Edge spills some beans

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Is the album still going to be called No Line On The Horizon, or is that a red herring?
It’s not totally firmed up but it’s still the working title.

Has anything survived from the first bout of sessions [from September 2006], the Rick Rubin material?
We actually laid all that stuff to one side. Really out of deference to Rick and that set of songs we just said, Ok, that’s that, and we drew a line. So none of the Rick material went into this project. Everything has been written subsequently.

How would you describe the overall personality of the new album?
It’s a record of two halves. One half is songs that came virtually fully-formed out of sessions we did with Brian and Danny – stuff we’ve only played once or maybe twice and that’s it: just the raw moment of creation. Then the other half is material we’ve kicked around a while and went through the usual cycle of versions and incarnations. It sounds like a U2 album but it doesn’t sound like anything we’ve done before and it doesn’t really sound like anything that’s happening at the moment.

:up: February it is ! Finally some good info.

:hmm: Two halves ? How will that make a coherent album ?

For those interested in lyrics

What’s Bono banging on about this time?
I think there are some interesting third person characters in the songs. It’s giving Bono an opportunity to change his perspective in the lyric writing. I think the last two albums were really personal and first-person. But I think this one has a more panoramic scope lyrically, so it’s still personal and it’s still ultimately written from experience and Bono’s perspective, but he just has more freedom.
 
That interviewer knew what questions to ask, finally some interesting info. So, No Line on the Horizon is confirmed as the working title of the album. Although, we don't hear it from The Edge about the February release, so I'm still sceptic about that.
 
Rachel D. said:
This kind of makes me wonder if "Mercy" has morphed into "Moment of Surrender" based on the similarity in length. That might be a stretch, but who knows? :shrug:
Click to expand...

I think we can officially take that idea/rumor, which has been mentioned on this board for months and throw it out the window. Its abundantly obivious that the song came out of the new sessions, and the impetus of it came from some chord changes that Eno had suggested.

The only reason why people are thinking that the two songs have some relation has to do with the length of the songs, which does not make for a solid assumption. Just because they are both longer than usual U2 songs it doesn't mean they have anything directly to do with each other. Maybe Mercy influenced MOS because U2 thought they could write another long song but make it work this time therefore they went with it. But other than that I highly doubt they have anything to do with eachother.

...and quite honestly I hope they have nothing at all to do with each other other then what I mentioned before because I think Mercy is one of the most overrated U2 songs in history...and it wasn't even on a damn album. I'll cut my Mercy rant short because its not part of the topic and its been overly discussed for ages on here...but I for one can't wait to hear MOS. If its that good then maybe for once we can officially take Mercy and throw it in to the annals of U2 b-side history where it belongs and move on. (and yes I'm more than familiar with the fact that it was never officially released...but I personally consider it a b-side at best)
 
Rachel D. said:
This kind of makes me wonder if "Mercy" has morphed into "Moment of Surrender" based on the similarity in length. That might be a stretch, but who knows? :shrug:
Click to expand...

Mercy is from Bomb sessions. MoS is from Eno and Lanois sessions and has a "wonderful atmosphere" according to Eno, as well as being the "best song I ever did with U2".

I like Mercy and all, but I don't think it fits with what we heard.
 
Mercy is not gonna be on this Album, nor is "All my life life" and neither are the source for Moment of Surrender. "For Your Love" isn't clip no. 4. Bananas are crooked. Frogs don't live on the moon.

OK?

just get over it you people!
 
PolarCamel said:
Mercy is not gonna be on this Album, nor is "All my life life" and neither are the source for Moment of Surrender. "For Your Love" isn't clip no. 4. Bananas are crooked. Frogs don't live on the moon.

OK?

just get over it you people!
Click to expand...

"All My Life" isn't, either? I liked that one, too. :(

How do you know it's not gonna be on the album? :waiting:
 
Rachel D. said:
"All My Life" isn't, either? I liked that one, too. :(

How do you know it's not gonna be on the album? :waiting:
Click to expand...

I have spoken to the Slow Loris ;)

He told me that he and some frogs are going to move out of the rain forests to live on them moon in a commune, where they can listen to punk rock from Venus and eat straight bananas and bionic flies instead of mangos.

so everything is possible then...
 
PolarCamel said:
I have spoken to the Slow Loris ;)

He told me that he and some frogs are going to move out of the rain forests to live on them moon in a commune, where they can listen to punk rock from Venus and eat straight bananas and bionic flies instead of mangos.

so everything is possible then...
Click to expand...

