I was in the middle of my teens, knowing U2 from the Joshua Tree years, but not a complete fan yet.. The Fly was the first single from Achtung Baby and I was not sure what to make of it but I know it hit me. Hard. I was forever engulfed in that universe as if U2 had taken over. Everything. Still enjoying the ride today. Thank you.

So many songs mean something to me. The first one comes from How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, I would listne to that album alot and my dog would start howling at song 3#. I finally figured that he's singing to that song. It's the only one he sings to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1wec1Wgi4M Moment of Surrender- When I had one drink- I couldn't stop. So I quite drinking all together. At the 1 year mark I got myself a commemorative bracelet with a charm that I had engraved with Moment of Surrender- Vision over Visibility. those 2 sayings - Moment of Surrender- know that you can't control anything or anyone so surrender that control and someones you can't see where you're going- but remember the destination and you'll get there with faith.

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me Being born in 1982 & growing up through the 90's, it's a shame but I didn't really wake up to music until around the mid 90's. 13 years old, I had no clue who U2 were. Even though I heard many of their songs already, I hadn't yet put the songs & the band together. The first notes of 'Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me' were my rock n roll alarm clock. Not only did it wake me up- I felt like I grew devil horns like Macphisto's at first listen.  I was hooked right from the very beginning of Edge's & Larry's intro. I remember thinking to myself 'That guitar is straight out of Mars! And who's that singing, that can't be the same guy who sang Pride?! He sounds so different...sinister now. I gotta get this album!' It was the first time I wanted to go to a store with the sole purpose to buy music. So I got my mom to drive me to the local Kmart of all places and she bought me the Batman Forever soundtrack. Man I was so excited to play that cd, couldn't wait to rip the plastic wrapping off.  I only knew 1 or 2 other songs on it because I kept needing to go back to awesome track 1. It did the job of the single - provided the hook to sell the album. Without  'Hold Me Thrill Me.' I wonder if I would've ever had the fascination for the band like I do now. It's not my favorite U2 song- that title might belong to Lemon, The Fly, Breathe or All I Want Is You- but that song started a musical addiction which created a path that led me to everything U2 and so many other great artists. Now 11 shows & 17 years later I still love that song. It was a great surprise to see it come back for the 360 Tour & it's the U2 single that woke me up. -Kevin C, Chicago

Haunting yet beautiful. Simultaneously atypical but classic U2. Amazing soaring guitar and vocals in the chorus. I have never been close to domestic violence but I have known plenty of pain, and this song somehow manages to make you wallow in pain for a bit, then magically lift you out of it (despite the lyrics remaining dark throughout). I can listen to this song for hours without growing bored of it.

Absolutely without doubt the one track that knocked me off my feet. It was in fact also the black and white video that went with the song. You remember - that grainy, murky fantastic piece of film that went perfectly with the amazing piece of music. I was due to meet my mates down the pub but The Tube had the first version of the song via that great video. I must have played it over and over again (thanks video recorder) for at least an hour before I managed to drag myself away to the boozer. Still tingles the spine and has the greatest guitar playing at the end (without any ego) EVER! Love, love, love it..

