Songs of Surrender - Discussion, reviews, impressions

[dan_smee]

Thread to discuss the recently released Songs of Surrender. Post your impressions, links to published reviews, alternate track lists etc here!

[prbiker15]

The first 3 songs that I went back to were Bad, Desire and The Miracle - each for slightly different reasons.

Bad is the early standout for me, it was the first one that brought a smile to my face. In my opinion, they preserved it’s “epicness” while slightly changing it around.

Desire was probably the most surprising one. It’s funky and the “fat lady” voice gives it a nice touch. As for The Miracle, the lyric changes towards the chorus caught me off guard. Interesting, to say the least.

Need to spend a little more time with the others.

[dan_smee]

I’m trying to capture EBW so I can add it to the zip file, and I’ll post it here soon.

[phommel]

Well, I fell asleep during the first listen. It didn't keep my attention and some songs I found them quite boring.

My feeling is that a lot of the fire and urgency of the original songs have disappeared in these stripped down reinventions ... when I hear WOWY, SHWILF, Streets, Stay, Dirty Day (and many others)... I long for the original versions.

I also don't get the idea of this whole concept and besides for me it's just another chapter of the big Bono & The Edge show..

Some songs got an interesting edit, but for me it would have been enough (and nice!) if they would have dropped them every other week during the times of the lockdowns... what we need now, after this COVID-period is new hard rocking U2 songs!

[phommel]

Most songs feel like nice B-sides ...

[dan_smee]

For anyone so inclined:

https://www.sendspace.com/file/io5dhr

Zip file contains:

BBC Piano Room

NPR Tiny Desk

A Sort of Homecoming Soundtrack I captured all the audio, mixed it together into a seamless track with audience transitions, and then split them out so it sounds like one thing:
- All live performances
- EBW "Bono does Radiohead" studio take
- 40 Foot Man

[DomCobb]

I've cut the album in half. But I'm still working on it (and will probably end up including "40" in the the end as well)

1. Stories for Boys
2. I Will Follow
3. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock
4. Out of Control
5. Invisible
6. Song for Someone
7. Two Hearts Beat As One
8. Desire
9. All I Want is You
10. Pride (In the Name of Love)
11. Walk On
12. Red Hill Mining Town
13. The Fly
14. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
15. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
16. Vertigo
17. Bad
18. Stay (Faraway, So Close)
19. Lights of Home
20. The Little Things That Give You Away

[clerks]

I'm fascinated by how they took 40 song album which is the whole point and then made these 16 track albums and cassette at random it seems just for a cheaper entry price. But why do they do that?

Digital at 20 is the cheaper price...

[womanfish]

Originally Posted by DomCobb

I've cut the album in half. But I'm still working on it (and will probably end up including "40" in the the end as well)

1. Stories for Boys
2. I Will Follow
3. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock
4. Out of Control
5. Invisible
6. Song for Someone
7. Two Hearts Beat As One
8. Desire
9. All I Want is You
10. Pride (In the Name of Love)
11. Walk On
12. Red Hill Mining Town
13. The Fly
14. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
15. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
16. Vertigo
17. Bad
18. Stay (Faraway, So Close)
19. Lights of Home
20. The Little Things That Give You Away

Is this your favorites ranked?

I gotta say 11 O'Clock is rocketing up my list. May end up in the top spot. And damn this Miracle song... It keeps dragging me back to it.

It seems like I will probably have a solid 15-20 that I really love/like. Then there's kind of a glut of just good but not great or anything special songs, and then a few stinkers on the bottom.

[DomCobb]

Sorry I wasn't clear. It's my alternate playlist. 40 songs is too many for repeat listens!

I don't know how I'd rank all of them. But my top five would probably look like this:

1. Bad
2. The Little Things That Give You Away
3. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock
4. Invisible
5. Red Hill Mining Town

11OTT is really great. That song never clicked with me in any other form but I love it here. Along with SFS, POE, and Stuck it's one of the only ones I prefer here to the original.

