1991Released
4:36

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about One. By Songfacts®.

According to Bono, who wrote the lyrics, there are two specific stories intertwined in "One." The first is a son telling his father - a very religious man - that he's gay. The second is a woman in a sexless marriage who has been caught cheating. The lyrics take the form of an argument that we pick up right in the middle: Is it getting better Or do you feel the same? "You're overhearing conversations, and you draw your own conclusion," Bono wrote in his memoir Surrender. "All the intimacies from different rooms entwine into one story about how people are more the same than they are different. But still, they remain different."

Until about 2005, Bono was very vague when discussing this song, saying it is "about relationships" and leaving it open for interpretation. Here are some of the interpretations shared on Songfacts: 1) The song could relate to reunification of Germany, where the band recorded it. 2) It could be about the dissolution of The Edge's marriage to Aislinn O'Sullivan. They were having problems in their relationship and split soon after the sessions. Bono was the best man at their wedding. 3) It could be about the band putting their differences aside and coming together to make the album. 4) Bono may have been writing about his good friend, the Irish painter Guggi, who was having girl trouble. 5) The song could represent a conversation between an AIDS victim and his father.

The band wrote this song in Berlin after toiling there for months trying to record the Achtung Baby album. The Berlin Wall had just fallen, so the band was hoping to find inspiration from the struggle and change that was coming to the region. Instead, they found themselves at odds with each other and unable to do much productive work. This song came suddenly, the bones of it written in about 30 minutes by most accounts, and it rejuvenated the band creatively. When they left Berlin, they had little to show for it outside of this song, but they were able to complete the album back home in Ireland with "One" as the centerpiece. Says The Edge: "It was a pivotal song in the recording of the album, the first breakthrough in what was an extremely difficult set of sessions." (From Q Magazine, September 2005.)

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of One.
CKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
181BPM

Album

The album One is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released One.
Universal-Island Records Ltd.
© 2011 Universal-Island Records Limited under exclusive licence to Mercury Records Limited in the UK, Interscope Records in the US and Universal Music Group for the rest of the world
℗ 2011 Universal-Island Records Limited under exclusive licence to Mercury Records Limited in the UK, Interscope Records in the US and Universal Music Group for the rest of the world

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