We all know that Predictions from Slow Loris are not based on the Truth.....so!!
 
now seriously, they said a couple of times that none of the songs from the Rick Rubin sessions will appear on this album, and "All My Life" was one of them, and as for Mercy I think it's stupid to assume that a song from a completely different phase of their career would be used especially when they're trying to achieve something new. There's nothing novel or shocking about Mercy, it's simple but powerfull melodically. the lyrics are dumb. but the sound and the attitude are really nothing new, go listen to Echo & the Bunnymen's Siberia from 2005, Mercy could fit on that album as well as it could on HTDAAB, it's really an 80's new-wave revival thing.
One thing it might have inspired is the band's will to use this sort of propelling trancey groove in future music.
If you listen carefully to Ben's 4th clip (Only Love) you can hear that the songs groove shares something in character with the groove on the verses of Mercy.
BTW, I think they used the drum beat from Mercy's choruses as a reference point when arranging COBL for the stage show, because the verses are different than on the album and more like the chorus of Mercy
 
PolarCamel said:
...and as for Mercy I think it's stupid to assume that a song from a completely different phase of their career would be used especially when they're trying to achieve something new. There's nothing novel or shocking about Mercy, it's simple but powerfull melodically. the lyrics are dumb. but the sound and the attitude are really nothing new, go listen to Echo & the Bunnymen's Siberia from 2005, Mercy could fit on that album as well as it could on HTDAAB, it's really an 80's new-wave revival thing.
Click to expand...

THANK YOU!:hi5:

I still don't see why this damn song that will probably officially never see the light of day on an album is so damn special. Its mediocre at best.
 
PolarCamel said:
now seriously, they said a couple of times that none of the songs from the Rick Rubin sessions will appear on this album, and "All My Life" was one of them, and as for Mercy I think it's stupid to assume that a song from a completely different phase of their career would be used especially when they're trying to achieve something new. There's nothing novel or shocking about Mercy, it's simple but powerfull melodically. the lyrics are dumb. but the sound and the attitude are really nothing new, go listen to Echo & the Bunnymen's Siberia from 2005, Mercy could fit on that album as well as it could on HTDAAB, it's really an 80's new-wave revival thing.
One thing it might have inspired is the band's will to use this sort of propelling trancey groove in future music.
If you listen carefully to Ben's 4th clip (Only Love) you can hear that the songs groove shares something in character with the groove on the verses of Mercy.
BTW, I think they used the drum beat from Mercy's choruses as a reference point when arranging COBL for the stage show, because the verses are different than on the album and more like the chorus of Mercy
Click to expand...

City of Blinding Lights was from the Pop sessions, so there goes your theory about Mercy. I do agree that All My will be scraped, as mentioned with all the Rubin songs. That sucks because I liked one of the other clips a lot, I forget which one. Might have been 404. All my Life was quite mediocre, however.
 
I think the 06 beach clips can be lumped in with Spider Man music. At least 402 / "Boy Falls From the Sky"... All My Life, I'm not sure about. The other two we already know- Thank you by Lanois and Window in the Skies.
 
IrishDawg said:
City of Blinding Lights was from the Pop sessions, so there goes your theory about Mercy. I do agree that All My will be scraped, as mentioned with all the Rubin songs. That sucks because I liked one of the other clips a lot, I forget which one. Might have been 404. All my Life was quite mediocre, however.
Click to expand...

I didn't claim that the entire fucking song is based on Mercy, as it doesn't make much sense, I just hear that there's a change of drums between the album version of COBL and the live version, and I think that they might have taken that drums idea from Mercy.

They often take a staple drum part or just a groove from an old/unreleased song and combine it in the live/final arrangement of another song.

In his last interview for Mojo mag Edge mentioned that it's a method they often use, and we know they did that when incorporating SBS intro beats into the middle 8ths of Please on Popmart as a teaser, to enhance the association of the song with SBS' theme.

I think that it's a technique that has become more elaborate along the years as they used more drum machines and cut-paste writing. It's actually really cool because if you listen closely to live arrangements of AB songs you can hear grooves from the Berlin sessions creeping back in. Sometimes the live versions of the Fly from the last tour sound as close to Take You Down as they are to the original album version in some terms.

It's getting slightly off topic but I think that what we can make out from all of this in light of Edge's latest remarks is that the maximum we'll see from any previous none Eno/Lanois sessions used on the next album is only excerpts or lines that convey certain moods, but not complete songs altogether.
 
Maybe the songs from the Rubin sessions will be b-sides. Or bonus songs. Or a follow up ep.
 
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