I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
by U2
- 102
- BPM
- B major
- Key
- 1B
- Camelot
- 37
- Danceability
- 58
- Acousticness
The second single from The Joshua Tree was a late choice. "Red Hill Mining Town" had been planned, but Bono could not sing it in rehearsals before the tour and the band were reportedly unhappy with the video Neil Jordan had shot. So "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" went out in May 1987. It debuted at number 51 on the US Billboard Hot 100 on June 13, reached number one on August 8, and spent two weeks there. It was U2's second straight US number one. It peaked at number six in the UK.
The video was filmed on Fremont Street in Las Vegas on April 12, 1987, after a Joshua Tree Tour show in that city. Pat Christenson of the city's official event organization said the video changed how musicians saw Vegas.
The song began as a jam-session demo called "The Weather Girls" or "Under the Weather". The Edge compared it to "Eye of the Tiger" played by a reggae band. The band liked the drum part from Larry Mullen Jr. Lanois pushed him to develop it. The title phrase came from a notebook entry the Edge had written that morning, and he handed it to Bono mid-song. The demo, retitled "Desert of Our Love", appeared on a bonus disc with the 2007 remaster of the album.
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For runs at 102 BPM, the tempo of mid-tempo pop, dancehall and indie. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.35 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 588 ms. It is in B major, Camelot 1B, which shares its notes with Ab minor and mixes cleanly with E major and F# major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.