Rattle and Hum



Rattle and Hum is the sixth studio album by Irish rock band U2, and a companion rockumentary film directed by Phil Joanou, both released in 1988. The film and the album feature live recordings, covers, and new songs. To a greater extent than on their previous album, The Joshua Tree, the band explores American roots music and incorporates elements of blues rock, folk rock, and gospel music in their sound. The motion picture was filmed primarily in the United States in late 1987 during The Joshua Tree Tour and it features their experiences with American music.

Although Rattle and Hum was intended to represent the band paying tribute to rock legends, some critics accused U2 of trying to place themselves amongst the ranks of these artists. While critical reception was mixed, the album was a commercial success, reaching the number one spot in several countries and selling 14 million copies.

History
While in Hartford during the 1987 The Joshua Tree Tour, U2 met film director Phil Joanou who made an unsolicited pitch to the band to make a feature-length documentary about the tour. Joanou suggested they hire Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, or George Miller to direct the film. Joanou met the band again in Dublin to discuss the plans and again in France in September before the band chose him as director. The movie was originally titled U2 in the Americas and the band planned to film in Chicago and Buenos Aires later in the year. It was later decided that the Chicago venue wasn't suitable, and instead U2 used the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver to film. Following the success of Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky, which had been filmed in Denver four years earlier, the band hoped that "lightning might strike twice". With production problems and estimated costs of $1.2 million the band cancelled the plans for December concerts in South America. At the suggestions of concert promoter, Barry Fey, the band instead booked the Sun Devil Stadium in Arizona.

The movie is a rockumentary, which was initially financed by the band and intended to be screened in a small number of cinemas as an independent film. After going over budget, the film was bought by Paramount Pictures and released in theatres in 1988, before arriving on video in 1989. It was produced by Michael Hamlyn and directed by Phil Joanou. Paul Wasserman served as the publicist. It incorporates live footage with studio outtakes and band interviews. The album is a mix of live material and new studio recordings that furthers the band's experimentation with American music styles and recognises many of their musical influences. It was produced by Jimmy Iovine and also released in 1988.

The title, Rattle and Hum, is taken from a lyric from "Bullet the Blue Sky", the fourth track on The Joshua Tree. The image used for the album cover and movie poster, depicting Bono shining a spotlight on Edge as he plays, was inspired by a scene in the live performance of "Bullet the Blue Sky" recorded in the film and album, but was recreated in a stills studio, and photographed by Anton Corbijn. Several vinyl copies have the message "We Love You A.L.K." etched into side one, a reference to the band's production manager Anne Louise Kelly, who would be the subject of another secret dedication message on several CD copies of the band's later album, Pop.

Studio recordings
The album opens with a live cover of The Beatles' "Helter Skelter". Its inclusion on the album was intended by the band to reflect the confusion of The Joshua Tree Tour and their new-found superstar status. Bono opens "Helter Skelter" with this statement: "this is a song Charles Manson stole from The Beatles ... we're stealing it back".

Bono said "Hawkmoon 269" was in part as a tribute to writer Sam Shepard, who had released a book entitled Hawk Moon. Bono also said that the band mixed the song 269 times. This was thought to be a joke for years until it was recently confirmed by The Edge in U2 by U2, who said that they spent three weeks mixing the song. He also contradicted Bono's assertion about Shepard, saying that Hawkmoon is a place in Rapid City, South Dakota, in the midwestern United States.

The album contains a live version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower", which can be seen as a dual tribute to Dylan and to Jimi Hendrix, who popularised the song with his own blistering rendition. Aside from the covers, a couple of songs were written for other artists. "Angel of Harlem" is a vivacious, horn-filled tribute to Billie Holiday. The bass-heavy "God Part II" is an introduction to the Achtung Baby sound, and is a sequel of sorts to John Lennon's "God", his stark denunciation of everyone from Elvis Presley to Jesus Christ.

The punchy lead single, "Desire", sports a Bo Diddley beat. During the Joshua Tree tour, in mid-November 1987, Bono and Bob Dylan met in Los Angeles; together they wrote a song called "Prisoner of Love" which later became "Love Rescue Me". Dylan sang lead vocals on the original recording, a version which Bono called "astonishing", but Dylan later asked U2 not to use it citing commitments to The Traveling Wilburys. The live performance of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" (recorded with a full church choir) is a gospel song. "When Love Comes to Town" is a blues rocker featuring B.B. King on guitar and vocals.

