“Seconds” by U2

"Seconds" is the second track on War, U2's 1983 album, and it's a song about the bomb: nuclear weapons spreading into more and more hands, and how quickly everything could end. It's also a first for the band, because the Edge takes the opening two verses before Bono steps in, the earliest U2 song that Bono didn't sing on his own.

Steve Lillywhite produced it, and it moves on a nervy, funky groove from Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr., with the Edge's guitar chopping over the top and Kenny Fradley's trumpet in the mix. Then, a little past two minutes in, it stops for a short, eerie clip from the 1981 documentary Soldier Girls, which Bono was watching while he waited in the green room at Windmill Lane Studios and taped on the spot. The band heard it as chilling proof of soldiers drilling for an atomic blast.

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