Bullet The Blue Sky

The lyrics were inspired by Bono's trip to Central America in 1985 with Amnesty International. He visited El Salvador, where he stayed with a group of guerillas in the middle of the mountains in the north of the country, which is where he got the idea for this song. "Mothers Of The Disappeared" also came out of that trip.

Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen, and The Edge came up with the music, and Bono wrote the lyrics around the track. For the guitar solo, Bono did his best to convey his feelings to The Edge. "When I explained to Edge what I'd been through in El Salvador, he was able to, with nod to Jimi Hendrix, try and put some of that fear and loathing into his guitar solo," Bono said. "We strapped my feelings to the song 'Bullet The Blue Sky.'"

This is a political song that condemns US foreign policy for promoting unrest in Central America. Bono wanted to draw attention to the damage the US was doing in other countries, which he felt most Americans did not know the extent of. Criticism of America did not hurt record sales there, as The Joshua Tree was the #1 album its first week of release. It also didn't hurt Bono's status with American politicians, many of whom invited him to speak on behalf of various causes. Far from being seen as an enemy of the state, Bono was celebrated by most government officials, and he used his celebrity and access to advance a variety of causes.