U2 recorded "Angel of Harlem", "Love Rescue Me" and "When Love Comes to Town" at Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and many others also recorded. They also recorded an unreleased version of "She's a Mystery to Me" and Woody Guthrie's "Jesus Christ", which appeared on Folkways: A Vision Shared. The band started writing "Heartland", in 1984 during The Unforgettable Fire sessions, and it was worked on during The Joshua Tree sessions. All of the studio tracks apart from "Heartland" were performed in concert on the Lovetown Tour, which began almost a year after Rattle and Hum's release.

Live performances
The band chose to film the black-and-white footage over two nights Denver's McNichols Sports Arena on 7 and 8 November 1987. They chose the city following the success of their U2 Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky video which was filmed in Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Denver in 1983. "We thought lightning might strike twice" said guitarist the Edge. The first night's performance was disappointing with Bono finding the cameras infringing on his ability to play to the crowd. The second Denver show was far more successful and seven songs from the show are used in the film, and three on the album.

Hours before the second Denver performance, an IRA bomb killed eleven people at a Remembrance Day ceremony in the Northern Irish town of Enniskillen (see Remembrance Day Bombing). During a performance of "Sunday Bloody Sunday", which appears on the film, Bono condemned the violence in a furious mid-song rant in which he yelled "Fuck the revolution." So powerful was the performance, that the band said they were not sure the song should have been used in the film, and after watching the film, they considered not playing it on future tours.

Colour outdoor concert footage is from the band's Tempe, Arizona shows on 19 December 1987 and 20 December 1987. Tickets were sold for $5.00 each and both nights sold out within days. The set was different each night with the band throwing in some rarely performed songs including, "Out of Control", "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", "One Tree Hill", and "Mothers of the Disappeared". For the latter, all four members played at the front of the stage, each under a large spotlight.

The performance of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" is from the band's impromptu "Save the Yuppies" concert in Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco, California on 11 November 1987. The video intersperses the performance of the song with footage from the band's performance of "Pride" from the same show, during which Bono spray-painted "Rock and Roll Stops the Traffic" on the Vaillancourt Fountain. This caused a bit of controversy, and ultimately, the band paid to repair the damage and publicly apologised for the incident. The phrase "Rock and Roll Stops the Traffic" reappeared 18 years later in the video "All Because of You" when an unnamed fan appeared with the sign at 1:55 in the video. It also reappeared in February 2009, when the band played on the rooftop of the BBC Radio studios in Langham Place.

Dennis Bell, director of New York gospel choir The New Voices of Freedom, recorded a demo of a gospel version of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". While in Glasgow in late July during the Joshua Tree Tour, Rob Partridge of Island Records played the demo for the band. In late September, U2 rehearsed with Bell's choir in a Harlem church, and a few days later they performed the song together at U2's Madison Square Garden concert. Footage of the rehearsal is featured in the movie, while the Madison Square Garden performance appears on the album. After the church rehearsal, U2 walked around the Harlem neighbourhood where they come across blues duo, Satan and Adam, playing in the street. A 40-second clip of them playing their composition, "Freedom for My People", appears on both the movie and the album.

During "Silver and Gold", Bono explains that the song is an attack on apartheid. "The Star Spangled Banner" is an excerpt of Jimi Hendrix's famous Woodstock performance in 1969. The noise of the crowd was sampled extensively by The KLF for 'the Stadium House Trilogy' of singles on their 1990 album The White Room.

Alternative live concert footage captured for the film in other cities during the 1987 tour (but ultimately not used for the final cut of the film) included:


 * Foxboro, Massachusetts, Foxboro Stadium, 22 September 1987
 * Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, JFK Stadium, 25 September 1987
 * New York, NY, Madison Square Garden, 28 September 1987
 * Long Island, New York, Rehearsals on a beach, 19 October 1987
 * Boston, Massachusetts, Boston Garden, 18 September 1987 (color footage)

Release and reception
Rattle and Hum divided critics when it was released in 1988. Some reviewers panned it, feeling that U2 were making a deliberate and pretentious attempt at rock and roll renown. Writing in Rolling Stone, Anthony DeCurtis called the album "calculated in its supposed spontaneity" while demonstrating "U2's force but devoting too little attention to the band's vision". Jon Pareles was more critical in The New York Times, finding each song genuinely egotistical and "embarrassing in a different way", while Tom Carson from The Village Voice said the band suffered from profound ignorance rather than pretension on an album that was terrible "by almost any rock-and-roll fan's standards". Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was more enthusiastic, calling it "underrated if grandiose". In his consumer guide, he complimented half of the new material and the live versions of past songs by U2, whom he called naturally pretentious but also innovative for their unique rock style that "melded Americana into their Old World riffs". In a rave review for the Los Angeles Times, Robert Hilburn called Rattle and Hum a "frequently remarkable album" that more than matched The Joshua Tree and credited U2 for reviving the "idealism and craft of [rock's] finest moments", while Hot Press reviewer Bill Graham said it was their "most ambitious record" yet.