I like The Miracle reimagining a lot. The new tempo and more mellow vibe helps it a lot, goes to show how wrong they produced it. And the original's chorus did need some work... but unfortunately I like the new chorus even less.

[womanfish]

Originally Posted by DomCobb

Sorry I wasn't clear. It's my alternate playlist. 40 songs is too many for repeat listens!

I don't know how I'd rank all of them. But my top five would probably look like this:

1. Bad
2. The Little Things That Give You Away
3. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock
4. Invisible
5. Red Hill Mining Town

11OTT is really great. That song never clicked with me in any other form but I love it here. Along with SFS, POE, and Stuck it's one of the only ones I prefer here to the original.

I like The Miracle reimagining a lot. The new tempo and more mellow vibe helps it a lot, goes to show how wrong they produced it. And the original's chorus did need some work... but unfortunately I like the new chorus even less.

Yeah, I keep getting a bit hung up on the chorus. Wish they would have held that verse guitar melody for a future song more worthy. It does stick in your head though...

[Scorpionac]

My long review:

 

For my first full listen, I didn't follow the actual tracklist of Songs of Surrender. After learning that the discs named after each band member was just a bit of artifice – the songs were not chosen by each member, and Adam and Larry had little to do with the project in general – I decided it would be more fun to put the songs in chronological order so I could listen to the band's progress as songwriters over the years.

Right up top then is Edge’s touching rendition of “Stories for Boys,” easily the most interesting track here, followed by non-album single “11 O'Clock Tick Tock,” the original of which I only listened to a couple times ever, so it's basically a new U2 song to me. Edge also does lead vocal on “Two Hearts Beat as One,” which takes a piano idea from the 1983 club mix of the song. His earnest, full-throated singing of the original melody is charming. It sounds like Edge has put together a bit of homemade funk for a U2 cover on his YouTube channel. Like I said, it’s charming.

Edge aside – what's Bono up to? Bono’s best vocals and lyric rewrites are the ones that put the Surrender versions in conversation or contrast with the originals. This includes “Pride” in a lower key, some tunes from the band’s first album with some adult perspective added to the lyrics, and a spooky version of “Where the Streets of No Name” that is only vocal and synth, with a lyric so revised it feels like a sequel to the original, not a rewrite.

Bono often speaks about how his early lyrics were sketches, not fully formed ideas, so it's likely that he considers this rewrite of “Streets” better. So is it better? No, not really. Why do words that previously felt like a watercolour painting now have to be redrawn in Sharpie? He often claims that he’s a better lyricist and singer than he used to be. Let's just clear something up here: no he isn't, and no he isn't. No offence intended, but he's not in his prime anymore.

“Bad” is probably the most frustrating track. The music is beautiful – I always wanted to hear Edge play acoustic guitar on a song that relies on delayed echo – and the vocal is fine. However, part of this album's appeal for me is the sense of greatest hits played acoustically, even if the band didn’t intend it that way. Perfect for singing along to, right? Not so much. Every second line in “Bad” is different, even if only by one word, making it impossible to sing along (e.g. “heart of clay” is now “jars of clay” for some reason).

On a more positive note, the falsetto “Desire” is a triumph, an interesting alternate take that complements the original.

My chronological playlist eventually finds its way into the ‘90s, where most of the reworked tracks are nice variations, not super memorable but worth a revisit. The acoustic version of “Wild Horses” is fun and capably replaces the “Temple Bar” remix from 1992, which was not quite stripped down enough to be acoustic. Credit is due as well to the imaginative rework of “Dirty Day,” another highlight, and a version of “Stay” that maintains the original's quiet dread, appropriate for a song that mentions angels, demons and vampires. “Stay” was important to me when I was younger, and I cried listening to the new version. “If God Will Send His Angels” substitutes piano for the original's trip-hop ambience (which I always liked) but retains the lyric’s vivid pessimism (which I always kind of disliked).

