U2 have posted the acoustic, Mandela version of “Breathe” on the entrance page of their website in honor of Tuesday’s memorial of late South African icon Nelson Mandela, who died last week at the age of 95.
The track appears on the b-side of “Ordinary Love”, a song written for the new movie “Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom.”
“Breathe” originally appeared on 2009’s “No Line On The Horizon.”
'It was as if he was born to teach the age a lesson in humility, in humour and above all else in patience,” wrote Bono in remembrance of Mandela on December 5, the day he passed away. “In the end, Nelson Mandela showed us how to love rather than hate, not because he had never surrendered to rage or violence, but because he learnt that love would do a better job. Mandela played with the highest stakes.”
“He put his family, his country, his time, his life on the line, and he won most of these contests,” he continued. “Stubborn til the end for all the right reasons, it felt like he very nearly outstared his maker. Today, finally, he blinked. And some of us cry, knowing our eyes were opened to so much because of him.'
U2 have been working on a new album which is expected to be released in the spring of 2014.
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