2011 was a big year for concert announcements. As we are both big fans, I thought I would surprise my girlfriend with a fully-paid three-day Montreal vacation - our first trip alone together - along with tickets for the big concert... headlined by Taylor Swift. Meanwhile, Moncton, which is within driving distance and close to family with whom I could stay, had announced a concert featuring Arcade Fire as the opening act (and also U2 as the headliner), with tickets as low as $35! I decided I had nothing to lose and bought tickets for that as well. There was just a little snag: I didn't own any U2 music at all at the time. Figuring I should pick up at least one album in advance, and already having memorized the Joshua Tree singles from the local classic rock station, I proceeded to look for "the one with Vertigo on it". Having found the CD and copied the tracks onto my iPod, I gave it a listen while wandering the streets of my hometown of Halifax, Canada. The tracks slowly began to click with me, but the immediate standout was a track called "City of Blinding Lights". Its uplifting and jubilant nature was undeniable. I was hooked. After the Taylor Swift concert in Montreal, CoBL took on an extra dimension: My girlfriend really did look beautiful that night in the city of blinding lights. Even though she didn't come along to Moncton (she still isn't a U2 fan, her only flaw), the song always made me think of her. On the bus to the concert site later that month, I talked to someone else about how that was the one song I wanted to hear more than any other. She said that my odds were good. Finally, it was showtime. Even from my cheap seat in the rear of the stage, the show buzzed past, laying the foundations for what would become my new musical obsession. From "The Fly" to "Miss Sarajevo", the set list read like the playlist of my future favourite songs. But then, just as "Zooropa" faded, I heard a familiar riff. "City of Blinding Lights". I hastily grabbed my camera and filmed the moment. I kept it running for the first verse and chorus - getting a great shot of Bono singing directly to the back, where I was sitting! - before turning it off and letting myself be immersed in the music. As I sang along, I found myself almost crying in elation, thoughts of that amazing Montreal vacation buzzing in my mind. That high lasted for the rest of the concert, and comes back every time I hear the song, especially the newly released U22 version. Some things change: The band that was "good enough to spend $35 on, I guess" has already become my indisputable favourite band of all time, my one album fast becoming a collection of over 50 albums, EPs, singles, and DVDs. Some things stay the same: My girlfriend is still beautiful, we both still love Taylor Swift, and she still puts up with me, even if I now have a tendency to talk way too much about a certain band from Dublin.

About 20 years ago, we had this family Christmas party and we had a special activity planned: we were to bring the one song we could listen to over and over again if ever we were stranded on a desert island. Of all the songs that I knew, and all the music that I loved, I chose Where the streets have no name cause although I must have listened to it hundreds of times, I still got a chill from it, and always felt like it was the first time I heard it. The chills and the "first time feeling" I have when I listen to this song still hold true today. For me, the best version of this song is on the Elevation 2001 Live from Boston DVD. The pure and raw emotion that comes through when Bono sings it always overwhelms me and brings tears to my eyes. Just love this one through and through.

My "Single" is "New Years Day"...why? The summer od 83', U2 War, and a Walkman. The driving bass line and steady drum cadence along with Edg's piano line made for a very likable sound. Add in Bono's powerful voice..."Maybe the time is right, ahuhhh...maybe tonighhhht! I wore out that cassette tape...I love all of the songs on War and New Years Day is my favorite, and one of the many reasons I am a devoted fan. Thanks to U2!

It was 1984, watching a little bit of MTV but not really paying attention. All of a sudden......... I hear REAL music. Something that caught my attention. I see this young lad with a beret walking thru the docks of a working class city. The opening riffs are crisp and so simple but extremely captivating. I sit up more and paid more close attention to the music and the lyrics. Three and a half minutes in a beautiful daze. I am forever hooked. Got to be Pride (In the name of love) that got me inspired and hooked on a group of guys that are not afraid to speak their minds and take on an ever changing world.

More powerfull than any drug! it unsticks the pulp! That invades you! When next of this kind?

Although not an original U2 lyrics, the genious of U2's music and interpretation is totally there. The ultimate love song for me! :)

what a great time. I was out from the high school and deeply into university years, discovering life and music with people I loved. U2 was always into it :)

I heard the song for the first time live in Rotterdam 1990 and I was so Happy to hear this song again after 20 years at the first night of the 360 tour in Barcelona. The way they play this song !!!!!!!!

