Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
Encyclopedia
"Ultraviolet" is a song by the rock
band U2
and the tenth track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby
. Ostensibly about love and dependency, the song also lends itself to religious interpretations, with listeners finding allusions to the Book of Job
and writers finding spiritual meaning in its invocation of the light spectrum.
The song's composition and recording incorporate both serious and throwaway elements, in keeping with the rest of Achtung Baby. While not released as a single, the song has appeared in two films and a U2 business venture was named after it. "Ultraviolet" played a featured role during the encores of the group's 1992–1993 Zoo TV
and 2009–2011 U2 360° Tour
s.
s, one variously called "Ultraviolet" and "69" (which eventually evolved into the B-side "Lady with the Spinning Head") and an alternately arranged demo called "Light My Way". Over the course of the recording sessions, U2 added various overdubs to the song, but producer
Brian Eno
believed these additions negatively impacted the track. Eno aided the group in editing down the song, and he explained his assistance as such: "I'd go in and say, 'The song has gone, whatever it is you liked about this song is not there anymore. Sometimes, for example, the song would have disappeared under layers of overdubs."
has called the song "a little disturbed". The song opens with 45 seconds of soft synthesizers producing an ethereal sighing, crying, almost breathing sound, somewhat akin in atmospherics to the group's early 1980s songs "Tomorrow" and "Drowning Man"; during this, Bono laments that "sometimes I feel like checking out." This is followed by the entrance of drums and guitar in a familiar U2 rhythm, as Bono describes the burdens of love and how he is "in the black; can't see or be seen." Each verse culminates with the refrain "Baby, baby, baby, light my way." Flood, who engineer
ed and mix
ed the recording, noted that there was considerable laughter and debate during the sessions about whether Bono could get away with singing the repeated "baby"s, one of the most heavily-used clichés in pop songs and one that he had avoided up to that point in his songwriting; Flood later commented that "he got away with it alright."
Although the song is ostensibly about love and dependency, like many U2 songs, it also lends itself to religious interpretations. Listeners have heard an allusion to the Book of Job
29:2–3 and its tale of God serving as a lamp upon Job's head walking through the darkness. Robyn Brothers suggests that ultraviolet light is "a metaphor for a divine force both unseen to the naked eye and ultimately unknowable to the human intellect." Conversely, Steve Stockman, author of Walk On: The Spiritual Journey Of U2, sees "Ultraviolet" as being about Bono's wife Ali, and "how when he feels like trash, she makes him clean," but says there is good reason to interpret the song as being just as much about God. The song's title supports this view: indigo and violet rarely appear in song lyrics as frequently as other colours, while ultraviolet represents an unseen wavelength beyond the visible spectrum. As such, the title evokes the image of black light
or an invisible force permeating the darkness, whose connotations are spiritual and personal, as well as technological, reflecting themes of modern alienation explored elsewhere on Achtung Baby and its follow-up album, Zooropa
. Dianne Ebertt Beeaff, author of A Grand Madness: Ten Years on the Road with U2, sees the song's narrator as longing for assistance from any source, religious or secular: "This is a real plea, a bleary worn-down drained wish to disappear. A drowning man desperate to hold hands in the darkness, to have someone else point the way, to be safe and obscure." Atara Stein sees "Ultraviolet" as one of several selections on the album in which the protagonist in crisis has elevated his lover into an object of worship, desperate for her to "return to her initial role as his guide and salvation."
"Ultraviolet" is also one of several songs Bono has written on the theme of woman as spirit, and it echoes the band's 1980 song "Shadows and Tall Trees" by juxtaposing love with the image of ceilings. A line in Raymond Carver
's late 1980s poem "Suspenders", about the quiet that comes into a house where no one can sleep, was subconsciously recycled by Bono into the lyric. In Achtung Babys running order, "Ultraviolet" serves, with the other two songs at the album's end, "Acrobat
" and "Love Is Blindness
", to explore how couples face the task of reconciling the suffering they have imposed on each other.
