10 Songs Written About Other Musicians

Across their career, U2 hasn't minced words when it came time to celebrate their idols. Whether it was jamming with BB King back in the Rattle and Hum days or talking about the non-musical icons that shaped them like Martin Luther King, these Irish rockers were as much inhabiting these songs as they were performing them. Just when you thought they were getting too pretentious for their own good, Songs of Innocence opened up with one of their most open-hearted tributes to their roots.

Even though they seem far away from it now, U2's origins lay in the punk rock squats of Ireland, where they were shaped by acts like the Clash and the Damned. On this outing though, the song pays tribute across the Atlantic to Joey Ramone, the gangly maniac who led the Ramones. Rather than go the full punk rock route, this track is exploding with arena-rock bombast, as Bono talks about the first sounds of the Ramones record being nothing short of transcendent the first time he heard it.

Compared to some of the more artificial sounding music that U2 had been making at this point in their career, this venture down memory lane feels like it's coming from a really genuine place. Though Joey Ramone departed from this Earth long ago, songs like The Miracle prove that his legacy is going to be with us for a long time.