Rock legends U2 released their iconic LP The Joshua Tree almost 30 years ago on March 9, 1987.

The band’s fifth album went on to become their biggest record to date — breaking them in the US and securing their spot as the biggest band in the world.

As U2 get ready to go on a special world tour to mark the 30th anniversary of the album, here are 30 facts about The Joshua Tree to celebrate its landmark anniversary.

1) The Joshua Tree is by far the band’s most successful album, with over 25 million albums sold, and only took a year to record — with most of the songs fully mixed as they were originally recorded.

2) Band manager Paul McGuinness said the idea for the theme of the album came from the band’s “great romance” with the United States.


3) This theme would later prove a struggle for the band — with guitarist The Edge later recalling that he wanted to follow the ‘European’ atmospherics of their previous album The Unforgettable Fire. Bono, however, sought a more American, bluesy sound.

4) Despite disagreements on the direction of the record, the band were united in their disillusionment with the synth-pop and new wave music of the time, and they wanted to make music that contrasted with those genres.

5)The band were happy with the success of The Unforgettable Fire and stuck with producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Larry in particular wanted them back because he felt they “really took an interest in the rhythm section”.

6)They also enlisted the help of Mark ‘Flood’ Ellis as they were impressed with his work with Nick Cave. Flood would become the engineer of the album, while Lanois and Eno were the primary producers.

7) The album was partly recorded in a two-storey Georgian mansion in Rathfarnham, South Dublin, after Bono got tired of what he called the “sterile” environment of recording studios.

8) The said mansion was liked so much by bass player Adam Clayton that he later bought it for use as his own home and carried out extensive restoration work to the building.


9) With or Without You was the lead single released on the March 21, 1987, becoming the band’s first ever US number one hit.

10) Red Hill Mining Town was supposed to follow as the second single but the group were reportedly unhappy with filmmaker Neil Jordan’s music video, and the band also had difficulty performing it during rehearsals.

11) Where the Streets Have No Name — a classic fan favourite — was one of the hardest to record. Producer Daniel Lanois said of the song : “I was holding a pointer, like a college professor, walking the band through the chord changes like a f***ing nerd. It was ridiculous.”

12) I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For was originally a lot different. With the working title Under the Weather, the song was birthed from a binned tune named The Weather Girls. The lyrics were thrown out and the beat was kept for what would become the band’s first epic gospel tune.

13) Bullet the Blue Sky came from Bono’s visit to El Salvador and Nicaragua where he witnessed poverty and struggle. The title is a reference to the government fighter planes screaming overhead on a mission to quell an uprising.


14) Running to a Stand Still is a song about drugs and their destructive effect. The line, “I see seven towers but I only see one way out” is a direct reference to the 1960s tower blocks of the Ballymun council estate where Bono had grown up.

15) In God’s Country is the shortest song on the album and the title is a reference to America’s strong religious tradition.

16) One Tree Hill is a song inspired by the death of Greg Caroll, Bono’s personal road assistant and roadie.

17)The song Exit was written by Bono after he read Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song — an account of the life of convicted killer Gary Gilmore, who was executed in 1977.

18) Album closer Mothers of the Disappeared grew out Bono’s trip to Central America in 1986. He was moved by the plight of hundreds of opponents of regimes in several countries there in the 70s and the 80s, who seemingly disappeared without a trace.

19) By the end of 1988 The Joshua Tree had already sold an 14 million copies.

20) The album was remastered for the first time in 1996 as a special gold CD. This edition rectified an incorrect track splitting between the songs One Tree Hill and Exit that affected some copies of the original record.


21) U2 travelled around the eastern California desert with photographer Anton Corbijn shooting pictures in the desert landscape for the cover. Corbijn found a lone-standing tree, which was unusual since Joshua trees are usually found together in clusters. It perfectly fit the tone of the album.

22) The biggest misconception about the famous tree on the cover of The Joshua Tree is that it lies within the eponymous Joshua Tree National Park, which is a four-hour drive to the south from U2’s tree.

23) Sadly, this confusion is thought to have led to the August 2011 death of Dutch promoter Guus Van Hove and his wife who died of heatstroke in Joshua Tree National Park while searching for the tree.

24) The actual tree died of natural causes, slumping to the dusty ground of the Mojave Desert, California, in 2000. Fans still visit it to this day.

25) In 2015 the fallen tree was defaced after someone chopped it up into pieces. A limb also went missing.

26) U2 actually originally recorded what would become a 1998 hit single The Sweetest Thing during ‘The Joshua Tree sessions. The original recording appeared as a B side to Where the Streets Have No Name.


27) During The Joshua Tree tour a white nationalist threatened to shoot Bono on stage if the band continued to give their vocal support to the honouring of Martin Luther King Day.

28) Another particular death threat was taken so seriously by the FBI that the band were even advised to cancel a concert during the tour.

29) In 2015, the album was deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” by the US Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry which “represents America’s culture and history” — the only Irish musical work to be so honoured.

30) Achtung Baby — arguably the band’s next biggest record — was referred to by Bono as “the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree”.