The song features a Motown sound-style "telegraph key" rhythm, which gave it the feeling of a pop song. This and the "baby, baby" refrain gave the song a throwaway quality that fit in with Achtung Babys mission of deconstructing U2's image. Paradoxically, the arrangement also featured U2's 1980s "repeato-riff" guitar style and the rest of the lyric was a serious love song that dealt with themes of anxiety and despair. Bono has described "Ultraviolet" as "an epic U2 song [but] the key of it left my voice in a conversational place and allowed a different kind of lyric writing." Producer Eno wrote that a combination of opposites within each song was a signature characteristic of Achtung Baby and that as part of that, "Ultraviolet" had a "helicopterish melancholy". In Achtung Babys album package, "Ultraviolet" is presented next to a photograph of a crumbling Berlin
building that has a Trabant
parked in front of it.
noted that "Ultraviolet" was one of the album's songs that hearkened more to the group's past than their new sound, saying that Edge's "soaring peals on [it] are instantly recognizable". Jon Pareles
of The New York Times
wrote that compared to much of the album's grim depictions of personal relations, "Ultraviolet" depicts love as a haven. The Boston Globe
heard echoes of The Rolling Stones
' 1966 song "Out of Time" in the chorus of "Ultraviolet". Entertainment Weekly
called it the album's highlight, "where Bono's soaring voice and the Edge's pointillistic guitar meld to create one of those uplifting moments we listen to U2 for". Cedarville University
literature professor Scott Calhoun says of one lyrical portion of "Ultraviolet", "That's so evocative and works as beautiful writing away from the music. It can stand on its own on the page and, of course, it's even more effective when accompanied by the music."
Other writers have been less enthusiastic. Q
magazine felt that the song was weak and that "Bono falls back on his old habit of trying to be 'inspirational' by banging up the heat from simmer to meltdown between the verse and chorus." U2 chroniclers Bill Graham and Caroline van Oosten de Boer also see the song as a throwback to the group's earlier sound, but say that "the band doesn't sufficiently develop the initial idea to warrant the five minutes of 'Ultra Violet'".
While "Ultraviolet" was not released as a single, it has appeared in other contexts. It was used in a scene in the 2006 Adam Sandler
film Click, and was featured in the 2007 film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
. The beginning of the song was also sampled
by Enigma
in their 1994 song "The Eyes of Truth
". The name Ultra Violet was also given to one of U2's improvised mid-1990s business initiatives, a joint merchandising venture with MCA Inc.'s Winterland division; the partnership soon dissolved, but not before producing several hundred thousand pairs of Bono "Fly" glasses
.
"Ultraviolet" is unusual in that the band has only ever played it in concert as part of an encore, usually preceding "With or Without You
". It was first performed at Lakeland Arena in Lakeland, Florida
on 29 February 1992 at the start of the Zoo TV Tour
, and it remained a staple of the band's set lists for the first four legs of the tour, often preceded by a prank call by Bono as his alter-egos Mirror Ball Man or Mr. MacPhisto. The Edge played the song on his Gibson Explorer
. It was staged with silver-and-mauve lights thrown against two glitter balls, causing light fragments to swirl around the audience, and with lasers flashing in quick rhythms. Anthony DeCurtis
of Rolling Stone characterised its essence as "desperately searching" and said that it helped transition the Zoo TV show towards an ambiguous, introspective conclusion. It became writer Beeaff's favourite live song on the tour, with Bono's intense, unrestrained singing producing a strong communal energy; she singled out the March 1992 Hampton Coliseum
show as one in which Bono's fervent performance approached the point of emotional breakdown and generated "a transcendent and draining experience for everyone." Although acknowledging the song is an "epic ... with some gorgeous aspects", Edge has said the song is unwieldy to play live. During Zoo TV, almost all of the numbers from Achtung Baby (and the rest of the set list) were augmented by sequencers
to fill out the sound; on "Ultraviolet", under-the-stage keyboard tech Des Broadberry playing a sampled guitar figure in the background during Edge's solo parts. Its last performance as part of the tour was on 28 August 1993 in Dublin, after which the song was retired and did not appear on any of U2's next three subsequent tours (PopMart
, Elevation
, and Vertigo
).
