Where Did It All Go Wrong?
What U2 threw out from Achtung Baby is often as interesting as what they kept in, but there’s also often little realistic doubt that much of the album’s b-sides would sit awkwardly on the album proper – at least within the confines of its 55-minute current form; a double album may well help given its permissiveness to sprawling eclecticism. Not that it’s ever easy to guess these things, but “Where Did It All Go Wrong”, b-side to “Even Better Than The Real Thing”, might have been recorded early on in the sessions, given its not terribly insane nature and its listing technique in the lyrics, which do seem somewhat nebulous and not always clunk-free – Was it good in the sun/Did you really have the fun is just a wee bit awful.
Luckily, apart from the lyrics it’s basically a chugging piece of riffage that’s essentially too earthy to have gone on the final album, and possibly too upbeat too – beyond the realm of “Mysterious Ways”, which was probably the limit in this emotional field. It also uses it effects in not-too-subtle ways – I’m not sure what that opening background noise that sounds like a flanged helicopter in a wind tunnel is about, but it’s there. Essentially, the song’s a bit ragged round the edges, to say the least, so final judgement must be a “not bad”; more like “where did some of it go wrong”?.
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