U2 News and Discussion

It’s March 10th and this is the first in an occasional series about songs that U2 have revisited, live or in the studio, years after their initial release.

In 1996, with Pop still in utero, Bono and Adam took time out to rework “The Yellow Bittern” for the upcoming compilation Common Ground. The collection would feature traditional Irish songs reinterpreted by modern artists of Irish descent, among them Sinéad O’Connor, Elvis Costello and Kate Bush.

How much work Bono and Adam completed on “The Yellow Bittern” isn’t clear, but at some point they seem to have realized they weren’t going to have a satisfactory track by the deadline. They shifted gears, opting to revisit one of their own songs from years ago instead.

Calling “Tomorrow” a “traditional Irish song” is a stretch — but only just. Composed in 1981 during the notoriously turbulent October sessions, the original recording of “Tomorrow” begins as a slow wave of a song dominated by Uillean pipes, one of Ireland’s signature natives. The pipes mingle with guitars once Edge and Larry spike the tempo near the end, blending traditional and nascent styles in a hallucinatory fever that foreshadows “Silver and Gold.”

“Tomorrow” also finds traditional Irish roots in its pervading sadness, a quality that Bono has said is what makes Irish music special. “It’s very moving, it’s that bittersweetness,” he told the Evening Herald last month. “Irish music has that sadness in it even at its most happy.”

Composed with the Troubles in mind, the lyrics convey that paralyzing fear not so much of opening the door as of inviting in the violence waiting outside. However, as Bono would recognize in time, they also describe his experiences at his mother’s funeral.

“These things that happen to you in your life, if you don’t deal with them properly at the time they do have a way of surfacing, Bono says in U2 by U2. “They find holes.”

That he and Adam thought of “Tomorrow” again in 1996 may have been inspired by the unconscious, but there’s no doubting that their decision to actually redo it was deliberate. You have to have enough stomach to relive a song of this emotional caliber.

Later called “Tomorrow (Common Ground Remix)” on the 2008 deluxe re-release of October, “Tomorrow ’96″ (video above) covers the same events of the original, but with a much different spirit. With Edge and Larry absent, “Tomorrow ’96″ maintains a pace a few clicks slower than the ’81 version. Intermittent phrases from a bodhran, button accordian and fiddle accompany programmed beats that ooze with a distinct, mid-nineties hipness. Adam’s contribution, as on October, is both subtle and guiding, and Bono’s cigarette-addled performance echoes “North and South of the River” in its pining intensity.

It’s in this delivery, though, that you can tell something has changed. “Tomorrow” isn’t the song it used to be. In 1981, Bono thought he was singing about sectarian violence. In 1996, he sees that, while that’s still one part of the story, memories from his mother’s funeral have given the song another layer. He used to be able to wonder, “Will you be back tomorrow?” At the time of the re-recording, he recognizes the answer is “no.”

And because Bono realizes this, his ’96 performance, while faithful to the original, aches with an air of frustrated resignation. A few lines he uses as punching bags, as when he stretches and twists “I’m going outside” so hard it overwhelms the rest of the mix. But then on a line like “Who heals the wounds?” Bono lets his voice fall off, leaving us to bear the words’ full weight. (He uses this same tactic when talking about a character’s midlife crisis on “New York.”)

For whatever reason Bono and Adam chose to revisit “Tomorrow,” they picked it, if not at the right time, then at least at a ripe one. During the Pop sessions, U2 had been dealing with album deadlines, touring concerns and creative tensions, all of which put them in a bind not unlike the one they’d encountered in making October.

And maybe by coincidence but more likely not, “Mofo” was one of the songs U2 had been working on at the time of the Common Ground invitation. Although several genres over from “Tomorrow,” “Mofo” follows up the October lyric “Will you be back tomorrow?” with a new question: “Mother, am I still your son? / You know I’ve waited for so long to hear you say so.”

Tough territory for a pair of pop songs, Bono might say. Which makes revisiting one of them all the more difficult.

Again in U2 by U2, Bono says, “I’m looking forward to meeting my mother. I’m fully expecting to, in the proper place and time. I hope I have a backstage pass.”