"Mercy" - Where did this come from!?!?

[In2U2]

Where did the track "Mercy" come from?

Does anyone know the source?

Did this come from the "stolen" CD?

All the other tracks that have been talked about on this site are usually B-sides leaked early or have identifiable origins (Although I'm not sure about that "Goldeneye" demo either).

Anyone know the scoop.....or even the rumor?

 

[Nate Dogg]

Supposedly, it came from an advance copy of the album, prior to the band "cutting" the unnecessary track in question and finalizing the running order. Someone who posts on this forum was lucky enough to have one of those advance copies, and posted it here. I am actually more curious as to why the sound quality isn't up to par with the rest of the album, and if that was due to the transfer to MP3 format by this person(whom we are all eternally grateful for sharing, by the way!), or if that is how it sounds on the CD he/she had...

 

[U2girl]

I think Bono spoke to a member of PLEBA and gave her a CD of the album that included Mercy.

 

[In2U2]

Cool!!

Thanks for th info. y'all!

I hope they polish it up and give it to us as a B-side!

 

[fmattyh]

I thought someone just received a burned copy of HTDAAB from a friend who worked at a radio station and it had this track at the end. This is back prior to the album's release, but a few days after the leak.

 

[gareth brown]

I hope they polish it up and give it to us as a B-side!

That'd be such a WASTE of a song!!

 

[*k_i_t_e_86*]

I think Bono spoke to a member of PLEBA and gave her a CD of the album that included Mercy.

True.
U2SJ- thank you!

 

[biff]

Yes, it was U2SJ who gave us the song, but it was NOT Bono who gave it to her. She made that very clear; it was given to her by an acquaintance. The story got muddled because she had met Bono at an earlier time, but he most definitely did not give her that disk. She did not know how her acquaintance came to have that disk.

 

[the tourist]

Cool!!

Thanks for th info. y'all!

I hope they polish it up and give it to us as a B-side!

How about if they polish it up and give it to us on an album in late 2006/early 2007?

 

[*k_i_t_e_86*]

Yes, it was U2SJ who gave us the song, but it was NOT Bono who gave it to her. She made that very clear; it was given to her by an acquaintance. The story got muddled because she had met Bono at an earlier time, but he most definitely did not give her that disk. She did not know how her acquaintance came to have that disk.

Ahh...right. Reportedly, Bono told U2SJ to watch out for Mercy, that's why i got this all mixed up.

Such a complicated story

Btw, do you think U2 know that we know ?

 

[wolfeden]

all I know is... forever grateful to U2SJ for it.. such an amazing, beautiful track..

 

[theedge111]

Yep, U2SJ got it and shared it with us all

 

[CPTLCTYGOOFBALL]

I know this isn't the forum to ask but can anyone email me Mercy? I haven't heard it yet
rhubarbarian@yahoo.com

merci for mercy, in advance

 

[theedge111]

I know this isn't the forum to ask but can anyone email me Mercy? I haven't heard it yet
rhubarbarian@yahoo.com

merci for mercy, in advance [/QUOTE


You've got mail Goofball!

 

[CPTLCTYGOOFBALL]

Thanks Edge111!

Great song

 

[quadcaster]

do we know for sure that it actually is mercy and not another track all together?

and if it is mercy, how do we know that thats what it is?

 

[theedge111]

do we know for sure that it actually is mercy and not another track all together?

and if it is mercy, how do we know that thats what it is?

The lyrics for Mercy are in the Special Editon Hard Cover book from HTDAAB, yup its Mercy!

 

[quadcaster]

ahhhh ok

 

[typhoon]

http://forum.interference.com/showthread.php?s=&forumid=274&threadid=100389

That's the thread in which U2SJ meets Bono (who mentions "Mercy"). I couldn't find the thread where she posts "Mercy," although I read it when it was originally started.

I am actually more curious as to why the sound quality isn't up to par with the rest of the album, and if that was due to the transfer to MP3 format by this person(whom we are all eternally grateful for sharing, by the way!), or if that is how it sounds on the CD he/she had...

She posted a WMA originally; forgot the quality, somewhere between 64-128 kbps, I think. WMAs sound better at lower bitrates than MP3s do, so that's not terribly low, but since WMAs in general suck, someone transcoded it into MP3. Those are two lossy compression algorithms, which is like taking a Xerox of a picture of the Mona Lisa, so yeah, I imagine it sounds better on the CD. I wish she'd posted a WAV, but whatever.

Still, it's a pretty rough mix even disregarding the low-fidelity copy, so I'm not confident we have a final cut of it (and therefore, I'm not confident it would sound finished even if we had a better copy of it).

Also, I think U2SJ mentioned that the disc was a standard copy of HTDAAB, except that "Mercy" was at the end (like a bonus track). But if I'm wrong on that, I wonder what other goodies were on it.

 

[blueyedpoet]

can someone email it to me at blueyedpoet_00@ yahoo.com

 

[phanan]

This is the thread where U2SJ first says she has Mercy.

http://forum.interference.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102136&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

 

[Aardvark747]

Thank heaven for small MERCY'S...


lol, ha ha ha......ok, so i'm bored, and my joke isn't that funny.

 

[dandy]

can someone email it to me at blueyedpoet_00@ yahoo.com

check your inbox.

 

[Bonochick]

This is one of my favorite U2 songs. I'm disappointed that it didn't get a proper release. It would be nice if that would happen in the future.

 

[Dima]

the only problem is that we gotta only lossy files: the original WMA and the ultra-crappy ( )MP3 versions (tencoded from a WMA: it doesn't make ANY sense) .
is there a premium member here that could ask via Private Message U2SJ to share a lossless version of Mercy (flac, shn or even wav)? he/she could use just one time and then we could spread this here and on EZT...(other than me) is there anyone else who'd be interested in a lossless version of Mercy ?

 

[super fly guy]

Mercy is a good song but its too nice, U2 do too many love songs!

 

[uwwedoogie]

mercy is class...it puts the blue back in my eyes...

actually thats not funny my eyes are green...

 

[Danny Boy]

I have a copy of the "original" WMA that U2SJ posted, and it's 128 kbps, which is lossy, yes, but certainly not to the degree that would add obvious digital artifacts to the track.

Most of the sound quality issues in that track are due to background white noise (hiss), not digital compression.

In fact, I converted the WMA back to WAV and used Soundsoap to remove the hiss, and it sounds much better. Still demo quality, but not bad.

 

[phanan]

I would imagine the CD copy that U2SJ has probably contains Mercy at the same sound quality as the rest of the album. At least that's what one would think.

It would be awesome if that was the case and we could all hear it, but we should all be glad we got ANY copy of the song.

 

[Danny Boy]

On the contrary, if all she did was rip the track from her CD to WMA, that would not fully explain the poor audio quality of the track.

I don't think this is a release-quality version, and I have no reason to believe that one actually exists