40 (song)
| "40" | |
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"40"[1] is the tenth and final track from U2's 1983 album, War.
Recording
The song was recorded right at the end of the recording sessions for War. Bassist Adam Clayton had already left the studio, and the three remaining band members decided they didn't have a good song to end the album.[2] Bono, The Edge, and Larry Mullen Jr. quickly recorded the song with The Edge playing both the electric and bass guitar. Bono called the song "40" as he based the lyrics on Psalm 40.
The first verse of the song is based on Psalm 40:1-2, and second verse of the song is based on Psalm 40:2-3. The chorus is loosely based on the first two verses of Psalm 40:3, which read "He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God..."
During a live performance on April 29, 1987, Bono joked: "We spent ten minutes writing this song, ten minutes recording it, ten minutes mixing it, ten minutes playing it back, and that's got nothing to do with why it's called '40'." [3]
Live performances
"40" debuted live on 26 February 1983 in Dundee as the final song of the show, and closed every single concert on 1983's War Tour. It became very popular as a concert closer, and between its debut and 10 January 1990, there were roughly only twenty tour concerts that did not feature "40" as the closing song. During live performances, Adam Clayton and The Edge would swap instruments so that Adam played guitar and Edge played bass, and the band members would progressively leave stage, with Bono the first to depart, then Clayton, then Edge, and finally, drummer Larry Mullen. The crowd would often continue to chant the refrain of "How long ... To sing this song?" even after the band has left the stage.
Between January 1990 and March 2005, full performances of "40" were extremely rare, though on 2001's Elevation Tour, it was regularly snippeted at the end of "Bad" before the song segued into "Where the Streets Have No Name". "40" made a return to the regular setlist in March 2005 on the Vertigo Tour and has closed many of the tour's shows: it closed most on the first leg, three on the second, rotated with other songs (mainly "Bad") for closing duties on the third leg, made only a few appearances on the fourth leg, and was snippeted a few times rather than being played in full on the fifth leg. It is U2's fourteenth most performed live song,[4] or tenth most performed if snippets are included in its total.[5]
Single track listing
- "'40' (How Long)" (Album Version) – 2:35
- "Two Hearts Beat As One" (Album Version) – 4:02
This is the only known single release, distributed only in Germany. The song was titled "'40' (How Long)" for this release.
Cover versions
- Filipino rock group Rivermaya samples the chorus of "40" near the end of their song "Revolution".
- The song was also covered by Starfeild in 2004
Notes and references
- ^ the quotation marks are part of the song's title; title written as '40' when displayed within another quote
- ^ On the Edge Entertainment Weekly. Accessed January 4, 2007
- ^ "U2faqs.com - Songs / Lyrics FAQ". Retrieved 2006-12-09.
- ^ U2 songs sorted by number of live performances, excluding snippets
- ^ U2 songs sorted by number of live performances
External links
- Performance history of "40" at U2-Vertigo-Tour.com — Lists all concerts at which "40" is known to have been performed