The melody and the chords for "Pride" were improvised by U2 during a soundcheck prior to a November 1983 concert in Hawaii on the band's War Tour.

[5] After the tour concluded, the group continued to work on the track at lead vocalist Bono's home in a Martello tower in Bray, County Wicklow,[6] where the Edge devised a guitar part for the song.

[7] "Pride" was further worked on at Slane Castle during the recording sessions for The Unforgettable Fire, but was subsequently re-recorded in its final version at Windmill Lane Studios (it was the only song to be re-cut).

[8] The song had been intended to be based on Ronald Reagan's pride in America's military power, but Stephen B. Oates's book Let The Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and a biography of Malcolm X caused Bono to ponder the different sides of the civil rights campaigns, the violent and the non-violent.

In subsequent years, Bono has expressed his dissatisfaction with the lyrics, which he describes, along with another Unforgettable Fire song, "Bad", as being "left as simple sketches".

He says that he was swayed by the Edge and producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, who played down the need to develop the lyrics as they thought their impressionistic nature would give added forcefulness to the song's feeling, particularly when heard by non-English speakers.

The band were not satisfied with Cammell's video, and they agreed to their principal photographer, Anton Corbijn, shooting an alternative.

The second video was filmed in a basement near London's Heathrow Airport, it features U2 standing sternly in front of a wall under poor lighting conditions.

It gained considerable US album-oriented rock radio airplay and its video was on heavy rotation on MTV, thus helping U2 continue its commercial breakthrough begun with the War album.

Robert Christgau in The Village Voice complained of "the moralism with the turn-somebody-else's-cheek glorification of Martin Luther King's martyrdom.

"[14] Meanwhile, Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone wrote that "'Pride' gets over only on the strength of its resounding beat and big, droning bass line, not on the nobility of its lyrics, which are unremarkable.

[18] "Pride" was first played live at the opening show of the Unforgettable Fire Tour on 29 August 1984 in Christchurch, New Zealand.

U2 performed the song, along with "City of Blinding Lights", to upwards of 400,000 people on 18 January 2009 at the We Are One concert at the Lincoln Memorial to celebrate the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama.

The song's bridge was modified to address the event, with the lines 'Early morning, October 7 / The sun rises in the desert sky / Stars of David, they took your life / But they could not take your pride.