Songoftheday 5/15/15 - See the stone set in your eyes, see the thorn twist in your side...

"With Or Without You" - U2
from the album The Joshua Tree (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's SOTD comes from the Irish alternative rock band U2, who finally scored their first big pop hit in America hitting the top-40 in 1984 with "Pride (In The Name Of Love)". But after a victorious set at Live Aid and their clout with the music press at an astronomical high, the quartet set out to record their most ambitious album to date. The Joshua Tree was released at the beginning of 1987, and the first single, "With Or Without You" resonated like nothing else at the time on pop radio, with its echoing guitar and Bono's plaintive vocals culminating in the fatalistic cry of "I can't live with or without you"...

"With Or Without You" went all the way to #1 on the American pop chart in May of 1987. The single also topped the Mainstram Rock radio chart in Billboard for five weeks, and crossed over to the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") chart for the first time, peaking at #23. Internationally, the record hit #1 in Canada and their native Ireland, and top-10 in the UK, Spain, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Finland. The Joshua Tree album won Album of the Year and Best Rock Duo/Group with Vocal Grammys in 1987, and "With Or Without You" appears on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 best songs in rock and roll, as well as many other "best of's"...

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Here's the band performing the song live in 1987 that appeared in their Rattle and Hum tour documentary, with an extra verse that didn't make the album/single cut...

In 1992, Italian Eurodance group Double You scored a top-40 hit in Belgium with a cover of the song...

A year later, gay post-disco singer Paul Parker also released a club version of the song...

Back to U2 live on their 1993 ZOOTV tour...

..and again in 1997 on their Popmart tour...

British new wave group Heaven 17 recorded "With Or Without You" for a U2 tribute album in 1999...

In 2004, the song was "mashed up" with Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know" on LMC's "Take Me To The Clouds Above", which went to #1 in Britain and top-10 in Australia, Spain, Ireland, Denmark, and Austria...