U2 announce album of “reimagined and re-recorded” tracks, ‘Songs Of Surrender’

10 January, 2023

U2 Bono

U2 have announced a new compilation album of “reimagined and re-recorded” tracks, called ‘Songs Of Surrender’.

The announcement follows fans being sent letters from the band’s guitarist The Edge teasing the new project.

In the letters, the musician told fans: “When a song becomes well known, it’s always associated with a particular voice. I can’t imagine ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ without the reedy timbre of Bob Dylan or ‘All The Time In The World’ without the unique voice of Louis Armstrong. So what happens when a voice develops and experience and maturity give it additional resonance?”

The Edge continued to explain that most of U2’s work “was written and recorded when we were a bunch of very young men” and that the songs had changed over the years to “mean something quite different to us now”. “Some have grown with us,” he wrote. “Some we have outgrown, but we have not lost sight of what propelled us to write those songs in the first place. The essence of those songs is still in us. But how to reconnect with that essence when we have moved on and grown so much?”

He added that the band had imagined bringing their old songs into the present day and giving them “a 21st-century reimagining”. “Once we surrendered our reverence for the original version, each song started to open up to a new authentic voice of this time, of the people we are now, and particularly the singer that Bono has become,” he wrote. “I hope you like our new direction.”

The band have now confirmed the new record, ‘Songs Of Surrender’, in a post on their social media accounts. It will feature 40 songs from across their career “reimagined and re-recorded” and will be released on March 17, 2023. An accompanying teaser video has also been released, soundtracked by a new version of their 2000 hit single ‘Beautiful Day’. Watch it below now.

Although a tracklist is yet to be confirmed, the songs U2 have re-recorded could be the same as the tracks included in Bono’s 2022 book Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. The memoir explored the origins of 40 key songs from the band’s discography.

The frontman is also set to embark on a residency at New York’s Beacon Theatre this spring in support of Surrender and described as evenings of “words, music and some mischief”. He previously held a 14-city book tour across the UK, Europe and Ireland.

In a four-star review of the Irish rock star’s London date, NME described how Bono recalled important moments throughout his life, combining music and storytelling. “Bono then depicts the heartbreaking scene when his father tells him he has cancer, before the narrative switches to the U2 frontman reliving his dad’s final moments,” the review read.

“It brings on a powerful, piano-driven snippet of ‘Beautiful Day’, which sees Bono impressively trading vocals with harpist/keyboardist Gemma Doherty before he finishes with an emotive take on the operatic 1894 Italian song ‘Torna a Surriento’ as a final tribute to his late father. It’s a stirring end to ‘Stories Of Surrender’, closing the book on this fascinating insight into both Bono’s memoir and mind.”

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