I've been looking for a couple years, and I just don't think
that there are any good tabs for 40 out there... so I made this
one.
This is for the Under a Blood Red Sky version of 40, but you
can play it with the original recording, too.
I think it's how they always play it live, because in the
Vertigo 2005 - Live from Chicago DVD, Adam Clayton plays it
pretty much like this.

Your mantra for this song should be
"less is more." Edge/Adam (depending
on which version you're playing with)
really just sprinkle little guitar
bits here and there... they don't want
to suffocate the song with guitar noise,
and neither should you.

Tune down 1/2 step for Under a
Blood Red Sky/War, and standard for
the Vertigo DVD -- use some fairly
heavy distortion, too -- you want some
feedback.

Verse

"I waited patiently for the Lord..." etc., etc.

e|-------------------|
B|-------------------|
G|-------------------|
D|----------[7]------|
A|------[7]----------|
E|-------------------|

The harmonic pattern above
is repeated for the verse.
It's pretty easy to "feel"
when you should play it.

Chorus

How long? ...To sing this song?

e|-------------------|---------------------|
B|-------------------|---------------------|
G|---------9---------|---------14----------|
D|---------9---------|---------14----------|
A|---------7---------|---------12----------|
E|-------------------|---------------------|

Play each chord once, and let it ring.
The Edge/Adam play some kind of crazy U2 arpeggio
chords for the E, and i think they play the A bar chord
on the E string, but this sounds just as good.

But, if you REALLY want to play it just like them,
I think they do it like this --

e|-------------------|----------5----------|
B|---------5---------|----------5----------|
G|---------x---------|----------6----------|
D|---------6---------|----------7----------|
A|---------7---------|----------7----------|
E|-------------------|----------5----------|

-- but I'm not sure.

After Bono sings "How long to sing this song?"
go back to the verse harmonics. Again, you'll
have to feel for it.

The song order is Verse/Chorus/Verse/Chorus, and then
the outtro, I guess. In this portion of the song
(which actually winds up being the longest), play
through the verse once or twice, then play
this little riff twice --

e|---------------------|---------------------|
B|---------------------|---------------------|
G|---------------------|---------------------|
D|---------------------|---------------------|
A|---16----14----12----|----12----14----7----|
E|---------------------|---------------------|

Then go back to the harmonics and kind of fade out
of the song slowly.

Well, there you have it -- this is my first tab,
so if you have any corrections, email
MrWizard03@juno.com and let me know!