Project is due March 17th

U2 has officially announced that Songs of Surrender is coming March 17th via Universal Music Group. The project will feature 40 songs reimagined and re-recorded across multiple formats, although full details have yet to be disclosed.

The songs will be available as a limited edition 4 CD Super Deluxe Collector’s Box Set and 4 LP Super Deluxe Edition Box Set featuring 40 new acoustic and reimagined recordings from the U2 catalog, produced and compiled by The Edge and arranged into individual band member volumes. Packaged in an 8-panel embossed digi-sleeve with 2 x 12-page booklets on stunning mat art paper, this limited and numbered boxset includes new lyrics by Bono, exclusive photos by Anton Corbijn and liner notes from The Edge. A Deluxe CD featuring 20 tracks will also be available via U2.com.

The vinyl set will contain 16 songs, including “One,” “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” and “Pride (In The Name Of Love),” the latter released as the first single, across 180-gram 2 LPs with 4-page insert featuring liner notes from The Edge. A single CD digipak containing the same 16 songs as the vinyl with 12-page booklet will also be available along with a 16 track white cassette version.

Several bundles are also be offered via the Universal Music webstore.

The band shared a video announcing the project on social media featuring a timeline of the group from past to present with a reworked version of “Beautiful Day.”

The news drops a day after photocopies of handwritten letters by The Edge began appearing in fans’ mailboxes throughout Europe this week introducing the project. U2 Songs reports that the letters arrived in numbered envelopes with each one containing Songs of Surrender written in Morse code and #U2SOS40. Each letter was also numbered through 40, but it’s unclear if that number represents a song from the project or the numbered letter that was mailed.

“When a song becomes well known its always associated with a particular voice. I can’t think of ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ without the reedy timbre of Bob Dylan or ‘All The Time in the World’ without the unique voice of Louis Armstrong,” the letter states. “So what happens when a voice develops and experience and maturity give it additional resonance?

“U2 have been around long enough to know what that is like. It’s true for us all, but it’s particularly true for Bono.

“The fact is that most of our work was written and recorded when we were a bunch of very young men. Those songs mean something quite different to us now. Some have grown with us. Some we have outgrown. But we have not lost sight of what propelled us to write those songs in the first place. The essence of those songs is still in us, but how to reconnect with that essence when we have moved on, and grown so much?

“Music allows you to time travel and so we started to imagine what it would be like to bring these songs back with us to the present day and give them the benefit or otherwise, of a 21st century re-imagining. What started as an experiment quickly became a personal obsession as so many early U2 songs yielded to a new interpretation. Intimacy replaced post-punk urgency. New keys. New chords. New tempos and new lyrics arrived. It turns out that great song is kind of indestructible. Once we surrendered our reverence for the original version each song started to open up to a new authentic voice of this time, of the people we are, and particularly the singer Bono has become.

“I hope you like our new direction.”

The reworked versions coincide with the release of Bono’s new memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, although it’s unclear if the 40 song titles each chapter represents will be included.

Some of the songs have been sampled in the audio version of Bono’s book that was released in November. The band began working with various producers from their past on the project before the 2020 COVID lockdown.

This spring, Bono will perform a series of 11 Stories of Surrender dates at New York’s Beacon Theatre between April and May. The announcement of Bono at The Beacon in 2023 follows last year’s hugely successful run of Stories of Surrender, a show that left both audiences and critics cheering for more (read our review), in support of his memoir.

4 CD | 4 LP | 2 LP | CD

Side 1 – The Edge

1. One
2. Where The Streets Have No Name
3. Stories For Boys
4. 11 O’Clock Tick Tock
5. Out Of Control
6. Beautiful Day
7. Bad
8. Every Breaking Wave
9. Walk On (Ukraine)
10. Pride (In The Name Of Love)

Side 2 – Larry

1. Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
2. Get Out Of Your Own Way
3. Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of
4. Red Hill Mining Town
5. Ordinary Love
6. Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own
7. Invisible
8. Dirty Day
9. The Miracle Of Joey Ramone
10. City Of Blinding Lights

Side 3 – Adam

1. Vertigo
2. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
3. Electrical Storm
4. The Fly
5. If God Will Send His Angels
6. Desire
7. Until The End Of The World
8. Song For Someone
9. All I Want Is You
10. Peace On Earth

Side 4 – Bono

1. With Or Without You
2. Stay
3. Sunday Bloody Sunday
4. Lights Of Home
5. Cedarwood Road
6. I Will Follow
7. Two Hearts Beat As One
8. Miracle Drug
9. The Little Things That Give You Away
10. 40