The song was revived a decade and a half later with the launch of the U2 360° Tour
on 30 June 2009 in Barcelona
, where it was once again performed as part of the encore. It was introduced by a robotic voice reading excerpts from the poem "Funeral Blues
" by W. H. Auden
, followed by Bono's appearance wearing a laser-studded jacket on a darkened stage illuminated only by a glowing steering wheel-shaped microphone that hangs from above. During the performance, Bono would alternatively embrace or hang from the microphone, or twirl around it, or swing it overhead to emphasize the lyrics. The New York Times said its use as "a love song that can double as devotional" helped keep the show's music and messages in balance, while the Chicago Tribune
said that Bono sang the song with fervor as part of an encore during which "the show's outsized ambitions produced a neon-lighted moment that nearly justified the costly enterprise." Rolling Stone
called the song's performance "one of the show's highpoints." "Ultraviolet" continued to be performed during the encore throughout the first two legs of the tour, with minor changes such as the use of a different introduction.
The band also played the song during its television appearance on Saturday Night Live
on 26 September 2009. In an appearance that avoided both their recent singles and best-known hits, "Ultraviolet" was played as the group's third number, in full 360° Tour staging style as the show's end credits ran by.
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
and the tenth track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby
Achtung Baby
Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 19 November 1991 on Island Records. Stung by the criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their musical direction to incorporate alternative...
. Ostensibly about love and dependency, the song also lends itself to religious interpretations, with listeners finding allusions to the Book of Job
Book of Job
The Book of Job , commonly referred to simply as Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a...
and writers finding spiritual meaning in its invocation of the light spectrum.
The song's composition and recording incorporate both serious and throwaway elements, in keeping with the rest of Achtung Baby. While not released as a single, the song has appeared in two films and a U2 business venture was named after it. "Ultraviolet" played a featured role during the encores of the group's 1992–1993 Zoo TV
Zoo TV Tour
The Zoo TV Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Staged in support of their 1991 album Achtung Baby, the tour visited arenas and stadiums from 1992 through 1993...
and 2009–2011 U2 360° Tour
U2 360° Tour
The U2 360° Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Launched in support of the group's 2009 album No Line on the Horizon, the tour visited stadiums from 2009 through 2011. It was named for a stage configuration that allowed the audience to almost completely surround the stage...
s.
Recording
"Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" began as two different demoDemo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
s, one variously called "Ultraviolet" and "69" (which eventually evolved into the B-side "Lady with the Spinning Head") and an alternately arranged demo called "Light My Way". Over the course of the recording sessions, U2 added various overdubs to the song, but producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
believed these additions negatively impacted the track. Eno aided the group in editing down the song, and he explained his assistance as such: "I'd go in and say, 'The song has gone, whatever it is you liked about this song is not there anymore. Sometimes, for example, the song would have disappeared under layers of overdubs."
Composition and interpretation
The lyrics of "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" are addressed to a lover, and imply that their relationship is threatened by some sort of personal or spiritual crisis, coupled with a sense of unease over obligations. Indeed, lead vocalist BonoBono
Paul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...
has called the song "a little disturbed". The song opens with 45 seconds of soft synthesizers producing an ethereal sighing, crying, almost breathing sound, somewhat akin in atmospherics to the group's early 1980s songs "Tomorrow" and "Drowning Man"; during this, Bono laments that "sometimes I feel like checking out." This is followed by the entrance of drums and guitar in a familiar U2 rhythm, as Bono describes the burdens of love and how he is "in the black; can't see or be seen." Each verse culminates with the refrain "Baby, baby, baby, light my way." Flood, who engineer
Audio engineering
An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
ed and mix
Audio mixing (recorded music)
In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
ed the recording, noted that there was considerable laughter and debate during the sessions about whether Bono could get away with singing the repeated "baby"s, one of the most heavily-used clichés in pop songs and one that he had avoided up to that point in his songwriting; Flood later commented that "he got away with it alright."
Although the song is ostensibly about love and dependency, like many U2 songs, it also lends itself to religious interpretations. Listeners have heard an allusion to the Book of Job
Book of Job
The Book of Job , commonly referred to simply as Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a...
