Great songs of The Decade That Shall Not Be Named: "Beautiful Day" by U2

So much has happened since the year 2000 release of "All That You Can't Leave Behind" and this soaring song of redemption and hope that it's hard to think back, through the haze of all the bad news that you can't leave behind since, and remember it as a song of this cursed decade. In fact, Bono's song -- which he once supposedly said is about "a man who has lost everything, but finds joy in what he still has" -- weaved its way into the very fiber of this decade, from its live performance at the 2002 Super Bowl after the 9/11 attacks to its use on the campaign trail for Barack Obama in 2008. I'd have to very much agree with most people that on the whole the 2000s was a pretty weak decade for most kinds of music, certainly when compared with the glory years of rock 'n' roll; but in "Beautiful Day," U2 created arguably the most uplifting -- and hence the greatest -- rock song ever. The official music video is here, while below they perform it at the Live 8 concert in 2005 (in London, unfortunately, not in Philadelphia):