The Joshua Tree – 1987
The Joshua Tree is the fifth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 9 March 1987 on Island Records. In contrast to the ambient experimentation of their 1984 release The Unforgettable Fire, the band aimed for a harder-hitting sound within the limitation of conventional song structures on The Joshua Tree. The album is influenced by American and Irish roots music, and depicts the band’s love–hate relationship with the United States, using socially and politically conscious lyrics embellished with spiritual imagery.
Inspired by American tour experiences, literature, and politics, U2 chose America as a theme for the record. Recording began in January 1986 in Ireland, and to foster a relaxed, creative atmosphere, the group recorded in two houses, in addition to two professional studios. Several events during the sessions helped shape the conscious tone of the album, including the band’s participation in A Conspiracy of Hope tour, the death of roadie Greg Carroll, and lead vocalist Bono’s travels to Central America. Recording was completed in November 1986; additional production continued into January 1987. Throughout the sessions, U2 sought a “cinematic” quality for the record, one that would evoke a sense of location, in particular, the open spaces of America. They represented this in the sleeve photography depicting them in American desert landscapes.
The Joshua Tree received critical acclaim, topped the charts in over 20 countries, and sold in record-breaking numbers in the UK. According to Rolling Stone, the album increased the band’s stature “from heroes to superstars”. It produced the hit singles “With or Without You”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, and “Where the Streets Have No Name”, the first two of which became the group’s only number-one singles in the US. The album won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1988. The group supported the record with the Joshua Tree Tour throughout 1987. Frequently featured on critics’ lists of the greatest records, The Joshua Tree is one of the world’s best-selling albums, with over 25 million copies sold. U2 released a remastered edition of the record in 2007 to commemorate its 20th anniversary. In 2014, it was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the US Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry.
Based on their success with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois on The Unforgettable Fire, U2 wanted the duo to produce their new album. Mullen was excited about working with them again, as he felt the pair, Lanois in particular, were the band’s first producers who “really took an interest in the rhythm section”. Mark “Flood” Ellis was engineer for the sessions, marking the first time he worked with U2. The band were impressed by his work with Nick Cave, and Bono’s friend Gavin Friday recommended Flood based on their work experiences together when Friday was a member of the Virgin Prunes. The band asked Flood for a sound that was “very open… ambient… with a real sense of space of the environment you were in”, which he thought was a very unusual request at that time.
Intending to release an album in late 1986, U2 set up a studio in January of that year in Danesmoate House, a Georgian house in Rathfarnham in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains. Their plan was to find inspiration from the recording space and use it to musically create atmosphere, much like they did with Slane Castle for The Unforgettable Fire sessions in 1984. A makeshift control room with tape machines, a mixing desk, and other outboard equipment was set up in the dining room, with the adjacent drawing room used for recording and performing. The large doors separating the rooms were replaced with a glass screen, and to maintain a relaxed “non-studio” atmosphere for the sessions, the control room was dubbed the “lyric room” and the recording space was called the “band room”. The band found the house to have a very creative atmosphere. The large drawing room, with a tall ceiling and wooden floors, created an “ear-splitting” drum sound that, while difficult to work with, produced takes that ended up on the finished album. Lanois said that it “was loud, but it was really good loud, real dense, very musical. In my opinion it was the most rock and roll room of the lot.” He thought the room sounded better than Slane Castle, and he was particularly impressed with the room’s “low mid-range … where the music lives”, a property that he believes was a major factor in the success of The Joshua Tree.
U2 began with their usual method of sorting through tapes from soundcheck jams, working through Bono’s lyric book, and recording jam sessions. One aspect of their recording methods changed after The Unforgettable Fire sessions; rather than recording each instrument separately and layering the U2’s songwriting methods were also developing; not all material was being worked out in band sessions, rather Bono and The Edge often brought basic song ideas to the rest of the group. Eno and Lanois intentionally worked with the band at alternate times—one producer for a week or two, followed by the other. Eno and Lanois encouraged an interest in older songs, especially American roots music. More contemporary references included the textural guitar work of The Smiths and My Bloody Valentine. The band’s musical vocabulary improved after their previous album, facilitating communication and collaboration with the production team. One of the first songs worked on was “Heartland”, which originated during The Unforgettable Fire sessions and was later released on the band’s 1988 album Rattle and Hum. Supplementary recording sessions at STS Studios in Dublin with producer Paul Barrett saw the development of “With or Without You” and the genesis of “Bullet the Blue Sky”. The arrangements for “With or Without You” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” were completed early in the Danesmoate sessions, giving the band the confidence to experiment.
U2 interrupted the sessions to join Amnesty International’s A Conspiracy of Hope tour of benefit concerts in June 1986. Rather than distract the band, the tour added extra intensity and power to their new music and provided extra focus on what they wanted to say. For bassist Adam Clayton, the tour validated the “rawness of content” and their attempts to capture the “bleakness and greed of America under Ronald Reagan”. In July, Bono travelled with his wife Ali to Nicaragua and El Salvador and saw firsthand the distress of peasants bullied by political conflicts and US military intervention, experiences which formed the basis of the lyrics for “Bullet the Blue Sky” and “Mothers of the Disappeared”. The group experienced a tragedy later that month when Bono’s personal assistant and roadie Greg Carroll was killed in a motorcycle accident in Dublin. The 26-year-old’s death overwhelmed the U2 organisation, and the band travelled to his native New Zealand to attend his traditional Māori funeral; an experience that inspired the lyrics to “One Tree Hill”.
On 1 August 1986, U2 regrouped at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin to resume work on the album.
After completing The Joshua Tree, Bono said that he was “as pleased with the record as I can ever be pleased with a record”. Although he was “very rarely pleased” with how their previous albums turned out, he thought that The Joshua Tree was their most complete record since their first. Clayton bought Danesmoate House in 1987, and it remains his Dublin home.
Track listing
All lyrics written by Bono, all music composed by U2.
No. Title Length
1. “Where the Streets Have No Name” 5:38
2. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” 4:38
3. “With or Without You” 4:56
4. “Bullet the Blue Sky” 4:32
5. “Running to Stand Still” 4:18
6. “Red Hill Mining Town” 4:54
7. “In God’s Country” 2:57
8. “Trip Through Your Wires” 3:33
9. “One Tree Hill” 5:23
10. “Exit” 4:13
11. “Mothers of the Disappeared” 5:12
Total length:
50:11
Personnel
U2
Bono – lead vocals, harmonica, guitars
The Edge – guitars, backing vocals, piano
Adam Clayton – bass guitar
Larry Mullen Jr. – drums, percussion
Additional performers
Brian Eno – keyboards, DX7 programming, backing vocals
Daniel Lanois – tambourine, Omnichord, additional guitar, backing vocals
The Armin Family – strings (track 9)
The Arklow Silver Band – brass (track 6)
Technical
Production – Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno
Recording – Flood
Additional engineering – Dave Meegan with Pat McCarthy
Mixing – Steve Lillywhite (tracks 1, 3, 4, and 6)
Mix engineering – Mark Wallis
Mix engineering assistance – Mary Kettle
Studio crew – Joe O’Herlihy, Des Broadberry, Tom Mullally, Tim Buckley, Marc Coleman, Mary Gough, Marion Smyth
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