This list shows cover versions of songs originally by the Irish rock band U2 that have been recorded and released.
Bassist Adam Clayton had already left the studio, and the three remaining band members decided they did not have a good song to end the album.
It was a huge commercial success, helping to launch the album to multi-platinum status, and is one of U2's biggest hits to date.
Longtime U2 collaborator and producer Brian Eno cited Breathe as "the best thing (U2) have ever recorded" during an interview with Q magazine.
The song was originally written about the United States' military intervention during the 1980s in the El Salvador Civil War.
"City of Blinding Lights" is the fifth track and third single from the group's 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
The song tells the story of U2's first arrival in New York City in 1980, with Bono remarking it was an "amazing, magical time in our life, when we didn't know how powerful it was not to know."
Featuring a thunderous beat, a variety of sound effects on the central guitar riff, and an easy rhyming lyric for the audience to shout along with, it was highly effective in that concert-starting role and became a hit in the United States and the United Kingdom.
"[35] The song's subject is that of a phone call from someone in Hell who enjoys being there and telling the person on the other line what he has learned.
"Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" is a single by U2 from the Batman Forever soundtrack album, released in 1995.
As well as all the covers, "Weird Al" Yankovic parodied the song as "Cavity Search" for his 1996 album Bad Hair Day.
It was written by Bono about the death of his mother, who died of a brain hemorrhage at the funeral of her father.
[46] The song was used in television commercials for a new Blackberry application, called the "U2 Mobile App", which was developed as part of Research in Motion's sponsorship of the U2 360° Tour.
Luciano Pavarotti makes a guest vocal appearance, singing the opera solo.
A lullaby to honor Martin Luther King Jr., it is a short, pensive piece with simple lyrics.
The song tells the story of a heroin addict's spiritual awakening at an automated teller machine.
It was the band's first hit single, breaking the top ten in the UK and charting on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in their career.
In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine placed the single at number 427 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
It is a soft, slow, keyboard-based song about a heroin-addicted woman from the Ballymun Seven Towers area of Dublin.
The track contains a clip from the 1982 documentary Soldier Girls, and is the first song by the band not sung solely by Bono; The Edge sings the first two stanzas.
The song is noted for its militaristic drumbeat, simple but harsh guitar, and melodic harmonies.
[73] One of U2's most overtly political songs, its lyrics describe the horror felt by an observer of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The song was written by Bono as an apology to his wife for forgetting her birthday during the creation of The Joshua Tree.
[citation needed] "Vertigo" is the lead single and opening track for the 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
The track was an international hit, winning three Grammy awards at the 2005 event and being featured in an iPod commercial.
The song features Johnny Cash on lead vocals and tells the story of a man searching for God in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic world.
The song has only been performed live once, as a posthumous tribute to Johnny Cash, with Bono singing lead vocals.
Written about and dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi, the track is banned in Burma, and anyone who has possession of either the single of the song or the album could face a prison sentence lasting between three and twenty years.
The track's signature is a repeating guitar arpeggio utilizing a delay effect that is played at the beginning and end of the song.
"[87] "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" was released in 1992 as the fifth and final single for the 1991 album Achtung Baby.