"Peace on Earth" is a song by
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
U2 and the eighth track on their 2000 album ''
All That You Can't Leave Behind
''All That You Can't Leave Behind'' is the tenth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, and was released on 30October 2000 through Island Records and Interscope Records. Following the band's experime ...
''. Its lyrics were inspired by the
Omagh bombing in
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
on 15 August 1998.
The song lists the names of people killed in the bombing. Similarly, inspiration for the lyric, "She never got to say goodbye / To see the colour in his eyes / Now he's in the dirt" comes from the funeral of James Barker, another victim of the bombing. ''
The Irish Times
''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
'' quoted his mother as stating, "I never realised how green his eyes were."
After the
September 11, 2001 attacks, "Peace on Earth" took on additional meaning and consequently was used as an encore song during the band's
Elevation Tour
The Elevation Tour was a worldwide concert tour by Irish rock band U2. Staged in support of the group's 2000 album ''All That You Can't Leave Behind'', the tour visited arenas across North America and Europe in 2001. Contrasting with the extrav ...
, coupled with "
Walk On". The two songs were similarly paired during the band's performance on the telethon ''
America: A Tribute to Heroes''.
Writing and recording
"Peace on Earth" was written in response to the
Omagh bombing of 15 August 1998, the same day that it occurred. The attack, which was committed by the paramilitary group the
Real Irish Republican Army
The Real Irish Republican Army, or Real IRA (RIRA), is a dissident Irish republican paramilitary group that aims to bring about a United Ireland. It formed in 1997 following a split in the Provisional IRA by dissident members, who rejected the ...
, killed 29 people. Lead singer
Bono was dismayed by the event, calling it "the lowest day of my life, outside of personal losses".
[Stokes (2005), pp. 156–157] Earlier that May, U2 had performed at a Yes Campaign event supporting the
Good Friday Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in No ...
to end the violence of
the Troubles
The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an " ...
; the agreement was approved three days later. Bono feared the bombing would be the end of the
Northern Ireland peace process
The Northern Ireland peace process includes the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, the end of most of the violence of the Troubles, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and subsequent political developm ...
. During the holiday season that year, he felt that: "the whole 'peace on earth, goodwill to all men' struck a sour note. It was hard to be a believer that Christmas."
Guitarist
the Edge
David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), better known as the Edge or simply Edge,McCormick (2006), pp. 21, 23–24 is an English-born Irish musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as the lead guitarist, keyboardist, and backing voca ...
said that "Peace on Earth" came together rather quickly, as he had pre-written the music and then Bono developed his vocal part at the microphone.
[McCormick (2006), pp. 299–300] The Edge used a
DigiTech Whammy
The DigiTech Whammy is a pitch shifter pedal manufactured by DigiTech. It was the first widely used effects pedal that could do foot-controlled pitch shifting effects. The pedal emulates sounds that a guitarist normally makes using the vibrato ...
effect pedal on the song to create "this bizarre, atmospheric, almost Chinese-sounding" guitar tone. He described the part as a "5th below and a 4th above". Throughout the songwriting process, the Edge was sceptical of a lyric in the song ("I'm sick of hearing again and again that there's gonna be peace on earth"), believing it to be too cynical and that the line should have been changed to "that there's never gonna be peace on earth".
The song was one of the hardest for U2 to finish on ''
All That You Can't Leave Behind
''All That You Can't Leave Behind'' is the tenth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, and was released on 30October 2000 through Island Records and Interscope Records. Following the band's experime ...
''. Co-producer
Brian Eno contributed heavily to shaping the song but was absent at the end of the album's recording sessions, having become burned out by the creative process. As a result, the band employed producer
Mike Hedges to assist with the song's completion. The vocals for "Peace on Earth" were the final ones recorded on the night before the band's deadline to deliver the album to the record company.
Personnel
* Bono - vocals,
acoustic guitar
* The Edge -
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
* Adam Clayton -
bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...
* Larry Mullen Jr. -
drums,
percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...
* Brian Eno -
synthesizers
Live performances
The band performed the song most notably during the
Elevation Tour
The Elevation Tour was a worldwide concert tour by Irish rock band U2. Staged in support of the group's 2000 album ''All That You Can't Leave Behind'', the tour visited arenas across North America and Europe in 2001. Contrasting with the extrav ...
in 2001, using it along with "
Walk On" as an encore. On 21 September 2001 U2 performed a few verses of "Peace on Earth" along with "Walk On" in London, England, for the simulcast telethon ''
America: A Tribute to Heroes''.
[de la Parra (2003), p. 258] The telethon was produced to raise money for victims of the
September 11 terrorist attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...
.
During that performance, Bono replaced the original "I'm sick of hearing again and again that there's gonna be peace on Earth" with "I'm sick of hearing again and again that there's never gonna be peace on Earth."
Reception
Irish journalist
Niall Stokes calls "Peace on Earth" the band's most "
agnostic song yet", saying that it "takes that sense of abandonment" felt in "
Wake Up Dead Man" "a stage further".
Bill Graham echoes this view asking if this is "'Wake Up Dead Man' part two?".
[Graham, Oosten de Boer (2004), p. 73] Exclaiming that, "Bono does little to hide the bitterness as he spits out the words "peace on earth".
Critics have also compared and contrasted the song with the band's earlier single "
Sunday Bloody Sunday
"Sunday Bloody Sunday" is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the opening track from their 1983 album ''War'' and was released as the album's third single on 21 March 1983 in the Netherlands and West Germany. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is noted ...
". Višnja Cogan writes the "two songs deal with the same subject: the conflict and violence in
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
, whichever side it comes from. However, 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' deals with an historical event and is approached in a particular way: the ideas of surrender, forgiveness and neutrality are very much present. "Peace on Earth" was written in the aftermath of Omagh and is much more emotional." Ryan Jones of the ''Bergen Record'' felt that "Peace on Earth" contained echoes of the band's 1987 song "
Mothers of the Disappeared" in its lyrics and the tone of the instrumental prelude.
After the September 11 attacks, "Peace on Earth" gained widespread popularity in the United States. For instance, a
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
radio station began playing the song immediately afterwards and it soon became one of their most requested songs.
[Bordowitz & Swenson (2003), p. 130] It subsequently became highly requested on different radio stations in other American cities as well.
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
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External links
"Peace on Earth" lyricsat U2.com
{{Authority control
U2 songs
Peace songs
Anti-war songs
Song recordings produced by Brian Eno
2000 songs
Songs written by Bono
Songs written by the Edge
Songs written by Adam Clayton
Songs written by Larry Mullen Jr.
Song recordings produced by Daniel Lanois
Songs about The Troubles (Northern Ireland)
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