This album was recorded at the Church of Abundant Life in Carthage, TX, using some equipment from the church including a "Little Stud" bass guitar.

Reid's Nady Distortion/Chorus pedal (nicknamed "Meat") died during the recording of "Sunday Bloody Sunday." The band kept it going by pulling the back of it off and suspending it over a coffee can by the two plug-ins. It survived long enough to finish the album, and then was never functional again.

The band was running into some problems during the recording of this album. Because of recording (and talent) limitations, it was becoming too difficult to record music and vocals at the same time. Some of "Big Hair" was recorded with a rudimentary form of two-tracking. The band would record, usually with all instruments, a starter track on cassette. That cassette would be fed into Tim's Denon tape deck, then replayed through the mixer and vocals and solos added.

Tim's famous Denon tape deck and Reid's blue guitar were both purchased with leftover Pell Grant money.

"Big Hair" was improvised when the band felt they needed a track to go with the title.

In spite of its strong rhythm, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" does not contain drums and was recorded in one pass. As Tim is playing acoustic guitar and Reid is playing distorted electric, you can hear them switch parts after the first chorus. That trade was made on the fly, with Tim calling the lead.

The vocals and tamborine on "I Will Follow" were overdubbed. Tamborines are very loud.

During the second pass through "Keep Your Hands To Yourself," the second guitar played rhythm over the first lead break. The mix was too loud, and the first guitar solo was obscured. This flaw was fixed on the CD transfer of Big Hair. It still exists on tape copies, however.

The vocals and guitar solo were overdubbed on "When Love Comes To Town." Reid's verse "When I woke up..." was listed on the liner notes of the "Rattle & Hum" CD, but was not part of U2's recorded version.

The first two parts of the MVIII Trilogy were recorded with Evatt playing two keyboards, both made by Yamaha. One belonged to Reid, another was borrowed from Darren McDonald which was used to create the percussion.

The band felt they needed a strong finish to the album that would duplicate the last moment of a concert, when the band holds a note interminably. "Finale In G" was that song. At one point during "Finale In G," (about 1:10 into the song) Reid and Tim trade instruments, with Reid going to the guitar and Tim to the drums.

"Mr. Happy" was added onto the album after most of the work was done. The song is an instrumental written by Reid in 1987.