U2 - 11 O'Clock Tick Tock - Non-Album Tracks (1980)

I just posted an album of U2's very earliest songs, from 1978 to 1979. This is more of the same, but from 1980. More importantly, there are quantum leaps in songwriting quality and the band's musical talent. U2's studio album from 1980, "Boy," is very critically acclaimed, to the point that it's listed as one of Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time." If you like that album, you should like this.

Four out of the 10 songs here are still officially unreleased. But generally speaking, the sound quality is good, and better than the earlier U2 collection. Three of the unreleased songs come from a February 1980 concert, but it was a well recorded soundboard. One of the officially released songs also comes from that show, and the sound quality of that one isn't noticeably different from the others which come from a bootleg.

The song "Saturday Night" is an early version of "Fire," which would appear on the 1981 album "October." However, it's only distantly related musically, with totally different lyrics.

I probably should explain some confusion about the song "Pete the Chop." This was a song the band wrote that their manager really liked, and he considered it a possible hit. But the band didn't like it much, even though they recorded a demo of it. The manager kept asking the band "Whatever happened to 'Pete the Chop?'" and pressing them to properly record and release it. The band never did. However, the manager's nagging inspired them to write another song called "Treasure (Whatever Happened to Pete the Chop)" which is musically only slightly related to "Pete the Chop." The demo unfortunately has never been made publicly available, but the band played the song live a few times, so I've included one of those performances. I'll include "Treasure" on a later stray tracks album.

I have one bonus track this time around. It's a version of "Twilight," a song on the 1980 "Boy" album. But this is a different, earlier version, released as a B-side.

01 Saturday Night [Early Version of 'Fire'] (U2)
02 The Dream Is Over (U2)
03 Cartoon World (U2)
04 Jack in a Box (U2)
05 Speed of Life (U2)
06 Pete the Chop (U2)
07 Another Day (U2)
08 11 O'Clock Tick Tock (U2)
09 Touch (U2)
10 Things to Make and Do [Instrumental] (U2)

Twilight [Single Version] (U2)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15256733/UTwo_1980_11OClockTickTck_atse.zip.html

The most famous song on this album is "11 O'Clock Tick Tock," which appeared on the 1983 live album "Under a Blood Red Sky..." and it's still occasionally played in concert by them. So I've titled the album after that song, and I've used the cover arr from the single for the album cover, without any changes.