Numb

"Numb" is a song by rock band U2. It is the third track from their 1993 album Zooropa and was released in June 1993 as the album's first single. The song features a monotonous mantra of "don't" commands spoken by guitarist the Edge amidst a backdrop of various sound effects and samples. The noisy composition and lyrical concept for "Numb" were inspired by the theme of sensory overload, which had prominently been incorporated into the Zoo TV Tour. Lead singer Bono and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. provided backing vocals on the track. "Numb" originated as a discarded song from the Achtung Baby recording sessions called "Down All the Days". While recording Zooropa, the band transformed the song with mixing assistance from co-producer Flood, the addition of keyboards and samples by co-producer Brian Eno, and the addition of the Edge's monotone vocals. The song was released as a VHS single, featuring music videos directed by Kevin Godley and Emergency Broadcast Network, respectively, but it did not attain widespread commercial success. U2 added "Numb" to their live set lists after resuming their Zoo TV Tour in May 1993, but like most songs on Zooropa it has never been performed live since the end of that tour. Recording and production "Numb" originated as a discarded song from the Achtung Baby sessions called "Down All the Days" (later released in the premium editions of Achtung Babys 20th anniversary reissue) that was recorded with producer Daniel Lanois at Berlin's Hansa Studios. The band was not fond of the track—Zooropa co-producer Flood, who was engineer for the Achtung Baby sessions, said it was "quite a ballady song and in the end it was decided that it didn't fit" on that record. Guitarist the Edge said, "It almost worked," calling it a "quite unhinged electronic backing track with a very traditional melody and lyrics" sung by lead vocalist Bono. During the Zooropa sessions of February–May 1993, U2 revisited the song. At Windmill Lane Studios, producer Brian Eno began working with a stereo submix of the Berlin version, containing guitar, bass, bass pedals and drums, that Flood had created. Eno added about six or seven tracks of keyboards to the submix, mostly samples and strings from a Yamaha DX7 synthesiser. Some of the samples included Arabic voices and congas. According to Flood, "The idea of his overdubs was to make up music out of non-musical noises, like loops of pieces of dialogue and video samples." The Edge called Eno's additions "fantastic".