"
Every Breaking Wave" is a song by Irish
rock band
U2. It is the second track from their thirteenth studio album,
Songs of Innocence, and was released as its second single. It was produced by
Danger Mouse and
Ryan Tedder, with additional production from Declan Gaffney.
Lead vocalist
Bono said that the band began recording "Every Breaking Wave" in
Sydney, Australia, but "then it went down the drain for seven years, up the arse, as these things do."
The song was originally intended to be included on U2's 2009 studio album
No Line on the Horizon. In an article previewing the album several weeks before release,
Rolling Stone called the song a "swelling soul-pop song, with bright synth sounds influenced by
OMD".
However, the track was ultimately left off the album at the advice of
Coldplay frontman
Chris Martin, who told the band that the song "deserves to be finished." Speaking of material the band were working on, Bono said the song was producer
Jimmy Iovine's favorite. Bono mentioned tentative plans for the group to release a follow-up record,
Songs of Ascent, comprising songs from
No Line's recording sessions, and said that the first single was intended to be "Every Breaking Wave".
However, the project was continually delayed, as U2 struggled to complete an album to their satisfaction and were limited by other commitments.
When the group resumed their U2 360° Tour in August 2010, they debuted "Every Breaking Wave" with a live performance, making it one of several unreleased tracks to be debuted. As the band continued recording for their next studio album, the song was altered; after Ryan Tedder was brought on as a co-producer in 2013, the song was one of the tracks that he changed most, as he introduced a new chorus melody and moved the old one to the song's bridge.
Bono described the song as being about the difficulty of "giv[ing] yourself completely to another person", with lyrical characters who are "addicted to sort of failure and rebirth". He referred to the chorus lines "Every dog on the street / Knows we're in love with defeat / Are we ready to be swept off our feet / And stop chasing every breaking wave" as a chance for the characters of two lovers to "make a break for it". A previous version of the song included the lines "After every peak, the trough / I can feel the energy drop / Will we ever know when to stop / With this chasing every breaking wave", which Bono said "has a certain despair that's powerful."
An acoustic version of the song, recorded in Malibu, California, was included on the deluxe version of the album. This version features the Edge on piano and an orchestra accompaniment written by David Richard Campbell.