To many U2 songs that make me stop and sing along to. With or without you is still my favorite song but Pride (in the name of love) was the song that turned me into a U2 fan. We had many car trips for holidays as we lived in far North Queensland at the time and when this song was released it was played many times on the Walkman as I sat in the back seat of the old Holden wedged between my two Sisters It helped me get through the many hours of boredom. Not a bad message behind it as well

2000. 8 years old. I absolutely loved this song from the very beginning ;) that melody, the lyrics. Everything! As a child I didn't actually know what said because I didn't understand the language but now that I am 20 I still love this song and every year it turns to be even more especial than before. I think I will love it forever :)

This is one of U2's perfect songs. I love U2 because all of their songs are perfect, but of course some of them are more perfect than others... This one specifically raises me off my feet, and takes me somewhere I'm not spiritually ready to go by myself. Yeah, and thats why I love U2...

This track/single is the most accomplished song in pop history. It is the sort of track that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. It has a "magnificent" range of rhythms and cadences which I don't think most bands are capable of - maybe The Beatles and The Stomes could accomplish something like it but this track is U2 at their most sublime.

For me this song is like a life-safer in times of trouble. I can't count all the opportunities when I felt particularly shitty or down in my life and then suddenly With or Without you was on the radio, like someone from above was giving me a wellness-treatment. On those days it always felt like warm water being poured over my wrecked soul, and it made me feel better instantly. It still works its magic to this day and after decades of having it by my side I've never grown out of listening to it.

When I 1st saw the live version of this song, on the Rattle & Hum VHS, it stirred my life towards the career I'm in today....live audio production. At the time, I was about 10yrs old, just starting to learn how to play guitar. It got me into composing and experimenting with different guitar sounds, just like The Edge. In songwriting, it wasn't just straight up 3 chords and clank it out. It was about sonic dynamics, textures and atmosphere. Crowd reaction was a big part of it live. Streets also reinforced me, that this was the band that I'd be comparing other bands to. Heck, I even did them for my music class project. Watching this version of the song, and comparing it to the studio version, made me think of the endless possibilities of making songs come to life in a live environment. Every tour, U2 has managed to show a different dimension of this song, yet every live version of it is not a letdown. It would be fair to say that they win new fans with it. The word soundscape comes to mind. The lyrics are so visual and the instrumentation creates the environment of the song. It portrays the ups and downs in life. Just listening to Streets several times has also affected the way I mix audio. The song gives a lesson that not all things are created great when it's planned out...referring to Eno wanting to erase it and start all over. Let alone, the time it took for them to solve the transition of starting off from a 3/4 to a 4/4 measure. To me, the title itself depicts life at the cross roads with the constant debate of choosing the right/wrong path, guidance. At the same time, it depicts heaven....the end result. This song is so great that everytime I mix a cover band play this song, the crowd stops and turn their attention to the stage. It's a crowd pleaser, it unifies them into a chant, whatever bar or other type of venue it is. IT IS INFECTIOUS!! And at the end of the song, it's like as if the air got sucked out of them. High fives and fist pumps in the air! Streets isn't just aimed at the Christian population, but inspires the masses. It's a song that crosses genres from techno to gospel. Looking back on what it took me to get to fulfilling my ambition of working in the live audio industry, this song says it all. It inspired me to hopefully, one day, work audio production with the greatest band in the world....and at the age of 33, it did come true, during the U2 360 tour.

