U2 and complex songs?

[rihannsu]

how so?

Because most musicians admit that ego tends to drive them towards filling in more and more. I have heard several of the big guitar heroes comment that Edge's solo in "With of Without You" is something they would never have come up with because their natural tendency would be to go for the big complex thing and they are totally amazed that he went for the restrained simple solo and the song is all the more powerful for it.

Dana

 

[IrishDawg]

Which makes Edge the potential wanking champion of the world does it not?

lolz, never thought of that.

 

[Yahweh_OMG]

I don't know much about music (technically), but I find the following songs more complex than the rest:

- Twilight
- Street mission
- The Unforgettable fire
- One tree hill
- Electric co
- Heartland
- Acrobat
- Mysterious Ways
- Zooropa
- Mofo
- Discotheque
- Please
- Mercy

 

[Lemonator]

I dunno if you guys play guitar, but Where the Streets Have no Name is a pain in the ass to play. I consider it complex in that aspect. You have to make your right hand wrist move about 100 miles an hour at a constant speed or it sounds like crap.

It's actually not that hard to play. With delay, you are only playing at half the tempo you are hearing. But it was almost scrapped because of the tempo change from intro to verse.

 

[ahittle]

I guess there's still some confusion here about "complex." The boys can play some pretty clever, complex parts, but usually the songs themselves are simple if stripped down to an acoustic guitar - just a handful of chords. Of course, a lot of the songs are unrecognizable in that state.

 

[gherman]

The Fly, UTEOTW, and Acrobat

 

[gvox]

It's actually not that hard to play. With delay, you are only playing at half the tempo you are hearing. But it was almost scrapped because of the tempo change from intro to verse.

And that would put it in the complex (as opposed to other U2 songs at least) category imo...to play it live bands have to practice that change a bit, and I reckon they'd be lying if they claimed they got it perfect first take...or some didn't and still just do it all in 4/4 which sounds really weird. So I'd say it's a bit more complex than others, because of the timing change?..

I think Tomorrow Please Miracle Drug for example are a bit more complex than I WIll Follow, Bad, Vertigo etc. But that's just me I guess?

 

[gvox]

Acrobat

I never understood that, or the rumours that they didn't do it live because it's too hard. The song seems straightforward to me and makes alot of sense in the arrangement. (when i say makes sense I mean I feel it flows quite cohesively and no big surprises that take a while to wrap my head around)

I think "complex" is probably way too subjective to definitively say this song or that is more or less complex..

 

[ahittle]

Acrobat is only four chords I think. There might be fifth at the bridge there. Edge makes it sound like a dark symphony. What a tremendous song. You would think that they could have found a place for this in their "heart of darkness" segments. I'd gladly swap Bullet the Blue Sky for Acrobat.

And Steets doesn't have a tempo change - it goes from 6/8 to 4/4, which doesn't require Edge to do much at all really. I'd say it took more for Edge to come up with that neat riff than it is for him to play it. The delay really does the work for you there. Not to take away from the brilliance of that song.

 

[Hornbag]

They never played Acrobat I assume cause the band aren't overly comfortable doing songs with a time signature that isn't 4/4...Acrobat I think is 12/8? I mean they made a big enough fuss about WITS being 6/8, that seemed like challenge enough to them, although of course I could be wrong. This also brings up another point for me. ALthough it's all good Larry Talking about finding new time signatures and whatnot in Fez, will they actually incorporate them into songs. This is a primarily Live band and they don't seem too comfortable out of the 4/4 area as I said. Who Knows I suppose

 

[ahittle]

They never played Acrobat I assume cause the band aren't overly comfortable doing songs with a time signature that isn't 4/4...Acrobat I think is 12/8? I mean they made a big enough fuss about WITS being 6/8, that seemed like challenge enough to them, although of course I could be wrong. This also brings up another point for me. ALthough it's all good Larry Talking about finding new time signatures and whatnot in Fez, will they actually incorporate them into songs. This is a primarily Live band and they don't seem too comfortable out of the 4/4 area as I said. Who Knows I suppose

Makes sense. I also think they are overly cautious on what will "work" live. It seems unlikely they are getting to really dig deep on old records, especially songs they never really worked into the live canon to begin with.