You’ve probably heard U2’s “With or Without You” a million times, but have you heard of the instrument that spawned it? In the mix is something called the infinite guitar, an invention of Canadian Michael Brook.
When he was a young musician and electronics hobbyist, Brook saw an experimental rock show in Toronto. The group was using an E-bow, a gadget that allows for bowing a guitar’s strings rather than plucking them. Brook bought one for himself, but when his order got lost, he decided to just build something himself. Thus came the infinite guitar.
It plays on its own. The user just controls the notes. And it really does mean infinite. Brook accidentally left it on, and its sustain lasted for days.
The instrument ended up catching the eye of Edge, who ordered an infinite guitar of his own. Then, one day while recording, the haunting tone from Edge’s noodling inspired Bono and the infinite guitar was the rest of this new song was built around it, and “With or Without You” was born.
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