Promenade (song)
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| “Promenade” | |||||
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| Song by U2 | |||||
| Album | The Unforgettable Fire | ||||
| Released | 1 October 1984 | ||||
| Genre | Rock | ||||
| Length | 2:35 | ||||
| Label | Island Records | ||||
| Producer | Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois | ||||
| The Unforgettable Fire track listing | |||||
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"Promenade" is the closing track on side one of U2's 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire. It is a short ambient song with a pronounced Van Morrison feel to it. Written about one of lead singer Bono's residences, it also seems to tout, as Bono terms it, "the America that U2 fell in love with."
As is the case with several songs on the album The Unforgettable Fire, this song while referring to Ireland, specifically the sea-side town of Bray in County Wicklow, also invokes America through the use of imagery and tone. "Earth, sky, sea and rain" "Men of straw, snooker hall" "dirt, dry, bone, sand and stone" produces an Irish tint and flavour. "Slide show, sea side town, coca-cola, football, radio" seems to indirectly invoke America. This is a technique common in U2 songs, where mood, tone and imagery produce in the mind of the listener a location or a "space"—this is a technique also common to visual art and painting; consequently the lyrical style of this song and the album has been compared to how a painter might work, using layers, tone and images musically as opposed to visually. This technique was more vividly used on the later album The Joshua Tree, again with tone and lyrical content providing the context for a place, an actual location.
"Promenade" has never been performed live, either in full or as a snippet.
The song was covered by Calla on their 2001 album Scavengers.
