I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Gospel structure smuggled into a rock record. The rhythm section works a loose, almost funky shuffle — Mullen's hi-hat swings where U2 usually marches — and The Edge lays a bright chiming figure over the top rather than driving the song, leaving unusual space. Eno and Lanois mixed it dry and forward, closer than the cathedral reverb around it on The Joshua Tree, so Bono's voice sits right at the front. He sings it as testimony: the verses are a litany of things done and places been, delivered with a preacher's cadence, and the chorus lands as admission rather than complaint. The theological content is unhedged — he speaks of the kingdom come and the bonds broken and the tongues of fire — which is precisely why the song scandalizes the assumption that faith and doubt are opposites. It is a believer's song about believing and still not finding it. A US number one in 1987, later performed with the New Voices of Freedom choir in Harlem, which revealed the gospel bones underneath. Right for a Sunday morning with unresolved questions, walking somewhere without a destination.