He said it 'was never all played at the same time it was a real mish-mash of two things.' Lanois said Lillywhite's final mix was much different from his and Eno's version, leaning more heavily on effects and overdubs: 'I wouldn't have had as many effects on it, because we had a bit of a purist attitude toward some of these recordings, essentially that there was a sound that was captured in performance in a room, and we wanted to remain loyal to that space, to convey that sound. Without access to modern day samplers at the time, Lillywhite had to match the tempos of the two tape recordings by hand and then, during playback, transfer the requested sections of each onto a half-inch tape recorder. Producer Steve Lillywhite, who in December 1986 was hired by U2 to help mix some of The Joshua Tree, was asked by the Edge 'to fly over from one version to another version'. The final mix of 'Bullet the Blue Sky' was based on two different versions. The overall sensation was a chestier one.' The inherent low-frequency punch of the PA also added a level of excitement to the bass drum. This new sonic emphasis on the high-hat made every hit more relevant. He added, 'it introduced a mid-range that the high-hat seemed to like. The result, according to Meegan, 'made sound like John Bonham', while Lanois said they sounded 'tankier'. Lanois called it a 'really elaborate kind of rock and roll chamber'. There, in a warehouse next door, the crew used a public address system to play an acoustic recording of Mullen's drums, which was then re-recorded inside the warehouse. He quickly summoned the band, who went with the primary engineer Flood to Windmill Lane Studios. Wanting it to sound like Led Zeppelin, Meegan adjusted a monitor mix to make it 'really heavy sounding.' Lanois was inspired by what he heard, as the song up to that point was being treated softly. According to Lanois, the song's performance came from a 20-minute jam that he dedicated an extensive amount of time to editing into a final arrangement, 'for a song that was never a song, that was only ever a jam.' He said, 'It was one of those songs that was born partially by surgery – the editing of the structure was a really big part of it.' Recording engineer Dave Meegan helped develop the song with a mix that he made at Melbeach.

Producer Daniel Lanois says that the most progress on 'Bullet the Blue Sky' was made at Melbeach, the Edge's newly purchased home in seaside Monkstown. The Edge said that his guitar playing was also informed by Bono's lyrics. It upset me as a person who read the Scriptures, to think that Christians in America were supporting this kind of thing, this kind of proxy war because of these Communists.' In August, after reconvening with his bandmates in Dublin to resume work on The Joshua Tree, Bono instructed the Edge to 'put El Salvador through an amplifier', resulting in the song's feedback-based guitar part. I don't think we were in danger, but I knew there were lives in danger or being lost close to us, and I felt for them. He said, 'I remember the ground shaking, and I remember the smell, I suppose, of being near a war zone. The trip angered Bono and formed the basis of the song's lyrics.

In July 1986, Bono and his wife Ali travelled to Nicaragua and El Salvador, where they saw firsthand the distress of peasants bullied by political conflicts and United States military intervention. Still, the song was discarded for some time until producer Brian Eno, who described it as a 'homeless riff', convinced the band it was worth working on. Compared to the final version of the song, the Edge described the demo as 'much more bare-boned, like a heavy funk track'. After the take was completed, the band listened to playback in the control room and realised that the demo was 'absolutely brilliant'.

He thought to himself, 'What the fuck are they doing?', and considered stopping the jam. The guitarist became irritated, as the rhythm section was playing much differently than how he thought they should. Lead vocalist Bono recalled that Clayton was also playing in a different key from the Edge. Bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. It eventually became the chorus for 'Bullet the Blue Sky'. While listening to a song by English rock band the Fall, U2 guitarist the Edge tried to emulate its guitar riff, but instead came up with his own part that was, in his approximation, 'uptempo, like real hard-hitting'.

'Bullet the Blue Sky' first originated as a demo that U2 recorded during a jam session at STS Studios in Dublin with producer Paul Barrett, prior to the proper Joshua Tree recording sessions.

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