Beautiful Day, to me, suffers from first single syndrome. It's when you hear a song a whole lot before actually hearing the whole album, and then it's almost like it's separate from the album, it almost doesn't fit. Over-exposure or something. I do love the song. I had problems with much of U2's mid-90's work and this song told me that I was probably going to love the new album. It has great lyrics, and the guitar makes me smile so much. Actually, the first time I heard any of it at all, just the little clip of "What you don't know you don't need it now" to the end, I thought "Wow...this reminds me of Boy."
But partly because I love the album generally, and partly because of first single syndrome, BD comes in around sixth right now for placing my favourite songs on ATYCLB. I would put Walk On, WILATW, IALW, New York, and Stuck ahead of it--not necessarily in that order. But like I said, that could change. Stuck would probably be the one to fall out of the top five and BD might replace it.
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Love was never a single emotion
-ACROB@T