Mothers of The Disappeared - Composition and Theme

Composition and Theme

"There was a love/hate relationship with America. A lot of that album reflected Bono's feelings coming back from El Salvador and the Conspiracy of Hope tour and seeing the brutal face of US foreign policy."

"Mothers of the Disappeared" runs for 5:14 (5 minutes, 14 seconds). It is played in common time in a key of A. The song begins with the sound of rain hitting a roof, which fades in over the first fourteen seconds alongside the bass and a processed drum loop beat by Mullen which reverberates in the background. Thirty-two seconds into the song, Mullen's drums enter, playing a sporadic beat every four to five seconds. At the fifty-second mark the drums play a more regular beat, and The Edge's guitar, accompanied by Eno's synthesizer, enters. The first verse begins at 1:28, and introduces the chord progression of A₅–E₅–F♯m–D–A₅, which is played in the verses. At 2:41 Eno's keyboards enter, and the song begins to follow a D–D₅–A₅ chord progression, while Bono begins falsetto vocals. The second verse then begins at 3:01. The lyrics end at 3:37, and the song returns to the chord progression of D–D₅–A₅. The harmony gradually grows in volume until 4:33, at which point the song enters into a coda; the keyboards come to a finish and the guitar returns to playing A notes before fading over the next eight seconds alongside the bass. The synthesizer, drums, and drum loop conclude the song, fading out slowly over the last thirty-one seconds.

Eno used a piano as a percussive instrument and mixed the result with the drum loop through a PCM70 effects unit to create a sound that bassist Adam Clayton called "eerie and foreign and scary". Lanois stated that the processing of Mullen's beat, which resulted in a drone-like sound, became the song's backbone and personality. Clayton described it as "evocative of that sinister death squad darkness". Colm O'Hare of Hot Press felt it was "the key sonic element" because it " an abstract sense of evil and dread".

In December 1986, Bono stated that he had a love–hate relationship with America, and that this influenced his work on the album. Speaking of his encounter with COMADRES in El Salvador and their impact on the song, he said, "There's no question in my mind of the Reagan Administration's involvement in backing the regime that is committing these atrocities. I doubt if the people of America are even aware of this. It's not my position to lecture them or tell them their place or to even open their eyes up to it in a very visual way, but it is affecting me and it affects the words I write and the music we make." In 2007, Clayton noted "We were looking at this America through a European lens, at a time when Britain was under Margaret Thatcher who was breaking the miners.... So we were singing from the same hymn sheet as The Clash but with our spotlight focused on injustice inside and outside America." He said "'Mothers of the Disappeared' was not just a reflection on what had happened under the military government in Chile but also at the US which had supported that government", and described Bono's vocals as "prehistoric", saying "it connects with something very primitive."

Greg Garrett, an English professor at Baylor University, saw the song as an effort to " to growing interests in doing justice—and calling to attention American failures in that regard", noting that the regimes in South America had been supported by the United States because of their anti-communist positions, even though their tactics were in opposition to the democratic values that "America claims to champion around the world". Lisa Hand of the Sunday Independent noted the influence of America on the track, remarking, " does not confine itself simply to the music, but also extends to some of the lyrics. However, far from being a tribute to the star-spangled banner, the words highlight the political untruths and ambiguities which exist within the U.S. 'Mothers of the Disappeared' and 'Bullet the Blue Sky' both take a hard look at the American involvement in South America". Richard Harrington of The Washington Post described the song as "a simple lament of great beauty and sadness pleading for the realization that ideological battles about right and left obscure the more important issue of right and wrong." Author David Kootnikoff described it as a " of the American Dream gone rancid".