Lead vocalist Bono said that the band began recording "Every Breaking Wave" in Sydney, Australia, but "then it went down the drain for seven years, up the arse, as these things do.

[10] Bono described the song as being about the difficulty of "giv[ing] yourself completely to another person", with lyrical characters who are "addicted to sort of failure and rebirth".

A previous version of the song included the lines "After every peak, the trough / I can feel the energy drop / Will we ever know when to stop / With this chasing every breaking wave", which Bono said "has a certain despair that's powerful.

[11] The song's official music video is a truncated, four-and-a-half-minute version of the 13-minute short film Every Breaking Wave, which was directed by Irish director Aoife McArdle.

[14] Ben Patashnik of NME said that "Every Breaking Wave" is "characterised by restraint rather than bombast and is another obvious highlight, concerned with relaxing into calmness rather than killing yourself trying to take every opportunity out there.

[15] Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine cited the Edge's "whining guitar strains" on the song as one example of his "melodies and atmospheric licks" being "the real star of the album".

[18] Jon Pareles of The New York Times said it was one of the album's "two most direct songs about romance, with sturdy melodies and straightforward buildups", describing it further as being "tinged with misgivings and ambivalences.