Mothers of The Disappeared - Inspiration, Writing, and Recording

Inspiration, Writing, and Recording

Recording sessions for The Joshua Tree began in January 1986 in Danesmoate House in Dublin, Ireland, and continued throughout the year. U2 briefly interrupted these sessions in June to join Amnesty International's A Conspiracy of Hope tour. Following the first concert in San Francisco, lead singer Bono met René Castro, a Chilean mural artist. Castro had been tortured and held in a concentration camp for two years by the dictatorial Chilean government because his artwork criticised the Pinochet-led regime that seized power in 1973 during a coup d'état. Castro showed Bono a wall painting in the Mission District that depicted the ongoing plight in Chile and Argentina. He also learned of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, a group of women whose children were forcibly disappeared by the Argentinian government. The Madres' children were students who had opposed the government during the Dirty War, and the coup d'état that brought Jorge Rafael Videla into power. The Madres joined together to campaign for information regarding the locations of their children's bodies and the circumstances of their deaths, believing them to have been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered.

Inspired by the mural, Bono took an extended break from recording into July, travelling to Nicaragua and El Salvador with his wife, Alison Hewson, to see firsthand the distress of peasants bullied by political conflicts and US military intervention. While there, they worked with the Central American Mission Partners (CAMP), a human rights and economic development organization. In El Salvador they met members of the Comité de Madres Monsignor Romero (COMADRES: Committee of the Mothers Monsignor Romero), an organization of women whose children were forcibly disappeared by the El Salvadoran government during the Salvadoran Civil War because they opposed the military regime that was in power. At one point during the trip, Bono, Alison, and a member of CAMP were shot at by government troops while on their way to deliver aid to a group of farmers. The shots were a warning and, according to author John Luerssen, the incident made Bono realize that "they didn't care for their intrusion and they could kill them if they felt compelled."

In 2006, Bono recounted another experience he had in El Salvador, where he had seen a body thrown from a van into the road. He remarked, "People would just disappear. If you were part of the opposition, you might find an SUV with the windows blacked out parked outside your house.... If that didn't stop you, occasionally they would come in and take you and murder you; there would be no trial." Bono understood the cause of the Madres and COMADRES and wanted to pay tribute to it. His experiences in Central America inspired the lyrics of "Mothers of the Disappeared" and another track from The Joshua Tree, "Bullet the Blue Sky".

"I remember, when we were finishing 'Mothers of the Disappeared', losing his mind and performing at the mixing desk like he was Mozart at the piano, head blown back in an imaginary breeze, and it was pouring down with rain outside the studio and I was singing about how 'in the rain we see their tears,' the tears of those who have been disappeared. And when you listen to that mix you can actually hear the rain outside. It was magical really..."

"Mothers of the Disappeared" was created and mixed at guitarist The Edge's newly-bought home, Melbeach, which U2 used as a recording studio. Bono wrote the song on his mother-in-law's Spanish guitar, and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. created a drum loop that was sampled by producer Brian Eno. The melody came from a song that Bono wrote in Ethiopia in 1985 to teach children about basic methods of hygiene. Producer Daniel Lanois was the principal mixer of the song. Bono, likening the studio itself to an instrument, described Lanois's mix as a "performance".

At the conclusion of the lyrics sheet for the song in the liner notes of The Joshua Tree, U2 listed addresses for several branches of Amnesty International, and proceeds from the song were donated to the organization. In 1998, Bono re-recorded the song a cappella in English and Spanish for the album ¡Ni Un Paso Atras! (English: Not One Step Back!), along with a recitation of the William Butler Yeats poem "Mother of God". The album was created by the Madres in commemoration of the disappearance of their children. The tracks were also recorded for the 1999 film 20 Años... 20 Poemas... 20 Artistas (20 Years... 20 Poems... 20 Artists).