Line-up:

Drums: Ian Thomas
Bass: Phil Spalding
Acoustic guitar: Mick Jagger
Electric guitars: Mick Jagger & Pete Townshend
Lead vocals: Mick Jagger & Bono
Background vocals: Mick Jagger, Matt Clifford & Ruby Turner
Piano: Matt Clifford
B3 Organ: Matt Clifford
Synthesizer: Matt Clifford
Percussion: Mick Jagger
 

Oh joy, love you bring
Oh joy, make my heart sing

And I drove across the desert
I was in my four wheel drive
I was looking for the Buddha
And I saw Jesus Christ

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders
And lit a cigarette
Said "Jump for joy, make some noise
Remember what I said"

Oh yeah

My soul is like a ruby
And I threw it in the earth
But now my hands are bleeding
From scrabbling in the dirt

And I looked up to the heavens
And a light is on my face
I never, never, never
Thought I'd find a state of grace

Oh joy, joy in everything

Joy, joy, joy, oh joy

I was drowning in the darkness
As I drove down to the sea
Joy, joy, joy, oh joy

And I looked up to the mountain
And the light burst over me
Joy, joy, joy, oh joy

Oh joy, you make me sing
Oh joy, the love you bring
Oh joy, you make me sing
Oh joy in everything

Jump for joy...
 
 

TrackTalk

I was in my small studio in France playing guitar and suddenly I came up with the song. It's basically a gospel tune.

I've done duets at parties with Bono. Old Stones songs mainly. And when I was doing Joy I thought it would be the kind of song he would like to do. You never know if those things are going to work, and the embarrassing thing of course is when they do it and you don't like what they do. That's like the dreaded moment, and you have to go, Erm, I don't think it really worked out. But fortunately it did.

I had to go seek (Bono) out in this little town in Germany (where U2 were on tour). We cut it at this little hotel in the middle of the woods. He had a terrible cold. If the shoe had been on the other foot, I would have told him to come back in a week, but he was so sweet about it and did his best to sing. In the end, he sounded great.

When writing I try to create a picture in my head. People can only take so much abstraction. The track called Joy is about discovering God through nature, about seeking and salvation, but I thought nobody was going to be interested in that. So I get into the song by having the concrete imagery of driving into the desert, where you are not expecteing to find the Buddha or Jesus Christ. Those are the lines I gave Bono to sing - which I thought very appropriate, given his mystical bent. We're a party act together, Bono and me. The last time, we sang Satisfaction - a hip hop version.

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