Composer: Mick
Jagger
Recording date: June-July 2001
Recording locations: Metropolis Studios, London, England
& hotel room, Haus Lerbach, Heidkamp, Germany
Producers: Matt
Clifford & Mick Jagger
Chief engineer: Max Heyes
Mixer: Jack
Joseph Puig
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
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.