Rejoice
by U2

Album: October (1981)
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Songfacts®:

  • This early U2 song from their second album, October, expresses the Christian beliefs of band members Bono, The Edge, and Larry Mullen:

    I can't change the world
    But I can change the world in me
    If I rejoice


    They were involved in a devout religious group and almost broke up the band over their beliefs. It was a difficult time for the fourth member, Adam Clayton, who did not share their faith.
  • Bono improvised most of the words. The lyrics for many of the songs on October were stolen while they were touring America, forcing Bono to come up with new ones quickly. In 2004, a woman in Tacoma, Washington found the lyrics and some other items that had been stolen from the band in her attic. She had a hard time returning them because it wasn't easy to contact U2.

Comments: 1

  • Brian from Meriden, CtJust as Bono debated in their first big Rolling Stone interview in 1985 (Our Choice: Band of the 80s), why is religion so taboo in America?
    It's a subject we don't have to pretend doesn't exist.
    Some believe the Constitution protects us from religion.
    Religion is actually the first article provided protection for in the First Ammendment to the United States Constitution. Or so it says...
    Some seem to forget there is a reason for this and that the imagined fears which would otherwise require the inverse to be true are absolutely meaningless.
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