So Here it is, two years later......

[jezebel]

......and I still LOVE Beautiful Day. I never get tired of this song....listening to the U27 version right now, whichever remix that is.

It just lifts me up!

 

[GypsyHeartgirl]

Me too! I'll never forget the day I heard Beautiful Day for the first time sitting in my car in the Kmart parking lot. I heard the DJ say U2 had a new song and the Olympics had used it. Even though I had given up on U2 because of Pop and the Pop era and thought my beloved guys had become something I didn't like anymore (which had been heartbreaking!) I decided to sit there and give it a listen. I couldn't believe it! I LOVED IT! It was so perfect, the tune, the melody, Bono's voice, they were just what I liked! Many of the lyrics sounded as if they were written just for me, because that was how I had felt that year. How IRONIC, way more ironic than Pop ever was, that it happened that way how and where it did for me. It was MY song, my special gift from U2. I guess you could call my story "U2- lost and found in a Kmart parking lot!"

 

[Nate Dogg]

I remember hearing it for the first time on the internet. I downloaded it at work and listened to it non-stop. It is one of those rare songs that still grabs you the way it did back then...even if that doesn't ring true!!

 

[senrab]

Don't let it get away...

The first time I heard this song, I woke up to it. (clock radio alarm) Kind of an interesting situation to hear it in for the first time. It was a beautiful day.

 

[brimcart]

I remember the first time I heard it, too. I downloaded it off of the net, which took about 30 minutes on my archaic dial-up (now on cable). I also recall checking out U2.com, only it was a work in progress. It was designed to look like the recording studio, had live studio cam, and the little icons made short sound clips from "Beautiful Day" when you crossed over them. AM I THE ONLY WEBHEAD THAT REMEMBERS THAT?

 

[MrBrau1]

Right on. I hear lotsa people saying ATYCLB was a "soft rock" album, they must be skipping the chorus blast from BD, it's air guitar heaven, full on cymbal crash, passionate vocal. It is rock.

 

[ishkash]

Beautiful Day gave me some terrible times as U2 fan.Initially I heard the 40 sec clip(very uplifting) and then the the first 20 secs(mellow) which then, was in a completely different sound.Subsequently when I first got the full song it sounded like a terrible cut and paste job.I couldnt digest that "outer-wordly" middle 8 etc, it sounded so abrupt and came from nowhere.

There will always be my fave U2 song, but Beautiful Day will always have a special place as a three song Sunday combo

 

[Saracene]

I actually wasn't that taken with Beautiful Day when it was first released. I was glad that it won U2 a bunch of Grammys and all, but frankly I thought it was a merely decent song. Then I went for my overseas trip to US, and I remember how, after arriving in LA as my first stop, I suddenly felt really scared and overwhelmed by the idea that I was all by myself in a strange country. And at that exact moment, I suddenly heard "Beautiful Day" playing at the nearby shop and it felt like someone put a hand on my shoulder and somehow made it all Ok. I think I completed a 180 degree turn on Beautiful Day after hearing it live at the Elevation show in Phoenix a week later. I now appreciate it as a bona fide, elegant U2 classic it's always been,