New Year's Day
by U2
- 133
- BPM
- Ab minor
- Key
- 1A
- Camelot
- 52
- Danceability
- 1
- Acousticness
In December 1982, U2 were in Sälen and Mora, Sweden, filming the video for "New Year's Day" in the depth of winter. Meiert Avis directed. The band appeared only in the performance scenes. The cold was so harsh. According to the Edge, the four riders on horseback who seemed to be the band were four Swedish teenage girls in masks, hired after the real members froze the day before. Bono refused to wear any headgear and struggled to mouth the lyrics.
The song began as a love song from Bono to his wife, then took its shape from the Polish Solidarity movement. Adam Clayton's bassline grew out of his attempt to work out the chords of the Visage song "Fade to Grey" during a soundcheck. It was the third track on War and the lead single, released in January 1983.
It was U2's first UK hit, peaking at number 10, and their first single on the Billboard Hot 100, at number 53. The band first played it live on December 1, 1982. When they played it at the Silesian Stadium in Poland, the crowd waved red and white items in different sections to make the Polish flag, and they did it again on a later tour.
New Year's Day runs at 133 BPM, the tempo of techno, trance and big-room dance. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.8 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 451 ms. It is in Ab minor, Camelot 1A, which shares its notes with B major and mixes cleanly with C# minor and Eb minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.