Trip Through Your Wires
by U2

Album: The Joshua Tree (1987)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song from The Joshua Tree album is about a girl who evokes tremendous passion in a guy. The title is a play on "trip wire," a low-placed wire that often sets off a trap. Bono sings about being caught up in all her "wires."
  • U2 played this for the first time on a RTE Television show called TV Gaga. Promoted as a "different" U2 sound, they played a raw version with no processing. The producer of the show was a friend of the band.
  • Bono played the harmonica on this track, an instrument he first started playing when the band was just starting out and attempting to cover the Neil Young song "Heart Of Gold."
  • The Joshua Tree was the second U2 album produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Lanois plays an electric autoharp called the Omnichord on this track. "It produces this beautiful bell-like sound and in the case of 'Trip Through Your Wires' it sounds like an organ," Lanois told Sound On Sound. "I plugged it into Edge's gear, his echo devices and whole amplification system. If you listen closely to that track you can hear this jangling in the background."
  • Bono claimed this tune was meant to be heard in conjunction with "Sweetest Thing," a song he wrote for his wife, Ali, that ended up as the B-side of "Where The Streets Have No Name."
  • The Joshua Tree album was an important milestone in the band's career. It's by far the best-selling release in their catalog, and it won the Grammy Award for Album Of The Year among highly esteemed competitors, including Michael Jackson's Bad, Prince's Sign O' The Times, Whitney Houston's Whitney, and the Dolly Parton/Linda Ronstadt/Emmylou Harris collaboration Trio.
  • This was used in the 1990 movie State Of Grace, starring Sean Penn.

Comments: 7

  • Francisco Javier from Tudela De Duero, SpainMaybe the songs tells the history of the polemic relationship between Jesuscrhist and Maria Magdalena: "..Angel or devil, i was thirsty and you wet my lips"-Maria givin´ water to Jesus after crucifixion. "you set my desire, i trip throguh your wires"
  • Miles from Vancouver, CanadaSomehow, I've thought this song sounded like it was influenced by Led Zeppelin. Bono's harmonica sounds almost like that of Robert Plant.
  • Ben from Gosford, AustraliaIt's a very sexy-sounding song. I love the line "Still shaking, still in pain, you put me back together again."
  • Curtis from Cornwall On Hudson , NyI used to have a version they did on live TV, perhaps the one mentioned above but it had different lyrics and was about a city, presumably Dublin. On the same show they did a song called Womanfish which I have never heard anywhere else. I strongly suspect that at least Bono was drunk of his a**.
  • Cole from Bucks County, PaI always thought this song was about an artist embracing his muse/art. When I met the first woman I loved, this song meant something more.
  • Anthony from Dalles, Txwhat is the song about?
  • Ash from Charleston, WvThis is one of those tunes that used to just send me into a frenzy of pure unadulterated joy!! Know what I'm sayin'?
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