11. Silver And Gold
12. Sweetest Thing
13. Race Against Time
14. Spanish Eyes
15. Deep In The Heart
16. Luminous Times(Hold On To Love)
17. Walk To The Water
18. Beautiful Ghost
19. Wave Of Sorrow
20. Desert Of Our Love
21. Rise Up
22. Drunk Chicken/America
23. My Time Hasn't Come
24. She's A Mystery To Me
25. Wild Irish Rose
26. Hallelujah Here She Comes
27. A Room At The Heartbreak Hotel

1990-1998

1. Alex Descends Into Hell For A Bottle Of Milk/Korova 1
2. Lady With The Spinning Head
3. Salome
4. Where Did It All Go Wrong?
5. Blow Your House Down
6. Heave And Hell
7. Oh Berlin
8. Near The Island
9. Down All The Days
10. Slow Dancing
11. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
12. Viva Davidoff
13. Holy Joe
14. North And South Of The River
15. I'm Not Your Baby
16. Two Shots Of Happy, One Shot Of Sad

1999-2011

1. The Ground Beneath Her Feet
2. Stateless
3. Always
4. Summer Rain
5. Big Girls Are Best
6. Levitate
7. Flower Child
8. Love You Like Mad
9. We Love You
10. Electrical Storm
11. The Hands That Built America
12. Are You Gonna Wait Forever?
13. Smile
14. Native Son
15. Fast Cars
16. Xanax And Wine
17. Mercy
18. Window In The Skies
19. Winter
20. Soon
21. Every Breaking Wave
22. Glastonbury
23. North Star
24. Return Of The Stingray Guitar

That way you have four fairly balanced polls to start with(ok, except for the 90s, which just simply has less non-album material). And if we eliminate some of the ones we're not sure about(i.e. The King's New Clothes, Trevor, The Silver Lining, Untitled Instrumental, My Time Has Come), the numbers will still be fairly balanced.

Ok, finally done.

We are probably thinking about this waaaayyyy too hard.

Probably, yeah.

 

[LemonMelon]

We should have a Larry Mullen survivor and pick his best performance. I predict a track he doesn't play on will be the winner.

 

[Axver]

Since it seems it's just the two of us really interested in planning this, namkcuR, I think let's move over to PM. I should be getting ready for work now, but I'll send a detailed reply later.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

Ballad of Ronnie Drew is credited to U2 and therefore should be included, no question.