Original Names for Some U2 Songs

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Yeah, who the hell wants a song title that might as well be a paragraph? I'll take a to-the-point title like Crazy Tonight, thanks.
 
Magnificent was once called French Disco? :ohmy: (just heard the interview!)
 
Popmart Shopper said:
Yah actually they are two different songs but are strikingly similar like Always and Beautiful Day.
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The similarity between Always and BD is obvious, but the only similarity I can think of between Wild Honey and Flower Child is the fact that they both use acoustic guitar.
 
"Original of the Species" is also really lame; I'm not sure if "Unique" would be better or worse. . .


totally disagree. Original of the species is an excellent title and a rare masterpiece by U2 from top to bottom. Try singing it, you'l see what I mean. It ranks up there with eautiful Day and Electrical Storm and Ultra Violet for me.

Speaking of UV wasnt it originally called "Take You Down", and Bono did a 2 channel Vocal? I have it on the session cd, it's also one of my favorite U2 tracks in spite of the muffeled sound.
 
I always thoutght that Stir My Soul was Beautiful day... but the Tonight show make me doubt... at the end of I`ll go crazy... Bono sings a verse that make me wonder...
So anyone knows something about that?:hmm:
 
Stir My Soul is Beautiful Day.

Bono sits on a sofa in the center of U2's Dublin recording studio -- a laptop on his knees, a microphone in one hand -- listening to a vocal he has just sung. The song is called, for this moment, anyhow, "Stir My Soul." As it exists at around a quarter past six on a Friday evening in May, it is delicate and beautiful, driven by a hypnotic piano motif, over which Bono murmurs a mixture of words and melody before launching into a chorus largely consisting of the phrase "stir my soul" repeated over and over. The other three members of U2 sit scattered around the studio, with producer Daniel Lanois. (Co-producer Brian Eno prefers to contribute in short, sharp bursts; lately he's been coming in one week per month.)

U2 have an idea that "Stir My Soul" will be the song the band needs to open its new album, in the works for two years and scheduled for release this fall. "Some sort of opening gambit," Bono explains. "Sometimes you dream one up, and sometimes you find one on the floor." The Edge says that they've probably touched on a hundred different songs making this album. At the back of the studio is a white marker board that details the progress of the nineteen strongest contenders. According to the board, none of them are finished. This evening I will see just a little of the random, inspired, quick-changing process by which just one of them evolves. A year ago, Bono says, this song was called "Jubilee," and he had it all worked out. It leaped off from the Old Testament concept of a jubilee year. "The Jews had this idea that every seven days you had the Sabbath day, the day not to work," he says. "Every seven years you let the land lie fallow, and seven times seven -- forty-nine years -- you had a year of jubilee, where the people who are indebted, you had to let go of their debts. Captives, slaves, had to be set free. It was a time of grace. Beautiful idea, really."

U2 marked it as a song they should get back to, but when they replayed it a few days ago, all that jubilee thinking was cast aside. Bono wrote an entirely new lyric. He sings me the opening lines -- "Speak to me of the supernatural things/I will listen if you can tell me why the songbird sings" -- and shows me a printout of the rest from his computer, almost as if he wants to prove that the new U2 album is not being delayed simply because the singer has failed to complete his homework. But even that version is history now. "Beautiful tune, beautiful melody," he says, "but it wasn't what we wanted it to be. We were looking for more of an invocation."

So two days ago, the song now known as "Stir My Soul" mutated once more. "We changed all the chords and increased the tempo by ten b.p.m.," says the Edge. Bono explains it like this: "Quincy Jones said to me once, 'You're waiting for God to walk through the room, or else it's just craft.' The way you write music is at once humdrum -- there's a fridge in the corner with apples and a bottle of milk, and there's a fax machine -- and at the same time you're waiting for a miracle, or else it's just the sum of the parts. And yesterday we got this great gift of this melody, and that's what we have now." Of course, the new melody didn't work with the old chorus, and so Bono has come up with a new one. "This Dusty Springfield one," as he refers to it. ("I'm man enough to say I've been very influenced by her," he adds. "We've a similar register in places -- since our first album, I've felt a little bit of her.")

But they're still not happy. They now worry that the chorus is too commonplace. The Edge tries to add some guitar.

"I like that," encourages Bono. "It's dizzier." Bono worries about a part of the song at the end of the chorus where it stops and regathers itself. "It's a little professional when it stops," he says to Lanois. "We might have to mess it up a bit."

Bono picks up the microphone and sings some heavenly "oh-whoa-oh-whoa's" onto the track, the conversation around him barely pausing. It is remarkable watching with what speed and with what little reverence U2 race to change, amend and evolve a song. Right now, however, they break for dinner, which a cook prepares for them upstairs and which they all eat together around a table.
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U2: 'It's About Self-Respect' | U2 news article from @U2
 
Yeah I`ve read that back in 2000.

