With the announcement of U2's Greatest Show on Earth Tour, they released the third single from their upcoming album Carnaval de Lux.
“The Greatest Show on Earth” is a surprisingly contemplative track from U2. At one point, they were the biggest band in the world (their 360 Tour was the highest-grossing ever before Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Elton John, and, of course, Taylor Swift dethroned them). Now, they are making their return with their first album of new material since Songs of Experience in 2017.
The three singles from Carnaval de Luz—”Street of Dreams,” “Silencio,” and now “The Greatest Show on Earth”—feel like throwbacks to U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. If “Silencio” was Carnaval de Luz's equivalent to the foot-stomping rocker “Vertigo,” “The Greatest Show on Earth” is this album's “Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own.”
50 years in, U2 looks rejuvenated. The Greatest Show on Earth Tour may do it on a global scale, but the tour's namesake track proves the band's greatness in five minutes and 34 seconds.
A review of U2's “The Greatest Show on Earth”
“The Greatest Show on Earth” opens with some eerie single guitar notes from The Edge. It almost sounds like his theme for The Batman back in the day, setting the stage for Bono to take over.
“If I couldn't sing how love's the hardest easy thing / And if I couldn't sing you my life, hiding her in the spotlight / And if you couldn't hear me,” he begins, almost alluding to “Magnificent's” second verse.
Like “Magnificent,” religious themes weigh heavily in the second verse, as Bono alludes to stained-glass windows and wedding mass and asks the question, “Is this a church of love or fear?”
What's interesting is how, on “The Showman (Little More Better)” from Songs of Experience, Bono says showmen make a “spectacle of falling apart.” In the second chorus of “The Greatest Show on Earth,” Bono says, “If this is love, we make cathedrals of our hurt,” answering the question posed in the verse.
Other shared themes
One last potential connection to U2's Songs of Experience is when Bono sings, “If this is love and love is all we've got / You can show me what it is.” The uncertainty over love is something he shares on “Picture This” from the Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark soundtrack. He started Songs of Experience by asking if “love is all we have left.” If it is, he's now asking to be shown what it really is.
Bono may also pay homage to his son Eli Hewson's song “Your House” from Inhaler's Open Wide album. In the middle eight, Bono croons, “Love is a business that works at night / I sold myself for less than was right.”
On “Your House,” Hewson sings, “Maybe I sold love / For what it's worth on the street.” It could just be a coincidence, but it's fitting since that line from “Your House” is lyrically the closest Hewson has sounded to his father.
Love has always been a recurring theme in U2's music, but not in the traditional sense. Go back and listen to the complexity of “With or Without You,” where Bono grapples with giving yourself away at the height of U2's popularity, or most of Achtung Baby, which deals with the good, the bad, and the ugly of love.
Should you listen to U2's “The Greatest Show on Earth”?
“The Greatest Show on Earth” is a classic U2 anthem in that it slowly builds to its crescendo. It's a contemplative song that pits U2 against their mortality.
In many ways, it's an extension of “The Blackout,” which pitted dinosaurs against their looming extinction event. U2 just celebrated their 50th anniversary, and they're still putting out top-notch songs.
It's the most impassioned song U2 has put out in a while, and that's evident in the way Bono sings as the song hits its peak. He has given some great vocal performances this year on the likes of “COEXIST (I Will Bless The Lord At All Times?)” and “The Tears of Things,” but this may be the best of the bunch (surely, there are more great vocals to come on the rest of Carnaval de Luz).
“The Greatest Show in the World” is ultimately about faith. Maybe religious faith, or maybe faith the band members have in each other. Whether that faith was challenged recently is unknown, but they are operating as a collective on these songs from Carnaval de Luz as good as ever.
With each single, Carnaval de Luz gets better and better. For what it's worth, “Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own” won Song of the Year (U2 also took home Album of the Year and Best Rock Album for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb). It feels like U2 could be on the verge of releasing their next Grammy-winning album. They may be pondering whether they're still Rock's Hottest Ticket, but songs like “The Greatest Show on Earth” remind everyone that they are just that.
U2's Carnaval de Luz will be released on Nov. 13.