What do you know about the song “Beautiful Day”? Here is some info that you may find interesting, if you have other facts share them with us.
“Beautiful Day” is the first song and lead single from U2’s 2000 album, All That You Can’t Leave Behind. It was a commercial success, helping launch the album to multi-platinum status, and is one of U2’s biggest hits to date. It was their fourth #1 single in the UKand their first #1 in the Netherlands, while the single also was #1 for a week in Australia. The song peaked at #21 in the U.S., the band’s highest position since “Discothèque” in 1997. The song won three Grammy Awards in 2001.
The lyrics were inspired by Bono’s experience with Jubilee 2000, a benefit urging politicians to drop the Third World Debt.
This is about a man who loses his material things and feels better because he realizes the value of what he has.
U2 wrote this in stages. It changed drastically when Bono came up with the “Beautiful Day” lyric and the idea for the backing vocals.
This was featured in television coverage of the 2000 Olympics from Australia. It was used in a nightly video recap called “Images Of The Games.” NBC made a donation to The Special Olympics in exchange for the rights to use it.
This was one of the first major releases made available for download. Fans could stream the song from U2.com before it was released.
A live performance was taped for British TV show Top Of The Pops on the rooftop of a hotel in Ireland that Bono and The Edge own. They also taped a performance of “Elevation” that day.
This evolved out of a punk rock song they were working on called “Always,” which was used as the B-side to “Beautiful Day.” “Always” was included on a 2002 album of U2 rarities called U2 7. The album was distributed through Target stores.
The video was first shown at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sep. 7, 2000.
In England, this went to #1 its first week. It beat out a duet by Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue which was expected to claim the top spot.
This was the first track and first single on All That You Can’t Leave Behind. The album did much better than their previous one, Pop, released in 1997.
When this went to #1 in the UK, Bono told BBC Radio One: “This tastes very sweet. You think to yourself, you’re a rock band, you don’t need the pop charts, but you do need the pop charts. Singles are what makes rock sharp, and we’ve not been great at singles. I can’t tell you how excited we feel, we’ve been around for a while and to hear this song on the radio, it feels very special.”
This won 2000 Grammys for Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year, and Best Rock Performance By Duo Or Group. The album was released after the 2000 cutoff date and was not eligible for awards, but this was because it was released as a single before the date. The next year, U2 won 4 more Grammys.
When accepting the Grammy awards for this, The Edge wore a jersey with the number 3 as a tribute to Dale Earnhardt, a race car driver who died the weekend earlier in the Daytona 500.
U2 performed this at halftime of the 2002 Super Bowl after it won an online poll, beating out “Desire,” “Pride” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Unlike the year before, when Aerosmith was joined by Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige and Nelly, U2 had the halftime show to themselves.
Clips of this song are used as the theme music for The Premiership, a weekly TV show in the UK which shows that covers all the English Permier League football (soccer) games.
This song was played at the end of a Smallville episode entitled “Nicodemus,” where Clark takes Lana up on the windmill and shows her the Metropolis horizon line.
Kurt Nilsen from Norway won the 2003 World Idol competition singing this song. World Idol brought together winners for the Idol competitions in various countries to compete against each other. 2003 was the only year it took place, and Nilsen beat 10 other contestants, including Kelly Clarkson, who placed second.