The first single, complete with "boom" - enriched outro and accompanying video featuring the soon-to-be legendary apearance of U2 as The Village People. Bono: "When we were recording that, we had the whole stuidio in mirror balls and disco lights."

 

Heavy groove-based rocker in the tradition of (Even Better Than) The Real Thing. Very likely single. Wry personal references suggested in opening lines: "Take these hands they're good for nothing / You know these hands never worked a day"

 

Sonic assault as U2 are possessed by the twin spirits of Underworld and The Prodigy, with Bono at his most cathartic. Breakneck double-tracked drumming quit likely the highlight of Larry Mullen's recorded career.

 

Slow-winding ballad constructed around a title that existed during the Zooropa sessions. Bono: "It's this guy beating up his girlfriend about her searching for answers and just telling her to look around. It's like science fiction gospel. Edge is calling it 'country hip-hop'."

 

Infectioum sky-scraping pop song with echoes of Ray Davies and Bowie's "Soul Love". Notable alone for it middle eight couplet, "Referee won't blow the whistle / God is good but will he listen?" Dead cert summer Number 1.

 

U2 play Oasis at their own game. Steaming rocker with powerful, Beatle-y chorus. The last track to be finished, the vocals recorded at 7am on the day the album cut. Bono: It felt like the last night on earth, alright."

 

Soaring uplifter oddly reminiscent of The Verve, replete with darkly spiritual lyric. Likely to be emotional highpoint of candlelit vigil if U2's plane ever goes down. Edge: "There's many layers to that song and there's another level to it which I haven't figured out yet"

 

The strangest track of all. Electro experimental before Mullen kicks in with a weighty John Bonham-styled groove. Lyrical snapshots of the band trip to Florida in spring `96. Edge: "It's sort of creative tourism".

 

Touching tale of Lottery-playing Average Joe fantasising about gaining entry to Hugh Hefners's private Disneyland, set to `60's-flavoured trip-hop. Return to knowingly delivered truisms in verses, including the maybe libellous, "If Coke is a mystery, Michael Jackson...  History".

 

Muted and, frankly, horny ballad echoes of Chris Isaak's 'Wicked Game'. Something for the weekend. Edge: That was a song that basically came out of a improvisation with Nellee Hooper."

 

Shuffly meandering and moody mid-pacer. Edge: "One of the most intricate pieces of music we've ever written".

 

Speghetti Western atmosphere bristling with distant radio voices. A distorted Bono voices hi frustration to Jesus. "I'm alone in this world / And a fucked up world it is too".