October

October is the second album by Irish rock band U2, released in 1981. The album featured spiritual themes, inspired by Bono, The Edge, and Mullen’s memberships in a Christian group called the “Shalom Fellowship”, which led them to question the relationship between the Christian faith and the rock and roll lifestyle.[1] The album received mixed reviews and limited radio play.

Quite boldly, the record placed an emphasis on religion and spirituality, particularly in the songs “Gloria” (featuring a Latin chorus of “Gloria, in te domine”), “With a Shout (Jerusalem)”, and “Tomorrow”. About the album, Bono declared in 2005: “Can you imagine your second album- the difficult second album- it’s about God?”[2].

The album’s recording was complicated when the briefcase containing Bono’s lyrics was stolen by ‘’fans’’ after a show. The band already booked studio time and thus had to continue recording in spite of this, even improvising lyrics on some songs. Bono said of the recording process of October, “I remember the pressure it was made under, I remember writing lyrics on the microphone, and at £50 an hour that’s quite a pressure. Lillywhite was pacing up and down the studio…he coped really well. And the ironic thing about October is that there’s a sort of peace about the album, even though it was recorded under that pressure. A lot of people found October hard to accept at first, I mean, I used the word ‘rejoice’ precisely because I knew people have a mental block against it.