I Will Follow

"I Will Follow" is a song by rock band U2. It is the opening track from their debut album, "Boy", and it was released as the album's second single in October 1980. Lead singer Bono wrote the lyrics to "I Will Follow" in tribute to his mother, who died when he was 14 years old.
"I Will Follow" is the only song that U2 have performed on every tour since they released their first album. The song was U2's first music video, directed by Meiert Avis in Dublin, Ireland. The song was issued five times, first in 1981 on a 7" vinyl in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, second on the same format in the United States and Canada, third in the Netherlands in 1982 with a track from 1981's "October", in 1983 with a live version of the song, and finally in 2011 with a live version of the song recorded at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival.
Composition.
"I Will Follow" was written three weeks before U2 began recording "Boy". During early rehearsals of the song, the group frequently had loud arguments, as lead vocalist Bono was struggling to convey the aggression for the guitar riff that he was envisioning. Frustrated, he took the Edge's guitar from him and "hammer[ed] away" on the two-stringed chord the Edge had created to show his bandmates the urgency he wanted. Bono said, "It was literally coming out of a kind of rage, the sound of a nail being hammered into your frontal lobe". Bono has said that he wrote the lyrics from the perspective of his mother Iris, who died in 1974 when he was 14 years old, and that they were about the unconditional love a mother has for her child. The song features a glockenspiel to provide what Bono called "underlying instrumental coloring"; it was added at his suggestion, and was played during the "Boy" recording sessions by him and the Edge. For the middle eight section of the song, producer Steve Lillywhite recorded the sounds of silverware rubbing against the spokes of a spinning wheel on an upturned bicycle, as well as Bono smashing bottles.
Release.
"I Will Follow" had a second single release as a live version in the Netherlands and Germany in 1982, and a third release in the United States in 1983, taken from the "Under a Blood Red Sky" album. It appeared on both the compilation album and video collection "The Best of 1980–1990", and in some countries, on the "U218 Singles" compilation.
The song is included in the 2015 music video game "Rock Band 4" as a playable track.
Live performances.
It is the band's most frequently performed song with over 800 performances. It has been performed at every concert of The Joshua Tree, PopMart Tour and the Innocence + Experience Tour It has been played extensively on every tour with the exception of the Zoo TV Tour, where it was performed infrequently, and was part of the acoustic set, and the U2 360° Tour, where it wasn't played until the third leg.
The song appears on the live recordings/films "Under a Blood Red Sky", ', "Live from the Point Depot", ', ', "Live from Boston 1981", "Live from Paris", and "U22". It also appears on ', the bonus DVD that is included with the "U218 Singles" compilation and as a bonus track for UK/Australia releases of the CD.
U2 performed the song on the BBC2 television show "The Old Grey Whistle Test" in 1981. The performance was later released on DVD on a compilation of performances from the show.
Reception and legacy.
In 2005, "Blender" ranked the song at number 214 on its list "The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born". The magazine wrote, "The first song on U2's first album introduced the guitar sound that would define their work. [...] The arena-ready clarion call also established Bono's trademark lyrical earnestness, one of the reasons the song remains a fan favorite and a staple of the band's recent tours."
Formats and track listings.
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References.
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