[1] With the help of producer Brian Eno, the band began to work on the song from a different angle, with the result being a more stripped-down version that echoed The Edge's original piano composition.
[1] Tobey Maguire's character Captain Sam Cahill was the inspiration for the lyric, with the band noting that the focus on "intense hidden emotion" and the secrets he held inside "was a jumping off point, thematically.
"[2] U2 wanted to include "Winter" on the album No Line on the Horizon, as well as on Brothers, but this ultimately did not happen; The Edge noted that "though it's a beautiful tune, it doesn't quite fit on our record thematically".
[1] Q described the rockier Linear version as being "surrounded by a deceptively simple rhythm track and an evocative string arrangement courtesy of Eno.
[8] In a preview of No Line on the Horizon, Q called the Linear version one of the "instantly striking tracks" while describing Bono's "lyric about a soldier in an unspecified war zone" as "fine".
[9] The Los Angeles Times had a negative impression of the Brothers version, labelling it "a snails-paced somber number with some oh-so-serious, look-at-me flashes of rhythm" while noting that it "could have used some of the gospel atmospheres of the act's 2009 effort 'No Line on the Horizon'.