Thanks, Jamila,Hey Muldfeld, last unicorn did a good job of synopsizing the history of "American Prayer" and in the link that I provided above, I gave an eyewitness account of the first public performance of the song and then Liesje gave everybody to hear the original version of the song from 2002.
Here is a bit of what I wrote in the link provided above:
Actually, "American Prayer" predates the 46664 concert performance by Bono, Edge, Dave Stewart and Beyonce....
The first public performance of "American Prayer" was on 1 Dec. 2002, in Lincoln Nebraska, as Bono and DATA started their "Heart of America" Tour on World AIDS Day.
I was one of about 2,000 people in the audience that night to support Bono and DATA in their efforts for Africa.
Bono had a singing group of children from Ghana to perform for us and he recruited them as his "back up" singers for the first public performance of "American Prayer".
It was a bit of a "rough draft" performance of the song which would get better as the "Heart of America" tour progressed.
In true Bono fashion, he had to introduce the song to us with a joke. At the back of the stage was a boom box on a stand.
As Bono introduced himself & mentioned that he was in a group called U2 , he walked over to the boom box and pressed the play button while saying "And here's Larry, Adam and Edge"!
The audience exploded with laughter as the pre-recorded music started and Bono began singing his "American Prayer".
That must have been pretty exciting and you must be pretty hardcore to be one of the few to see this. I do think it needs serious work, as does any demo or song in the rough, and it has the potential to be released one day -- at least as a b-side -- given its nice basic melody; it needs layers, though.
