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"Running to Stand Still" is a song by rock band U2, and it is the fifth track from their 1987 album, ''The Joshua Tree''. A slow ballad based on piano and guitar, it describes a heroin-addicted couple living in Dublin's Ballymun flats; the towers have since become associated with the song. Though a lot of time was dedicated to the lyrics, the music was improvised with co-producer Daniel Lanois during a recording session for the album. The group explored American music for ''The Joshua Tree'', and as such, "Running to Stand Still" demonstrates folk rock and acoustic blues influences. The song was praised by critics, many of them calling it one of the record's best tracks. It has since been included in the regular set lists of four U2 concert tours, in two different arrangements and with several possible thematic interpretations. Since the song's release, the phrase "running to stand still" has become more widely used. ==Background== "Running to Stand Still" was written by U2 in the context of the heroin addiction epidemic in Dublin of the 1980s, much like "Bad" (and to some extent "Wire") had been from their 1984 album ''The Unforgettable Fire''.〔〔 Bassist Adam Clayton has referred to the song as "Bad Part II".〔McCormick (2006), p. 182〕 Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott's decline and death from addiction also resonated with Clayton at the time.〔 U2 has written relatively few songs directly related to their growing up in Dublin, often giving higher priority to works about The Troubles in Northern Ireland or to international concerns.〔Rafter (2001), pp. 222–223〕〔 When they have written about Dublin, allusions to it have often been disguised.〔Cogan (2008), p. 90〕 But "Running to Stand Still" was one of those with specific Dublin connections: This lyric was a reference to the Ballymun flats, a group of seven local authority, high-rise residential tower blocks built in the Ballymun neighborhood of Dublin during the 1960s.〔 Paul Hewson (later known as U2's lead vocalist Bono) had grown up on Cedarwood Road in the adjacent Glasnevin neighborhood, in a house across fields behind the towers, near his friends and future artists Fionán Hanvey (later known as Gavin Friday) and Derek Rowan (later known as Guggi).〔〔Flanagan (1995), pp. 151, 257〕 Bono had played in the towers' foundations as they were being built, then traveled in their elevators for the novel experience.〔 Over time, poor maintenance, lack of facilities for children, transient tenancies, and other factors caused social conditions and communal ties to break down in the flats.〔〔 The place began to stink of urine and vomit, and glue sniffers and used needles were common sights, as were appearances of the Garda Síochána.〔〔 Guggi later lived in the towers during years that he was struggling personally with drugs.〔 It was through his exposure to people without hope in the flats that Bono began to develop his social consciousness. Bono may have used Ballymun as the inspiration (without any explicit lyrical references to it) for the 1980 U2 song "Shadows and Tall Trees",〔〔 and later likened living in the area to some of the scenes portrayed in the 1992 Mike Newell film ''Into the West''.〔 Driving by there in 1987, Bono said, "See the seven tall buildings there? They're 'the seven towers.' They have the highest suicide rate in Ireland. After they discovered everywhere else in the world that you ''don't'' put people living on top of each other, we ''built'' them here."〔 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Running to Stand Still」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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