I know alot of people love with or without you, it is catchy and easy to sing along to. But when I was about 14 I bought 'The Joshua Tree' album, the first "tape" I hand ever bought. I loved it, and didn't even know U2 were cool at the time. I bought it because a mate of mine that was a few years older had bought the 'All I want is you' cassingle (which I loved) and he taped over it. Remember how by putting sticky tape over the notches on top of a tape meant you could save a few prescious dollars by recording over the original material you had grown tired of? Well to my suprise another gem of a song was on Joshua Tree which summed up the greatest, unrequited love of my life. She was a girl that I loved the first time that I saw her. She was a bit quirky, rough around the edges, and went largely unnoticed by all the other boys at school. A true unpolished diamond, and stunningly beautiful on so many levels. I marched straight up to her and introduced myself. We clicked and quickly became friends. I was so mesmerized by her that I couldn't find the words to ask her out, and as I awkewardly tortured myself in my boyish ways with this issue, the "appropriate" window to ask her out closed and I was relegated to forever being a friend. I loved this girl for ten years, never saying a word. Eventually when we were much older we were at a New Years Eve party with all our good friends. The clock struck midnight and as I turned to a mate she was in front of me and planted the best kiss I have ever had on me, and just gave me the most beautiful smile. She turned and disappeared into the crowed. And while I was left feeling like the best thing in the world had just happened, I knew that it in a way it was a kiss goodbye. While we both relished our friendship, we both realised it was time to move on. It has been 15 years since that happened and I have seen her once in that time. Still magical. Over the years I have listened to With or without you ALOT. It seemed to sum up how I felt about her and our friendship. I think she felt the same way too, but neither of us could find the courage to say anything. Every time I hear With or Without You on the radio I think or her and wonder what she is doing.

Pop was the album that really got me interested in U2. I knew some bits of WAR, of course, but Pop really caught on. However, Discothèque never did. I did not like it, it was tiresome, uninteresting... Years later I noticed the New Version on the Best of 00-10 Compilation, and noticed that in fact I DID like it after all. I started looking for the singles, and, being a completist, wanted to find the rare ones, too. It was not easy to get the different versions, I could not get hold of version I, the one with the moon. One day, my big sister's new boyfriend mentioned, in passing, that he bought it, and never liked it, and would be most willing to give it to me. So he did... He had bought a lot of singles, and after a while, thought it interesting to decorate his walls with them. To arrange them in a special way, he had drilled them to a large board on the wall. So I got my version I: With two holes, drilled neatly through the face of the moon. Argh.

U2 has so many amazing, meaningful songs, as bono has such a beautiful way with words tied together with the beautiful music. The one that stands apart for me is with or without you. I was 5 years old, knowing nothing other than my horrid home life, and although I had heard u2 on the radio, I saw the video on mtv one day in passing and it completely hypnotized me. I couldn't stop staring and listening, it was like really seeing a man for the first time, singing such crazy things about life and love, and it really opened up my awareness of everything. Might sound weird, but there it is!

We were on a car-holiday in northern Norway with my family. I was twelve years old and pretty much bored...Then I heard this song from the radio and everything changed. We found a shop from the next town and I bought my first own cassette, The Joshua Tree, which was then played in the car's player until we got back home to Finland. Still after 25 years I remember that trip to Norway - and the life lasting love I found there. Johanna, Joutseno, Finland

1978/79 bored teenager with friends who own a record, yes record store. Walked in one day after work and said "what's new?". Not much came the response. Have an album here from some Irish band called U2, do you want a listen? On went the headphones and I heard "I will follow". I'll take this and I caaried that album around to everyone's place who had a record player. Fast forward to 1984 and Under a Blood Red Sky had been released and U2 were about to tour Australia. I went, twice. I cried! My boys where up there on that stage, singing with innonence but maturity and such passion, that it blew me away. I was like a proud mother. I knew these boys were going to be big. So concert to concert I have been going and even when I was pregnant in Feb 1998 I was there. I will follow, listen to the lyrics, I did, found myself and my son.

Does it really need a comment? Maybe this single isn't the typical U2-sound, but it so much puts someONE in a stage of understanding and calmness that it has to be mentioned. It changed the way I look at the world immensely after loosing ONE of my dearest people in life in 2004.

U2 has so many amazing, meaningful songs, as bono has such a beautiful way with words tied together with the beautiful music. The one that stands apart for me is with or without you. I was 5 years old, knowing nothing other than my horrid home life, and although I had heard u2 on the radio, I saw the video on mtv one day in passing and it completely hypnotized me. I couldn't stop staring and listening, it was like really seeing a man for the first time, singing such crazy things about life and love, and it really opened up my awareness of everything. Might sound weird, but there it is!

