As The Music Played I Saw My Life Turn Around

U2 featuring the Sun Ra Arkestra “When Love Comes to Town” (Live at the Apollo)

The original version of “When Love Comes to Town” was written entirely by U2 but performed as a duet with B.B. King, a move that displayed the band’s incredible clout at the time as well as their good sense to realize that they’d written a legit blues rock song that might sound like a cheap affectation if they’d recorded it by themselves. It’s not just that King lended authenticity to the sound, but that his voice – and his co-sign – made it easier to hear what U2 had written. Nothing was going to stop anyone from thinking U2 were indulgent and hubristic in this moment of their career, but anyone with generous ears would hear a song with fully realized potential that made the most of Bono’s earthy poet sensibility and King’s soulful howl.

This version of “When Love Comes to Town,” recorded live with the Sun Ra Arkestra at the Apollo in Manhattan thirty years after the release of Rattle & Hum, maintains the core of the song while taking it to another place entirely. U2 bring the temperature of the song down a bit, letting Bono’s voice simmer at the lower end of his register before letting him cut loose a bit more towards the end. This decision probably came from Bono’s vocal range diminishing a bit with age, but it does the song a lot of favors in terms of dramatic tension and emphasizing the more sensual qualities of his voice. It also gives a lot of space for the Arkestra to carry a lot of the expressive weight of the song, punctuating the song with strutting fanfare, trilling leads, and unexpected bursts of treble. The Sun Arkestra was an inspired choice for this occasion – it’s easy to imagine a more pedestrian horn arrangement for this song, but their accompaniment is more colorful and sophisticated than it strictly needs to be and brings out a character in the song beyond what U2 or King ever had in mind.

Buy it from U2.