29:2–3 and its tale of God serving as a lamp upon Job's head walking through the darkness. Robyn Brothers suggests that ultraviolet light is "a metaphor for a divine force both unseen to the naked eye and ultimately unknowable to the human intellect." Conversely, Steve Stockman, author of Walk On: The Spiritual Journey Of U2, sees "Ultraviolet" as being about Bono's wife Ali, and "how when he feels like trash, she makes him clean," but says there is good reason to interpret the song as being just as much about God. The song's title supports this view: indigo and violet rarely appear in song lyrics as frequently as other colours, while ultraviolet represents an unseen wavelength beyond the visible spectrum. As such, the title evokes the image of black light
Black light
A black light, also referred to as a UV light, ultraviolet light, or Wood's lamp, is a lamp that emits ultraviolet radiation in the long-wave range, and little visible light...
or an invisible force permeating the darkness, whose connotations are spiritual and personal, as well as technological, reflecting themes of modern alienation explored elsewhere on Achtung Baby and its follow-up album, Zooropa
Zooropa
Zooropa Based on the pronunciations of "zoo" and "Europa". is the eighth studio album by rock band U2. Produced by Flood, Brian Eno, and The Edge, it was released on 5 July 1993 on Island Records. Inspired by the band's experiences on the Zoo TV Tour, Zooropa expanded on many of the tour's themes...
. Dianne Ebertt Beeaff, author of A Grand Madness: Ten Years on the Road with U2, sees the song's narrator as longing for assistance from any source, religious or secular: "This is a real plea, a bleary worn-down drained wish to disappear. A drowning man desperate to hold hands in the darkness, to have someone else point the way, to be safe and obscure." Atara Stein sees "Ultraviolet" as one of several selections on the album in which the protagonist in crisis has elevated his lover into an object of worship, desperate for her to "return to her initial role as his guide and salvation."
"Ultraviolet" is also one of several songs Bono has written on the theme of woman as spirit, and it echoes the band's 1980 song "Shadows and Tall Trees" by juxtaposing love with the image of ceilings. A line in Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
's late 1980s poem "Suspenders", about the quiet that comes into a house where no one can sleep, was subconsciously recycled by Bono into the lyric. In Achtung Babys running order, "Ultraviolet" serves, with the other two songs at the album's end, "Acrobat
Acrobat (song)
"Acrobat" is a song by rock band U2. It is the eleventh track on their 1991 album Achtung Baby. The critical failure of Rattle and Hum led the band to seek a harder sound in their music. The song developed from a riff created by guitarist The Edge, and is played in a time signature. Thematically...
" and "Love Is Blindness
Love Is Blindness
"Love Is Blindness" is a song by rock band U2. It is the twelfth and final track on their 1991 album Achtung Baby. The song was written on a piano by lead singer Bono during the recording sessions for U2's 1988 album Rattle and Hum. Intended for singer Nina Simone, the band elected to keep it for...
", to explore how couples face the task of reconciling the suffering they have imposed on each other.
The song features a Motown sound-style "telegraph key" rhythm, which gave it the feeling of a pop song. This and the "baby, baby" refrain gave the song a throwaway quality that fit in with Achtung Babys mission of deconstructing U2's image. Paradoxically, the arrangement also featured U2's 1980s "repeato-riff" guitar style and the rest of the lyric was a serious love song that dealt with themes of anxiety and despair. Bono has described "Ultraviolet" as "an epic U2 song [but] the key of it left my voice in a conversational place and allowed a different kind of lyric writing." Producer Eno wrote that a combination of opposites within each song was a signature characteristic of Achtung Baby and that as part of that, "Ultraviolet" had a "helicopterish melancholy". In Achtung Babys album package, "Ultraviolet" is presented next to a photograph of a crumbling Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
building that has a Trabant
Trabant
The Trabant is a car that was produced by former East German auto maker VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau in Zwickau, Sachsen. It was the most common vehicle in East Germany, and was also exported to countries both inside and outside the communist bloc...
parked in front of it.