Moving into the new millennium now. “Beautiful Day” works well on acoustic guitar and chirpy piano, and a rewritten bridge starts with a reminder that this is the same band that recorded Original Soundtracks 1. Unfortunately, it then falls into sloganeering: “Laughter is the evidence of freedom.” This line would have been better saved for the rewritten version of “Walk On,” which is about the comedian-turned-president leader of Ukraine. This rewrite presumably finds its seed in the fact that the original song was dedicated to the political figure Aung San Suu Kyi – dedicated, but not literally about; now it is undeniably about a specific person.

“Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own” is sung with such conviction that it easily becomes the equal of the original, and the choice to sing the bridge in falsetto makes it feel just as operatic. “Vertigo” is still a bit of fluff, but somehow the new arrangement works.

We get a few non-album singles: “Electrical Storm,” a great song which needed a lyric rewrite but didn't get one, and which seems to be stitched together from two separate recordings; “Ordinary Love” played acoustic, pointless considering how many times it’s been played this way, and not the piece of Oscar-worthy songcraft that Bono seems to think it is; and “Invisible,” a good song played here with effort enough to suggest that U2 is proud of it.

Next comes the Ryan Tedder era of U2’s career, where my nostalgia for the material dries up completely. For a fan like me – who found the band during the How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb era and who turned 18 around the release of No Line on the Horizon, not represented in this collection – Songs of Innocence was a nonstarter. Here, the band has finally recorded a decent version of "The Miracle of Joey Ramone" that actually contains a reference to The Ramones. However, an acoustic version has already been released, so it feels nonessential. The same applies to a selection of three other tracks from an album most people remember as digital junk mail.

From the follow-up album Songs of Experience we get “Lights of Home,” a favourite of mine, but not changed enough to justify its inclusion. “Get Out of Your Own Way,” easily the band's worst song, is improved by presenting it as a tuneless ramble from a drunken busker set to the musical equivalent of stumbling. “The Little Things That Give You Away” is nice to hear, maybe not for this specific performance but just for the fact that the band recognized it was worth including in a collection like this.

TL;DR: “Stories for Boys,” “Desire, “Stay” and “Dirty Day” are great. “Two Hearts Beat as One” and “Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own” are very good. Many others are good, and just as many don't land, but overall the album is better than I expected, and it's a generous retrospective for fans.

[danm]

Audio of One from BBC's Piano Room:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEbU...el=CanalDherma

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Hey it's the first cover of Slow Streets

https://youtu.be/GycHKa4qT9o

[clerks]

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

Hey it's the first cover of Slow Streets

https://youtu.be/GycHKa4qT9o

Bono's stage presence is underrated still to this day. My god version (audio fine) is like watching karaoke sang by my accountant to me.

*I like The Killers music, haven't seen them live.

[super fly guy]

Songs of relevance.

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart...ender-__38814/

[rjhbonovox]

When you have run out of creative ideas then the answer is not to go back and see if you can destroy your back catalogue. Boring versions that start the same way, Edge strumming an acoustic guitar, that go nowhere. Amazing to think this is the same band that gave us Achtung Baby, Zooropa and Pop. How 'bad' does it have to get for this band to realise that maybe it's time to call it a day.

[rjhbonovox]

Originally Posted by super fly guy

Songs of relevance.

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart...ender-__38814/

Just goes to show how terrible music is and has been for the past 20 years. Dismal.

[mikal]

Originally Posted by rjhbonovox

When you have run out of creative ideas then the answer is not to go back and see if you can destroy your back catalogue. Boring versions that start the same way, Edge strumming an acoustic guitar, that go nowhere. Amazing to think this is the same band that gave us Achtung Baby, Zooropa and Pop. How 'bad' does it have to get for this band to realise that maybe it's time to call it a day.

We missed you

[Irvine511]

My casual friends have listened to a few a d are very, “meh, I prefer the original.” Which is fair enough. This is for the die hards who have these songs in our blood. These versions at their best open up new meaning for me.