It was not the first single I heard or song... I was on my way of becoming a great fan by the time I first listened to Vertigo. I even didn't hear it when it first came out in 2004. I am a really new and young fan (21 as I write this and 15 when I became a fan on 2006). I first listened to Vertigo when I bought the U218 Singles CD on 2006. That year, U2 played in Mexico (My country) on february 12, 15 and 16. I wasn't able to go to any of the concerts (but I did on the 360° Tour!!) because when I realized they were coming I barely knew them and the only way to get tickets was with re-sellers. But I heard the word Vertigo a lot (As in Vertigo Tour or the Chicago DVD) so I thought: Is that song really so great?? The song itself answered me with a big YES!!!!!!!!!!!! I fell in love with Vertigo when I played the CD and heard the awesome song. Then I saw the video to it and my breath was taken away just when I thought I couldn't be more amazed by the song and that weird irish band. I never stoped talking about that band and that song specially... My friends at school were tired of me and my crush with a stupid band, they said... but they can never begin to understand how great they are. I love that song now because it reminds me many things of my teen years, like my high school, my first girlfriend, starting my own (still active) rock band with my friends and the graeatness of only living to enjoy life, laughing, hang out with friends and to love a rock band. Now, when one becomes older, life gets harder and harder; I am a medical student at the time and I have a lot of hard times at college but one of the things that helps me to deal with those difficulties is listening to my great irish band... I love all of their songs, really, I've never heard any of them that I dislike on any album, single, compilation, E.P., or anywhere but at the core of my heart I have I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, the first U2 song I ever listened to; Beautiful Day, the song that made me realize what an Out-Of-This-World this band is and left me craving for more; and of course Vertigo!!! The song that hold me tightly to U2 and, until now, it hasn't let me escape... I don't want to, anyway. No other words on earth give me the chills like these ones do: Uno, Dos, Tres... CATORCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was late 1981 in the Virgin Megastore in Plymouth City Centre that I first heard Gloria - didn't know who the band was and it was the first time I asked the counter what the song was they were playing and bought it there and then - (and there haven't been many such instances since perhaps the first time I heard Keane compares - although that was on TV) To get home and listen to the 7 inch single with a live version of I Wlll Follow on the b side was when I first fell for the sound of U2. 30 years later - and having seen the band on most tours since 1986 in London and NYC - it still is the start of that relationship with the band that I remember so very clearly.

I thought it was excellent, but as important as the great (and way turned up!) bass, guitar and vocals/words was that it was totally unlike the music that had brought U2 to the top of the world. I was really impressed.

I watched a girl in my new class wlking home from school. I ran up to her and asked if I could keep her company, since we were going the same way. She asked me why, I remember answering her; Because I did not like to see her walk alone. We agreed to study and do homework together, and the first time she came to my apartment I saw her from the balcony of my apartment as Ultra Violet came on. The sun broke through the rainy clouds and she was walking in a ray of sunshine, I have that picture with that song etched whenever I close my eyes. The thing is, though, that a few days later she asked me if I was in love with her, and my answer startled her as well as myself; "Sometimes". This was the start of our relationship...13 years ago, now we are married and have a wonderful boy and another one coming up. Throughout the years I have always listened closely to U2, and I know almost every lyric by heart. I chose Ultra Violet because of this burning picture I see when I close my eyes, and because how it fills me up with joy whenever I hear it. But I can not choose one song before another when it comes to what they mean to me since there are so many emotions attached to each and everyone of them...One, With or without you, One Tree Hill (Always send shivers down my spine, especially the one from u22), Love Rescue Me, Walk On, Sometimes you cant make it on your own... I want to thank U2 personally, at one time in my life, for everything they have given me. I am as true a fan of them and their music as anyone could possibly be, my friends refer to me as Mr.U2 at times, in a positive way, but I have only ever been to one Live performance in Gothenburg, July 31, 2009. I am most grateful.