At the end of 1988, Rattle and Hum was voted the 21st-best album of the year in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics published by The Village Voice. In other critics' lists of the year's top albums, it was ranked number one by HUMO, second by the Los Angeles Times and Hot Press, 17th by OOR, 23rd by NME, and 47th by Sounds.

According to review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a "Certified Fresh" rating of 67%. Roger Ebert panned the film, saying the concert footage was poorly lit and monotonous, with little use made of the crowds. Review partner Gene Siskel was more sympathetic, praising the music and finding the footage of the Harlem gospel choir particularly moving. Joanou called the picture "pretentious".

""Rattle and Hum was conceived as a scrapbook, a memento of that time spent in America on the Joshua Tree tour. It changed when the movie, which was initially conceived of as a low-budget film, suddenly became a big Hollywood affair. That put a different emphasis on the album, which suffered from the huge promotion and publicity, and people reacted against it.""

- The Edge

Despite the criticism, Rattle and Hum was a strong seller, continuing U2's burgeoning commercial success. It hit number one on the US Billboard 200 albums chart, remaining at the top spot for six weeks; it was the first number-one double album in the US since Bruce Springsteen's The River in 1980. Rattle and Hum also reached number one in the UK and Australian charts. In the UK, it sold 360,000 copies in its first week, making it the fastest-selling album at that point (a record it held until the release of Oasis's Be Here Now in 1997). In 1989, while at a press tour in Sydney, Australia (where the band was touring with B.B. King and working on demos for the follow-up album Achtung Baby), Bono stated, "making movies: that's the nonsense of rock & roll", which Rolling Stone magazine claimed was almost an apology for the film. "Playing shows is the reason we're here", he added. Lifetime sales for the album have surpassed 14 million copies.

Extra tracks
In addition to the nine studio tracks that comprised one-half of the double album, a number of additional recordings from the Rattle and Hum sessions would be released on various singles and side projects. "Hallelujah Here She Comes" was released as a B-side to "Desire", and "A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel" was released as a B-side to "Angel of Harlem." Covers were released as B-sides for the rest of the singles—an abbreviated cover of Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot" would be released as a B-side to "When Love Comes to Town" (the full version would see release on the 12" version of the single and on CD on the 1994 soundtrack album to Threesome), while "Unchained Melody" and "Everlasting Love" would be released as the B-sides to "All I Want Is You." A cover of "Fortunate Son" recorded with Maria McKee would not be released until 1992's "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" single.

Studio versions of "She's a Mystery to Me" (a Bono/Edge composition that would eventually be recorded and released by Roy Orbison), Bruce Cockburn's "If I Had a Rocket Launcher", and "Can't Help Falling in Love With You", while recorded, have yet to be released. (A solo Bono cover of the Elvis Presley classic would be released on 1992's Honeymoon in Vegas album, however.) A cover of the Woody Guthrie song "Jesus Christ" was also recorded during these sessions for eventual inclusion on the cover album Folkways: A Vision Shared. Lastly, a cover of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" was recorded and released for the first A Very Special Christmas album, released at the end of 1987.

Charts and certifications
Album

Songs

Personnel

 * Bono – lead vocals, additional guitar, harmonica
 * The Edge – guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, lead vocals on "Van Diemen's Land"
 * Adam Clayton – bass guitar
 * Larry Mullen Jr. – drums, percussion

Guest performers
 * Bob Dylan – Hammond organ on "Hawkmoon 269", backing vocals on "Love Rescue Me"
 * The New Voices of Freedom – gospel choir on "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
 * George Pendergrass, Dorothy Terrell – vocal soloists on "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
 * Joey Miskulin – organ on "Angel of Harlem"
 * The Memphis Horns – horns on "Angel of Harlem" and "Love Rescue Me"
 * B.B. King – guest vocals & lead guitar on "When Love Comes to Town"
 * Rebecca Evans Russell, Phyllis Duncan, Helen Duncan – backing vocals on "When Love Comes to Town"
 * Brian Eno – keyboards on "Heartland"
 * Benmont Tench – Hammond organ on "All I Want Is You"
 * Van Dyke Parks – string arrangement on "All I Want Is You"

Additional musicians (field recordings and tapes)
 * Satan and Adam (Sterling Magee and Adam Gussow) – vocals, guitar, percussion, and harmonica on 'Freedom for My People' (sourced from field recording)
 * Jimi Hendrix – electric guitar on "The Star Spangled Banner" (sourced from Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More as played through U2's concert PA system)