This single is U2's first from their breakthrough 1987 album The Joshua Tree. Bono spoke with NME about "With or Without You" and Scott Walker's Climate of Hunter, which was a great influence on the LP. Listen to "'With or Without You.'" Other influences included the Righteous Brothers and the Walker Brothers. U2.com notes this bit of trivia: "With or Without You" was played live for the first time on the second night of the Joshua Tree tour in Tempe, Arizona, on April 4, 1987. During that performance, Bono included snippets of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." "With or Without You" became U2's first number one on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and was voted Best Single by readers in the 1987 Rolling Stone magazine poll. According U2.com, "With or Without You" is the second most popular U2 song for artists to cover. This single contains the B-sides "Luminous Times (Hold on to Love)" and "Walk to the Water." The With or Without You single released in Guatemala also has the album version of "Mothers of the Disappeared." This single, and the two that follow, are significant because they contain the songs that constitute the "restored version" of The Joshua Tree. "With or Without You" is one of the few U2 songs to have charted higher in the U.S. (number two) than in the U.K. (number four). The With or Without You single was the first the band released on CD. With or Without You also appeared in CD video format and is one of their rarest collectibles. (This is not considered a promo item, about 50 copies were manufactured to experiment with the Philips CDV system.) It has a gold cover with text only. -- JT Griffith (allmusic.com)