In 1983 U2 released War rescuing their career from the remnants of their previous and ill received album, October and revealing classics like “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Years Day.” Seeing that today is New Years Day and because I can still vividly recall watching this video on music television growing up and was a springboard in U2 becoming a huge influence on my musical upbringing.

According to Wikipedia, the video for “New Years Day” “was filmed in Sweden in December 1982 and directed by Meiert Avis. The band only appeared in the performance scenes of the video as it was filmed in the dead of the Swedish winter. U2 guitarist Edge revealed in the official U2 biography that the four people riding on horseback in the video that appeared to be the four U2 members were in fact four Swedish teenage girls disguised as the members of U2 riding on horseback with masks over their faces. This was done as the band were frozen from shooting the video in sub-freezing temperatures the day before. The biography also states that Bono refused to wear any headgear despite the cold weather and had a lot of trouble mouthing the lyrics.Video also features Second world war archive footage of advancing Soviet troops on winter.”