The Joshua Tree
After the first month or so of working on the album, Bono traveled to El Salvador where he met the 'madres'. These were women whose children had been imprisoned or murdered by the military regime in the country, but who continued to campaign for information about them. Bono's experiences there provided the inspiration for Mothers Of The Disappeared and also Bullet The Blue Sky. The music for 'Bullet' came from a jam session with Edge, Adam and Larry, and when Bono returned from his trip, the aggressive nature of the piece was exactly what he was looking for to go with his newly written lyrics about what he had seen. Since the Conspiracy of Hope tour in 1986, U2 had been strong supporters of Amnesty International who are heavily involved in working to free political prisoners. The Joshua Tree tour programme was the first to carry an article on the work of Amnesty, and an invitation from the band to join.
The last three songs on the album form what Edge has called a 'suite about death'. One Tree Hill was written about Greg Carroll who had been a member of U2's tour crew for 2 years when he was killed in a motorcycle accident in Dublin in 1986. The band had first met him on a hill outside Auckland, New Zealand which was known as One Tree Hill. On its release, Bono actually dedicated The Joshua Tree to Greg's memory. Sadly the tree on this particular hill has since been the victim of several acts of vandalism. The second part of this 'suite' is Exit, which had a working title of The Executioner's Song. A dark and intense piece, it was cited in the trial of John Robert Bardo who was accused of murdering a young TV actress named Rebecca Schaeffer in July 1989. He blamed the song (unsuccessfully) for driving him to commit the murder. Bono's reaction to this was to suggest that it sounded like a clever lawyer trying to create a novel defence. The 'suite' and the album finish with 'Mothers', a haunting piece about the madres Bono had met in El Salvador.
FromThree Chords and the Truth
Released March 1987.
Tracks on the album include:
- WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME
- I STILL HAVEN'T FOUND WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR
- BULLET THE BLUE SKY
- RUNNING TO STAND STILL
- RED HILL MINING TOWN
- IN GOD'S COUNTRY
- THRIP THGOUH YOUR WIRES
- ONE TREE HILL
- EXIT
- MOTHERS OF THE DISAPPEARED
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