“Pride (In the Name of Love)” is the second song on U2′s 1984 album The Unforgettable Fire and was released as the album’s first single. Written about Martin Luther King, Jr., “Pride” is one of the band’s most recognized songs, and appeared as the opening track on the compilation The Best of 1980-1990, and on the 2006 compilation U218 Singles. The song was a mixed critical but major commercial success for the band and has since come to be regarded as one of the band’s best songs. It was named the 378th greatest song by Rolling Stone on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The melody and the chords came out of a 1983 War Tour sound check in Hawaii. The song was originally intended to be about Ronald Reagan’s pride in America’s military power but writer Bono had been influenced by Stephen B. Oates’s book Let The Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as by a biography of Malcolm X. These caused Bono to ponder the different sides of the civil rights campaigns, the violent and the non-violent. U2 are a rock band formed in Dublin, Ireland. The band consists of Bono (vocals and guitar), The Edge (guitar, keyboards, and vocals), Adam Clayton (bass guitar), and Larry Mullen, Jr. (drums and percussion). The band formed in 1976 when the members were teenagers with limited musical proficiency. By the mid-1980s, the band had become a top international act. Their success as a live act was greater than their success as a record selling act until their …

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