The album began, according to Bono, when The Edge mentioned to him a desire to become very rich without putting in any work. Bono immediately came up with a concept for an album which would be unbelievably bland and vacuous, but that everyone would like anyway. Thus, How to Milk a Cash Cow was born. Larry Mullen Jr. of U2 described the album as "buy it, please!" Originally, this album was referred to by the working title of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. This is because the album had all the lifeless, meandering, redundant qualities of a dismantled Weapon Of Mass Destruction.