page_title: The Unforgettable Fire
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: The Unforgettable Fire / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Martello Tower in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland. It was built in 1804-05 and later was converted to use as a private residence. See http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/niah/search.jsp?type=record&amp;county=WI&amp;regno=16301084 for more historical background. U2 singer Bono and his wife Ali Hewson lived in this tower during the 1980s and he wrote their 1984 song "Promenade" about it.
context_page_description: The Unforgettable Fire is the fourth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, and released on 1 October 1984 by Island Records. The band wanted to pursue a new musical direction following the harder-hitting rock of their previous album, War. As a result, they employed Eno and Lanois to produce and assist in their experimentation with a more ambient sound. The resulting change in direction was at the time the band's most dramatic. The album's title is a reference to "The Unforgettable Fire", an art exhibit about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
  Recording began in May 1984 at Slane Castle, where the band lived, wrote, and recorded to find new inspiration. The album was completed in August 1984 at Windmill Lane Studios. It features atmospheric sounds and lyrics that lead vocalist Bono describes as "sketches". "Pride" and "MLK" are lyrical tributes to Martin Luther King Jr.
  The Unforgettable Fire received generally favourable reviews from critics and produced the band's biggest hit at the time, "Pride", as well as the live favourite "Bad", a song about heroin addiction. A 25th anniversary edition of the album was released in October 2009.
context_section_description: U2 feared that following the overt rock of their 1983 album War and the War Tour, they were in danger of becoming another "shrill", "sloganeering arena-rock band". Following a show at Dublin's Phoenix Park Racecourse in August 1983, one of the final dates of the War Tour, lead vocalist Bono spoke in metaphors about the band breaking up and reforming with a different direction. In the 10th issue of U2 Magazine, released in February 1984, Bono hinted at radical changes on the next album saying that he could not "sleep at night with the thought of it all" and that they were "undertaking a real departure". As bassist Adam Clayton recalls, "We were looking for something that was a bit more serious, more arty."
  In late 1983, after completing the War Tour with shows in Japan, U2 rehearsed at Bono's seaside home in a Martello tower in Bray, County Wicklow. During this time, the songs "Pride (In the Name of Love)", "The Unforgettable Fire", and "A Sort of Homecoming" were initially composed.
  U2 had recorded their first three albums at Windmill Lane Studios but decided to find a new location for their next studio album. Clayton lamented the lack of a live room at Windmill Lane in which the band could play together, while the band's manager Paul McGuinness said the studio had barely enough space for people to work. McGuinness set to finding a new location and came up with Church Hall in Ranelagh, but he found it overpriced. The band's tour manager Dennis Sheehan also searched for suitable locations and found Slane Castle in County Meath. The building's owner, Lord Henry Mountcharles, offered to lease it to the group for less than half the cost of Church Hall, and also offered lodging and to feed the band and crew from the restaurant on-premises. The castle's Gothic ballroom, which was originally built for music and had a 30-foot high domed ceiling, also attracted the band, as they were looking to capture the natural acoustics of a room in their recordings.
  The band had recorded their first three studio albums with producer Steve Lillywhite, and rather than create the "son of War", they sought experimentation. Both Lillywhite and the group agreed that it was time for a change of producers and that they should not "repeat the same formula". For their next studio album, the band considered hiring Conny Plank, whose previous production credits included Can, Kraftwerk, and Ultravox. U2 also met with Roxy Music producer Rhett Davies, but Clayton said that it "didn't really go anywhere". They also considered Jimmy Iovine, who had produced their live album Under a Blood Red Sky the year prior, but they found their early musical ideas for the new album to be too "European" for an American producer. Iovine thought that he was in line for the job and went so far as to hold a meeting about recording logistics at Slane Castle with his engineer Shelly Yakus and engineer Randy Ezratty, whose mobile recording studio U2 would be using once again. However, at the last minute, McGuinness informed Ezratty that they would be proceeding with different producers.
  U2 instead had turned their attention to hiring musician/producer Brian Eno. Guitarist the Edge had long admired Eno's music, particularly his ambient and "weird works". The group were also fond of his collaborations with Talking Heads. However, Eno was hesitant to work with a rock band and when contacted by U2, he told them he was considering retiring from music production to become a video artist. Reluctantly, Eno agreed to meet with the band in Dublin and brought along his engineer Daniel Lanois with the intention of recommending he work with them instead; Lanois had his own ambitions of producing a rock band. When the band played Under a Blood Red Sky to Eno, his eyes "glazed over". The Edge said of him: "I think he was intimidated by the lack of irony in what we were doing. He'd come from Talking Heads, the Rhode Island School of Design, living in New York, and here was this Irish band hitting everything full on, completely earnest, hearts on sleeves, no irony at all." Eno also thought that
caption: The group wrote initial material for the album at Bono's home in a Martello tower in late 1983.
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