Reception
Rolling StoneRolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
noted that "Ultraviolet" was one of the album's songs that hearkened more to the group's past than their new sound, saying that Edge's "soaring peals on [it] are instantly recognizable". Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of the New York Times. He played jazz flute and piano, and graduated from Yale University with a degree in music. In the 1970s he was an associate editor of Crawdaddy!, and in the 1980s an associate...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote that compared to much of the album's grim depictions of personal relations, "Ultraviolet" depicts love as a haven. The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
heard echoes of The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
' 1966 song "Out of Time" in the chorus of "Ultraviolet". Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
called it the album's highlight, "where Bono's soaring voice and the Edge's pointillistic guitar meld to create one of those uplifting moments we listen to U2 for". Cedarville University
Cedarville University
Cedarville University is a private, co-educational liberal arts university located in Cedarville, Ohio.At its founding, the school was affiliated with the conservative General Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America. Today, Cedarville is a Southern Baptist school known for its...
literature professor Scott Calhoun says of one lyrical portion of "Ultraviolet", "That's so evocative and works as beautiful writing away from the music. It can stand on its own on the page and, of course, it's even more effective when accompanied by the music."
Other writers have been less enthusiastic. Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
magazine felt that the song was weak and that "Bono falls back on his old habit of trying to be 'inspirational' by banging up the heat from simmer to meltdown between the verse and chorus." U2 chroniclers Bill Graham and Caroline van Oosten de Boer also see the song as a throwback to the group's earlier sound, but say that "the band doesn't sufficiently develop the initial idea to warrant the five minutes of 'Ultra Violet'".
While "Ultraviolet" was not released as a single, it has appeared in other contexts. It was used in a scene in the 2006 Adam Sandler
Adam Sandler
Adam Richard Sandler is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, musician, and film producer.After becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member, Sandler went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over $100 million at the box office...
film Click, and was featured in the 2007 film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (film)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a 2007 biographical drama film based on Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoir of the same name. The film depicts Bauby's life after suffering a massive stroke, on December 8, 1995, at the age of 42, which left him with a condition known as locked-in syndrome. The...
. The beginning of the song was also sampled
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
by Enigma
Enigma (musical project)
Enigma is an electronic musical project founded in Germany by Michael Cretu, David Fairstein and Frank Peterson in 1990. The Romanian-born Cretu conceived the Enigma project while working in Germany, but has based his recording studio A.R.T. Studios in Ibiza, Spain, since the early 1990s until May...
in their 1994 song "The Eyes of Truth
The Eyes of Truth
"The Eyes of Truth" is a 1994 single created by the musical project, Enigma. This single was one of Enigma's four singles from its second album, The Cross of Changes....
". The name Ultra Violet was also given to one of U2's improvised mid-1990s business initiatives, a joint merchandising venture with MCA Inc.'s Winterland division; the partnership soon dissolved, but not before producing several hundred thousand pairs of Bono "Fly" glasses
The Fly (song)
"The Fly" is a song by rock band U2. It is the seventh track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby and it was released as the album's first single on 12 October 1991. "The Fly" introduced a more abrasive sounding U2, as the song featured hip-hop and industrial beats, distorted vocals, and an elaborate...
.
Live performances
With or Without You
"With or Without You" is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the third track from their 1987 album, The Joshua Tree, and was released as the album's first single on 21 March 1987...
". It was first performed at Lakeland Arena in Lakeland, Florida
Lakeland, Florida
Lakeland is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States, located approximately midway between Tampa and Orlando along Interstate 4. According to the 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the city had a population of 94,406...
on 29 February 1992 at the start of the Zoo TV Tour
Zoo TV Tour
The Zoo TV Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Staged in support of their 1991 album Achtung Baby, the tour visited arenas and stadiums from 1992 through 1993...
, and it remained a staple of the band's set lists for the first four legs of the tour, often preceded by a prank call by Bono as his alter-egos Mirror Ball Man or Mr. MacPhisto. The Edge played the song on his Gibson Explorer
Gibson Explorer
The Gibson Explorer is a type of electric guitar that made its debut in 1958. The Explorer offered a radical, "futuristic" body design, much like its sibling, the Flying V. The Explorer was the final development of a prototype design which years later Gibson marketed under the name Futura.The...
