With or Without You - Writing and Recording

Writing and Recording

In late 1985, U2 convened at a house that drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. bought to review material the group had written during The Unforgettable Fire Tour. During this time, a rough demo of "With or Without You" was written, with lead vocalist Bono composing the song's chord sequence. The band continued to work on the song at STS Studios, creating many permutations of the track, but not making any progress. Guitarist The Edge considered the song at that point to be "awful". The track consisted of a Yamaha drum machine beat and a bass part played by bassist Adam Clayton using an Ibanez bass guitar with a short scale. According to Clayton, these early versions of the song sounded too sentimental and "very traditional because the chords just went round and round and round".

The sessions for The Joshua Tree started in earnest in 1986, and U2 were recording at the Georgian mansion Danesmoate House in Dublin in August. The group attempted to take the song in a different direction, although Bono was reluctant. Under the direction of co-producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, The Edge pursued more ambient guitar playing, Clayton turned up the volume on his bass, and Mullen experimented with an electronically enhanced drum kit. Despite the work they continued to put into the track, the group considered abandoning the song, as they could not find an arrangement they liked.

Bono and his friend Gavin Friday continued to work on the song after Lanois and Eno declined to do so. Bono credits Friday with rescuing the song and rearranging it, believing it could be a hit. Eno added a keyboard arpeggio, similar to the one from "Bad". The song's fate was still in doubt when The Edge was sent a prototype of the Infinite Guitar by Canadian musician Michael Brook, with whom he had collaborated for the Captive soundtrack. The instrument allowed sustained notes to be played, producing "a similar effect to the E-Bow", but with the ability to provide all the "mid-points between no sustain and infinite sustain" that the E-Bow cannot provide. The prototype included elaborate assembly instructions and as The Edge recollects, "one wrongly placed wire and you could get a nasty belt of electricity. This piece of gear would have failed even the most basic of safety regulations." On subsequent tours, his guitar technician occasionally received electric shocks from the instrument when preparing it for performances.

Listening to the backing track to "With or Without You" in the control room, Bono and Friday heard the sustained effect that The Edge was creating with the Infinite Guitar in the other room. The combination of the guitar and the backing track being played together impressed those listening. According to Lanois, "I said, 'That sounded pretty cool,' so we listened back and I said, 'Jesus it's better than I thought.'" The Edge immediately recorded an Infinite Guitar part in two takes. The band considers the song's recording to be one of the album sessions' breakthrough moments, as it was recorded amidst concerns that they had run out of ideas.

Bono wrote the lyrics while struggling to reconcile his responsibilities as both a married man and a musician. His wanderlust in belonging to a musical act was often at odds with his domestic life. While writing the lyrics, he realized that neither facet of his life defined him, but rather the tension between the two did. He explains that the final lyric is about "torment" and how repressing desires only makes them stronger.