Studio album · No. 3
War Songwriting Credits by U2
Produced by Steve Lillywhite, Bill Whelan · Engineered by Paul Thomas, Kevin Killen
Holds writing credit on 10 of 10 tracks
Authorship Breakdown 10 / 10 documented
Scored across the 10 tracks with documented writers, by whether U2 carries a lyricist or composer credit.
Share of the 10 tracks where a band member is credited, by role.
By the Numbers
All ten songs on War carry one writing credit, U2, with no member named on any individual track. That flat credit hides how the songs actually arrived. The Edge built "Sunday Bloody Sunday" from a riff and a first draft lyric written during a stretch of doubt about his own songwriting, and Bono rewrote the words before the band recorded it. Bono worked on lyrics through his August 1982 honeymoon in Jamaica, and "New Year's Day" began as a love song for his wife before the Solidarity movement reshaped it. No outside writer appears anywhere on the album, which sets it apart from the later U2 records where producers pick up co-writing credits. The only split in the production credit is "The Refugee", cut with Bill Whelan before Lillywhite agreed to return.
War is U2's third album and the record where the band traded the abstraction of October for plain political writing about the Troubles, nuclear brinkmanship and Poland's Solidarity movement. Steve Lillywhite produced it at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin between September and November 1982, pushing the Edge away from the delay and echo that defined the first two albums. It entered the UK chart at number one in its first week, knocking Michael Jackson's Thriller off the top.