U2 have shared a stripped-back, piano-led version of their 2000 hit single Beautiful Day as another preview of their forthcoming Songs Of Surrender album. It follows on from the January release of a re-imagined version of their 1984 hit single Pride (In The Name Of Love), the first taste of a compilation, due on March 17, which features 40 re-worked U2 songs.
"Music allows you to time travel," guitarist The Edge stated when the project was first unveiled, "and so we started to imagine what it would be like to bring these songs back with us to the present day and give them the benefit or otherwise, of a 21st century re-imagining. What started as an experiment quickly became a personal obsession as so many early U2 songs yielded to a new interpretation.
"Intimacy replaced post-punk urgency. New keys. New chords. New tempos and new lyrics arrived. It turns out that great song is kind of indestructible."
Listen to the new tale on Beautiful Day below:
Also on March 17, a new U2 documentary, Bono & The Edge: A Sort Of Homecoming, with David Letterman, will air on Disney+.
Directed by Morgan Neville, the film, which finds US television show host Letterman travelling to Ireland for the first time to meet up with the band in their hometown of Dublin.
In a press release, the documentary is described as “part concert movie, part travel adventure plus a whole lot of Bono and The Edge, with Dave’s humour throughout".
Last month, the band announced that they will doing a gig residency in Las Vegas at the MGM Sphere in the autumn. Their sets will focus on songs from their 1991 album Achtung Baby. Dates are yet to be announced.