. It was staged with silver-and-mauve lights thrown against two glitter balls, causing light fragments to swirl around the audience, and with lasers flashing in quick rhythms. Anthony DeCurtis
Anthony DeCurtis
Anthony DeCurtis is an American author and music critic, who has written for Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Relix and other publications.-Career:...
of Rolling Stone characterised its essence as "desperately searching" and said that it helped transition the Zoo TV show towards an ambiguous, introspective conclusion. It became writer Beeaff's favourite live song on the tour, with Bono's intense, unrestrained singing producing a strong communal energy; she singled out the March 1992 Hampton Coliseum
Hampton Coliseum
The Hampton Coliseum is a multi-use cultural, entertainment and sports arena in Hampton, Virginia. Construction on the arena began on May 24, 1968 and the venue opened in 1970 as the first large multi-purpose arena in the Hampton Roads region and the state of Virginia, opening a year prior to...
show as one in which Bono's fervent performance approached the point of emotional breakdown and generated "a transcendent and draining experience for everyone." Although acknowledging the song is an "epic ... with some gorgeous aspects", Edge has said the song is unwieldy to play live. During Zoo TV, almost all of the numbers from Achtung Baby (and the rest of the set list) were augmented by sequencers
Music sequencer
The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...
to fill out the sound; on "Ultraviolet", under-the-stage keyboard tech Des Broadberry playing a sampled guitar figure in the background during Edge's solo parts. Its last performance as part of the tour was on 28 August 1993 in Dublin, after which the song was retired and did not appear on any of U2's next three subsequent tours (PopMart
Popmart Tour
The PopMart Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Launched in support of the group's 1997 album, Pop, the tour's concerts were performed in stadiums and parks from 1997 through 1998...
, Elevation
Elevation Tour
The Elevation Tour was a worldwide concert tour by the Irish rock band U2. Launched in support of the group's 2000 album All That You Can't Leave Behind, the tour visited arenas in 2001. After the band's previous two extravagant stadium tours, Zoo TV and PopMart, the Elevation Tour returned the...
, and Vertigo
Vertigo Tour
The Vertigo Tour was a worldwide concert tour by the Irish rock band U2. Launched in support of the group's 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the band visited arenas and stadiums from 2005 through 2006. The Vertigo Tour consisted of five legs that alternated between indoor arena shows in...
).
The song was revived a decade and a half later with the launch of the U2 360° Tour
U2 360° Tour
The U2 360° Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Launched in support of the group's 2009 album No Line on the Horizon, the tour visited stadiums from 2009 through 2011. It was named for a stage configuration that allowed the audience to almost completely surround the stage...
on 30 June 2009 in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, where it was once again performed as part of the encore. It was introduced by a robotic voice reading excerpts from the poem "Funeral Blues
Funeral Blues
"Funeral Blues" or "Stop all the clocks" is a poem by W. H. Auden, first published in its final, familiar form in 1938, but based on an earlier version published in 1936.-Titles and versions:...
" by W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
, followed by Bono's appearance wearing a laser-studded jacket on a darkened stage illuminated only by a glowing steering wheel-shaped microphone that hangs from above. During the performance, Bono would alternatively embrace or hang from the microphone, or twirl around it, or swing it overhead to emphasize the lyrics. The New York Times said its use as "a love song that can double as devotional" helped keep the show's music and messages in balance, while the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
said that Bono sang the song with fervor as part of an encore during which "the show's outsized ambitions produced a neon-lighted moment that nearly justified the costly enterprise." Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
called the song's performance "one of the show's highpoints." "Ultraviolet" continued to be performed during the encore throughout the first two legs of the tour, with minor changes such as the use of a different introduction.
The band also played the song during its television appearance on Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
on 26 September 2009. In an appearance that avoided both their recent singles and best-known hits, "Ultraviolet" was played as the group's third number, in full 360° Tour staging style as the show's end credits ran by.