“Beautiful Day” by U2

"Beautiful Day" opens All That You Can't Leave Behind, U2's tenth studio album, and went out as its lead single in October 2000, the sound of a band reaching back for its own early glow. They argued over the Edge's guitar tone, split on whether he should go back to the sound of their early-'80s records, and Bono's lyric is about losing everything and still finding joy in what's left.

Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois produced it, with Steve Lillywhite adding production and mixing. The Edge plays guitar, piano and keyboards and sings backing vocals with Lanois, Eno adds synthesizer and keyboards, Adam Clayton plays bass, Larry Mullen, Jr. handles drums and percussion, and Bono sings and picks up a guitar too. The result surges like a sunrise over a stadium.

It was a hit nearly everywhere: their 14th number one in Ireland, a chart-topper in the UK, Canada, Australia and six more countries, and number 21 on the Hot 100, their best there since "Discothèque" in 1997. It helped push the album to multi-platinum, and in 2001 it won three Grammys, among them Song of the Year and Record of the Year. Since its live debut on the Elevation Tour that year, U2 have played it at every show.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.