Happy Birthday One! The famous U2 song turns 30

It is one of the most loved songs of all time. One of U2 turns 30. A masterpiece that needs no introduction.

He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him

It was February 24, 1992 when one of the iconic songs of the Irish band was born. It was the third song from an equally well-known album, the seventh of the studio band: Achtung Baby. Album placed 62nd among the 500 best albums ever by Rolling Stone magazine.

For Sony, One ranks fifth among the most popular songs ever. Q Magazine placed it in first place, while Rolling Stone placed it in 36th place.

Index

The origins of One

One was born in a difficult time for the band. U2 were going through a period of crisis, they were close to the artistic break but the song managed to bring Bono, Adam, Larry and Edge closer together, as told by the same band in the documentary From the sky down:

Written between Berlin and Dublin, the album is considered by many to be the band's absolute masterpiece alongside The Joshua Tree but marks a turning point in their genre. The electronics make their entrance and Edge's guitar finds more and more space, marking most of the pieces.

The meaning of One

One is among them. A few seconds and anyone will know what song it is. For a long time the meaning of the song has been debated. The most obvious is that of a romantic ballad, in which the difficult separation between two lovers is told but there are many possible interpretations, demonstrating that the message that U2 wanted to launch was truly universal.

One knows how to tell several stories at the same time, that of a father and a son with HIV, the end of a love, like the one between The Edge and his first wife Aislinn, but also the conflictual relationship between Bono and his father Bob, after the untimely death of his mother Iris. In full U2 style, One could also tell the troubled love story between East and West Berlin, shortly after the fall of the wall and the reunification of the city.

Even if it tells of a separation, One is the opposite. It is a hymn to union, spiritual and physical, to love understood as a "higher law", as a "temple". And in the name of this union one cannot cling to pain but try to live under the banner of sharing, overcoming every division: “One life, with each other, sisters, brothers”.

The videos

There are three videos shot to promote the single and each of them gives its own interpretation to the song right from the title. The first was shot in Berlin by Anton Corbijn. It tells of a son, Bono, who confesses to his father that he was infected with HIV and that he is gay. The second video opens on a floral panorama with buffaloes, on which stands a shower of papers with the word One written above in different languages. The third, the most famous, shows Bono sitting in a bar, while he drinks beer and smokes a cigar.

There have been many interpretations, covers and duets by Bono himself with other artists:

A song that we will never stop listening to and that always gives us new meanings.