Shelly Yakus is the kind of behind-the-glass wizard who makes a band sound like it means it. I first clocked him in New York: assistant engineer at Phil Ramone's A&R Recording (1967-1969), then a Record Plant fixture from 1970. In that stretch he captured Alice Cooper ("School's Out", 1972), Johnny Winter ("John Dawson Winter III", 1974), John Lennon ("Walls and Bridges", 1974) and Blue Oyster Cult ("Agents of Fortune", 1976) - then helped cut Patti Smith's "Because the Night" (1978) and engineered Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' "Damn the Torpedoes" (1979). He later became chief engineer/VP at A&M, mixed U2's "Under a Blood Red Sky" (1983), was a Rock Hall nominee in 1999, and by 2014 co-founded AfterMaster Audio Labs.
U2 Live - Under a Blood Red Sky Uncensored 12" Vinyl LP Album
When U2 first released Under a Blood Red Sky, the original version of "The Electric Co." that was on the album included a 27-second snippet of Bono singing Sondheim's "Send In The Clowns." The band failed to get permission and pay the appropriate licensing and royalty fees to include Sondheim's tune on the album. When Sondheim objected, U2 agreed to pay a $50,000 (US) penalty for the unauthorized use and to press all future releases with a new version that did not include the 27-seconds of "Send In The Clowns."
So the original version of the album has the full "Electric. Co." running 5:17 and the edited version of the album has the song ending at 4:51. Your best bet for finding the original release with the unedited version of "Electric Co." is to track down a vinyl copy of the album. The original pressing will say 5:18, while future pressings on vinyl were corrected to say 4:51.
