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Songs of Experience is the fourteenth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Jacknife Lee and Ryan Tedder with Steve Lillywhite, Andy Barlow, and Jolyon Thomas, and released on 1 December 2017. The album is intended to be a companion piece to U2's previous record, Songs of Innocence (2014). Whereas its predecessor explored the group members' adolescence in Ireland in the 1970s, Songs of Experience thematically is a collection of letters written by lead vocalist Bono to people and places closest to his heart. The personal nature of the lyrics reflects a "brush with mortality" that he had during the album's recording.
Songs of Experience was first mentioned by Bono on the day that Songs of Innocence was released in 2014. He began songwriting while recuperating from a serious bicycle accident that occurred in November. During the following year's Innocence + Experience Tour, U2 worked on the album using a mobile recording studio. The sessions continued into 2016, with the album mostly completed by the end of the year. The group had planned to release Songs of Experience in the fourth quarter, but after the shift of global politics in a conservative direction, highlighted by the UK's Brexit vote and the 2016 US presidential election, they chose to put the record on hold and reassess its tone. Consequently, Bono rewrote his lyrics to be more political. With the extra time, the band focused on finding arrangements for the songs that would work live and on record, while remixing and exploring different production techniques.
On 6 September 2017, U2 released the album's first single, "You're the Best Thing About Me". To promote the album, the band will embark on the Experience + Innocence Tour in 2018.
The group had planned to release Songs of Experience in the fourth quarter of 2016, but they ultimately decided to delay it; after the shift of global politics in a conservative direction, highlighted by the UK's Brexit vote and the 2016 US presidential election, the band wanted to reassess the tone of the album. The Edge said, "we suddenly realized that the world we were about to release it into had changed. So we gave ourselves a moment to reflect if this was a good idea, and concluded it might be better to wait for a minute. To pause, see what was going on in the world, see if the album we had just finished was what we wanted to say." Bono said, "the new songs were about ready to go, and then the world changed. We just had one of those moments where you go, 'Let's step back from this for a second.' It is a very personal album, and it's not gonna become a political album overnight. But it has to now go through the filter of what's happened in the rest of the world." According to the Edge, most of the resulting changes to the songs were lyrical and some were very subtle, emphasising or better expressing an idea.[2] He also indicated that the group might write one or two new songs with their extra time.
