Synopsis

U2 perform "Window in the Skies" inside a packed concert crowd, but the band is almost impossible to spot. The video is built around rapidly edited archival footage of legendary musicians, cut so that singers from different eras appear to deliver Bono's vocals. Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Kurt Cobain and many others seem to join one enormous, imaginary performance. The result is a celebratory visual history of popular music and its enduring influence.

Factoids & Trivia

• "Window in the Skies" was one of two new songs recorded for U218 Singles, U2's 2006 compilation. The band recorded it with Rick Rubin at Abbey Road Studios in London in September 2006.

• The main video uses archival performance footage from a wide range of artists, including Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Ray Charles, Billie Holiday, David Bowie, Marvin Gaye, Kurt Cobain and many others.

• Editing makes the archival performers appear to sing Bono's words. This gives the song the feeling of a collective performance spanning several generations of music history.

• U2 are deliberately buried within the audience rather than presented as the video's obvious stars. The band footage was shot in Melbourne after the Australian leg of the Vertigo Tour, with about 300 extras used to create the concert crowd.

• The video premiered on November 20, 2006, ahead of the single's January 1, 2007 release.

• A separate alternate video used photographs associated with U2's biography U2 by U2 rather than the archival concert collage.

• The single became a Top 5 hit, while the video was widely praised for turning a conventional performance clip into an affectionate tribute to the artists who shaped rock and pop.