My felling was that Beautiful day is so different of Stir my soul was transcribed that could be consider another song.

I mean like Native son to Vertigo.:hmm:
 
boNOSE said:
"Original of the Species" is also really lame; I'm not sure if "Unique" would be better or worse. . .


totally disagree. Original of the species is an excellent title and a rare masterpiece by U2 from top to bottom. Try singing it, you'l see what I mean. It ranks up there with eautiful Day and Electrical Storm and Ultra Violet for me.

Speaking of UV wasnt it originally called "Take You Down", and Bono did a 2 channel Vocal? I have it on the session cd, it's also one of my favorite U2 tracks in spite of the muffeled sound.
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Yeah... I was actually referring to the title of the song (you know, the topic of this thread?), not the quality of the tune.
 
Popmart Shopper said:
Here is a list of some original song titles that U2 was going to use for some of their songs before they chose the final titles.I will go from POP and up.Not every track will be presented because I am only going by what I have read online or in U2 by U2 and dont know every early title.If Anyone has any others please feel free to mention them in your posts.

POP:Mofo-Oedipussy and Mother
Last Night On Earth-Sparky Left The Planet
Gone-Up and Suit of Lights
Miami-Same City Mania and Super City Mania
Playboy Mansion-Hymn to Mr.Universe and Hymn to the Universe
IYWTVD-Velvet Dress
Please-Get Up Off Your Knees

ATYCLB:Beautiful Day-Always
Elevation-Bulldozer
Wild Honey-Flower Child

HTDAAB:Vertigo-Full Metal Jacket,Native Son,Hola,Shark Soup
Sometimes You Cant Make It On Your Own-Tough
Original of the Species-Unique
Fast Cars-Xanax and Wine

NLOTH:IGCIIDGCT-Crazy Tonight(should have stuck with this)
Get On Your Boots-Sexy Boots
Stand Up Comedy-For Your Love and Stand Up
Fez=Being Born-Chromium Chords and Tripoli
White As Snow-Winter
Breathe-Walk Out Into the Streets

I think I posted this by mistake in the wrong forum.Sorry folks.:doh:
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Just to give a short update:
Bulldozer is not Elevation
Winter is not White as Snow
Hola was not a working title for Vertigo
There still may be another version of Tripoli
Last Night On Earth was called Nightshift at one point
Wild Honey and Flower Child are not the same song
Beautiful Day was Jubilee and Stir My Soul at some point
 
always is a different song than beautiful day, I'm pretty sure


-you could just edit your original post...
 
Yes Always is a different song with a different verse melody but when that chorus hits it resembles Beautiful Day however Always is a early version of Beautiful Day.
 
boNOSE said:
Speaking of UV wasnt it originally called "Take You Down", and Bono did a 2 channel Vocal? I have it on the session cd, it's also one of my favorite U2 tracks in spite of the muffeled sound.
Click to expand...

Take You Down is the fan working title applied to that track. The band may not have called it that at all.
 
adarkag, they wrapped the album not long after that article was written.
I think the writer stated it was June and they wrapped at the end of July.

I don't know if that's enough time to totally revamp that song.

My impression is that Stir My Soul was only an idea, a working title and lyric.

Not like Native Son, which almost made a finished album.

Other evidence is, that it's likely Always was the baby version of BD.
And then they decided to re-do it, and then it became Jubilee, Stir My Soul etc. if only because Bono was doing different lyrical ideas.

I remember reading that Bono was improvising, scatting and yelled "it's a Beautiful Day" and voila! They kept it. So I would speculate that those other songs were maybe never even mixed off into a 'finished' version.

Popmart Shopper said:
Just to give a short update:
Bulldozer is not Elevation
Winter is not White as Snow
Hola was not a working title for Vertigo
There still may be another version of Tripoli
Last Night On Earth was called Nightshift at one point
Wild Honey and Flower Child are not the same song
Beautiful Day was Jubilee and Stir My Soul at some point
Click to expand...

Night Shift-Love and Peace or Else.

The rest looks good, I think.
 
U2DMfan said:
adarkag, they wrapped the album not long after that article was written.
I think the writer stated it was June and they wrapped at the end of July.

I don't know if that's enough time to totally revamp that song.

My impression is that Stir My Soul was only an idea, a working title and lyric.

Not like Native Son, which almost made a finished album.

Other evidence is, that it's likely Always was the baby version of BD.
And then they decided to re-do it, and then it became Jubilee, Stir My Soul etc. if only because Bono was doing different lyrical ideas.

I remember reading that Bono was improvising, scatting and yelled "it's a Beautiful Day" and voila! They kept it. So I would speculate that those other songs were maybe never even mixed off into a 'finished' version.



Night Shift-Love and Peace or Else.

The rest looks good, I think.
Click to expand...

Yah to my knowledge Last Night On Earth was originally called Sparky Left The Planet.I remember LNOE was originally from the Zooropa sessions.
 
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