By HENRY FREDERICK / Headline Surfer
ORLANDO, Fla. -- "New Year's Day" by U2 is the ultimate high-energy song to drive home the first day of the new year.
And that's why "New Year's Day is crowned as the ultimate song for the first holiday of the new year.
"New Year's Day" has all the ingredients of a great song: An excellent bassline by bassist Adam Clayton, powerful vocals by Bono, and overall instrumentation with The Edge on lead guitar and piano, and Larry Mullen on drums, all of which reinforce the power of rock and roll for the human experience.
The lyrics in the song refer to the movement for solidarity led by Lech Walesa in Poland. After this was recorded, Poland announced it would abolish martial law, coincidentally on New Year's Day, 1983. This is significant since Poland was among the Eastern European countries in the Warsaw Pact (Warsaw is Poland's capital).
In addition to Poland, the Warsaw Pact included Albania (withdrew in 1968), Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and Romania.
The Warsaw Pact served as the Soviet Union's military shield buffer (also known as the Iron Curtain) in post-World War Europe with what became the Cold War between the world's two superpowers: The US with NATO vs. the Soviet Union with the Warsaw Pact.
"New Year's Day was recorded at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin, which is where U2 recorded its first albums as well. The studio had a stone stairway where Larry Mullen played his drums for this track.
Bono (Paul Hewson) has lead vocals, The Edge (David Evans) is on lead guitar and backing vocals, Adam Clayton is the basis, and Larry Mullen is on drums.
DID YOU KNOW?
• "New Year's Day" was the first U2 song to chart in America, where it reached No. 53, but the song got a lot of exposure on MTV and attracted the kind of fans that tell their friends. In the UK, it was their first Top 10 hit, reaching No. 10.
• This almost didn't make the War album because Bono was having fits writing the lyrics. At least he didn't lose them like he did when working on their previous album, October.
• The Edge played piano on this as well as guitar. In concert, he played the song on the piano with his guitar in his lap. For his guitar solo, he would get up and go to the front of the stage as the crowd cheered wildly.
• The music video was supposed to be shot in Stockholm, but when the mountains and snow U2 hoped for didn't materialize, the video producers turned to another location in Sweden: The town of Sälen. They got the majestic mountains and tight shots of the band performing the song, which was more than adequate for MTV in 1983.
• The music video appears to show what is supposed to be the band riding horses, which were actually four teenage gals covered in winter clothes. The guys in U2 were horseback novices at best, and since they were in the middle of a tour during the video shoot, it wasn't worth the risk.
• The band members met in high school in Ireland when Mullen posted a note looking to start a group. They have been together since 1978.
• Members had various nicknames in the early days. "The Edge" came about because of his chin. "Bono Vox" was the name of a hearing aid company Paul Hewson saw advertised on TV. Because U2 was a "loud" band, he thought it was an appropriate enough stage name.
• Rolling Stone named U2 the magazine's "Band of the '80s." .
U2 was inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2005, in the band's first year of eligibility.
• When the band played "New Year's Day" during the Vertigo Tour performance at Silesian Stadium in Poland, the crowd surprised the band when the lower sections waved red-colored items while other sections waved white, creating the Polish flag. This was repeated during the U2 360° Tour at the same venue.
Rounding out the Headline Surfer New Year's Eve countdown:
2. " This Will Be Our Year" by the Zombies, 1968
3. "It's Just Another New Year's Eve" by Barry Manilow, 1977
4. "Same Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg, 1980
5. "1999" by Prince, 1985
6. "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, 1983
7. "Happy New Year Baby" by Connie Francis, 1959
8. "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor, 1978
9. "The Final Countdown" by Europe, 1986
10. New Year's Resolution by Otis Redding and Carla Thomas, 1967
About the Byline Writer: Henry Frederick is a member of the working press and publisher of Headline Surfer, the award-winning 24/7 internet news outlet launched in 2008 along the I-4 tourism corridor in greater Daytona Beach to Orlando from Lake Mary, Florida via HeadlineSurfer.com. Frederick has amassed 115 award-winning bylines in print & online. He earned his Master of Arts in New Media Journalism from Full Sail University in 2019. He was a breaking news reporter (metro cops & courts beat) for the Daytona Beach News-Journal for nearly a decade. And Before that worked the same beat for The Journal-News/Gannett Suburban Newspapers in Rockland/Westchester counties, NY, dating back to 1989. Having witnessed the execution of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Florida's death chamber and covering other high-profile cases such as the George Zimmerman murder trial, Frederick has appeared on national crime shows on Discovery ID, Reelz, and the Oxygen Network series "Snapped" for his analysis.