Looking at America and U2 through the Joshua Tree

This album will begin a love-hate feeling I had for this band for years. I’m sick of and don’t like the hits, but I love the album cuts, b-sides and imports. “War” is still my favorite album from beginning to end. 

The first released single was “With or Without You.” If you only knew “War,” and then heard this, you’d say, “what was this?” It’s moody and atmospheric. It’s not fast and jumpy. You can sway, but not dance. Yet it’s amazing. Then it got overplayed. If I never hear “Where the Streets have no Name” or “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” for the rest of my life, I’m fine with it. They are THE U2 songs that always get played. Radio and mainstream outlets have killed these songs. 

That’s fine because the rest of the album is better than those songs. 

“Bullet in the Blue Sky” is horror on record. You’ve got a drumming heartbeat lost in a guitar that slides and thunders. Bono howls and narrates through the haze and it all ends with a spoken line. Whew, what an experience. 

“Running to Stand Still” is lonely and sparse. “Trip Through Your Wires” has a harmonica groove going. I’m trying to learn it by playing by ear. 

I always liked “in Gods Country.” It’s like Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner. It’s a celebration. “Desert Rose...she is liberty...she calls like a siren” then we get to the chorus “where sleep comes like a drug...crooked crosses?” There is a break with deep minor guitar chords then an explosion of a solo. It’s a mix of mellow and introspection and exuberance. In the end, burned by the fire of love. It’s the dreams, the differences, the freedom with a cost. 

The band dislikes the song, but I always heard something in it that they never say they hear. 

“One Tree Hill” has a good bounce to it. 

Then the album closes with a quiet song. 

The album was a success for the band and brought them into the mainstream. One of the landmarks of the 1980s.