Bono, The Edge, and the song which nearly broke Ireland’s biggest rock band

U2 guitarist The Edge nearly left the band during the recording and aftermath of one of the band’s best songs.

Now considered one of the band’s signature tracks, Sunday Bloody Sunday nearly led to the departure of U2‘s long-running guitarist. Released on this day in 1983, the opening track from their album from the same year, War, had been a near deal-breaker for The Edge who had been “looking for a reason to stay in the band,” according to frontman Bono.

The Edge penned the first draft of Sunday Bloody Sunday during a period of self-doubt, his songwriting abilities reflected on following an argument with his partner at the time. Despite the rough start and later omissions of certain lyrics the band feared would be misinterpreted as sectarianism and put them in danger, Sunday Bloody Sunday became one of their all-time greats.

Writing in his autobiography, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, Bono revealed the song was a near-breaking point for The Edge, whose self-doubt led to an emotionally charged piece of work which could have seen the guitarist call time on his place in the band.

Bono wrote: “Looking for a reason to stay in the Band, Edge had begun the bitter contemplation that would become Sunday Bloody Sunday, taking himself to a place where music might suggest another kind of world that, according to our church group, Shalom, was broken and needed mending. Edge wanted the band to sing about ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, troubles that were causing so much pain in our country and over in the U.K., where an IRA bombing campaign was under way.”

The self-scrutiny of U2 at the time appears to have affected the whole band, but The Edge was pushed into writing a bold track which would define the band. Bono wrote: “Two years after our first album, we are not musically sophisticated. We have talent, but playing in tune and in time in the antiseptic environs of a modern recording studio is not a walk in the park for any of us.

“Scrutiny creates self-consciousness, and musical parts that were arrived at intuitively can change in subtle ways that make them less rhythmic or less locked in with the other musicians. This in turn leads to awkward moments in the control room, where words like ‘tightness’ and ‘looseness’ substitute for ‘this sounds boring’ and ‘I never really liked this one’.”

It was not the first time that decade The Edge had contemplated leaving the band. In 1981, just before the start of U2’s October Tour, the legendary guitarist had his doubts about staying with the band and nearly walked out of the outfit. Bono could have followed.

But U2 manager Paul McGuinness prevented both The Edge and Bono from leaving the band, intervening and reminding them of their hopes to “make the world a better place,” according to War producer Steve Lillywhite, who spoke to The A.V. Club about the rocky early years.

“He [McGuinness] just sat down with them and said: ‘If you really want to teach the world, make the world a better place and all that, much better to do it from a position of strength, [rather] than from sitting in a basement in Dublin talking about it’.”