HelloAngel
ONE love, blood, life
By Swan269
Could ?She?s Gonna Blow Your House Down? be a song from the past that gives us an indication of what songs on the eagerly anticipated new U2 album sound like?
While browsing through all of the new album news these past few weeks, I have read how some of the new material reminded fans of the never-officially-recorded ?She?s Gonna Blow Your House Down.? The new songs are supposed to be ?very guitar driven? and ?U2?s first rock and roll album,? but what does that mean for U2 and has the band ever tried this before?
?She?s Gonna Blow Your House Down? started as an acoustic number written by Bono and Edge during the ?Rattle and Hum? period. They performed this song along with ?We Almost Made It This Time? for the film?s director, Phil Joanou, to show him some of the material they were working on. The song never made the album, but it survived long enough to make it into the now-legendary ?Achtung Baby? working sessions.
Upon first listening to this song from the sessions the first question that comes to mind is, ?Does Larry ever get tired?? I think it is perhaps the most hard rocking song that the band has ever put together (whether we were meant to hear it or not). Throughout the song there are three layers of guitar with driving drums and bass. Bono is singing so fast that the song gets close to a rap session. Does this sound familiar to of any of the rumors that have been flying out of Dublin lately?
It is obvious why the song didn?t make ?Achtung Baby.? U2 was going for a more experimental industrial sound, heavily influenced by Edge listening to Nine Inch Nails and other bands of that ilk. This hard rocker just didn?t fit in. Lyrically, however, the song did fit the band?s mood at the time in that it deals with the uncertainty of relationships and would have fit in with ?So Cruel,? ?Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses,? and ?Mysterious Ways? with lyrics like:
Baby, can't miss her dancing
Give in...And journey on
She's gonna blow your house down
She's gonna turn your head around
Need you in doubt
Sure...we're without a reason
I'm calling out for love
Is there anybody home
She's got soul
She's blurry in the eyes
Got which days baby
Cut you to the eyes
Get sick with the hip
Get the right slip
If you want to, here she comes
Here she comes
Searching into the sound of the song, I can only find two instances where the band has come close to this frantic pace. For example: the climaxes of ?Gone? (see the performance on the ?U2 Elevation Tour 2001? DVD) and ?Last Night on Earth? (from the ?Popmart: Live from Mexico City" concert or on the ?Elevation? single). The band?s willingness to let all of the instruments go on at full blast though, has never been put onto an album from the studio environment. One could argue that other songs have had hard rocking elements but it is usually just the Edge playing hard with Adam and Larry keeping the structure of the song intact.
Could this song have survived this long to make it to the new album? History tells us that most U2 songs survive only for an album or two. For example, ?If God Will Send His Angels,? ?Last Night on Earth,? ?Wake Up Dead Man,? and ?If You Wear That Velvet Dress? didn?t make ?Zooropa? but stuck around to make it onto ?Pop.? ?Heartland? didn?t make it on ?The Joshua Tree? but it later surfaced on ?Rattle and Hum.? ?Love is Blindness? didn?t make ?Rattle and Hum? but made ?Achtung Baby.? It is therefore quite possible however, that the band pulled ?She?s Gonna Blow Your House Down? out of the sound vault at Hanover Quay to use it as a starting point for the new album. Edge once said that although the material from the ?Achtung Baby? sessions wasn?t finished, it didn?t mean that some of the songs were unusable for the future.
I believe that ?She?s Gonna Blow Your House Down? won?t make this new album either, but its spirit will be there from past experimentations and work. U2 will once again have reinvented itself if some of the songs even come close to the sound of this hidden gem. Alas, we can always hope to hear it as a B-side.
*Lyrics taken from the U2 Lyrics Archive: http://lyrics.interference.com/u2/index.html
*Note that lyrics were taken from all three recorded versions of the song.
*Further information taken from "Into the Heart: The Story Behind Every U2 song" by Niall Stokes
Could ?She?s Gonna Blow Your House Down? be a song from the past that gives us an indication of what songs on the eagerly anticipated new U2 album sound like?
While browsing through all of the new album news these past few weeks, I have read how some of the new material reminded fans of the never-officially-recorded ?She?s Gonna Blow Your House Down.? The new songs are supposed to be ?very guitar driven? and ?U2?s first rock and roll album,? but what does that mean for U2 and has the band ever tried this before?
?She?s Gonna Blow Your House Down? started as an acoustic number written by Bono and Edge during the ?Rattle and Hum? period. They performed this song along with ?We Almost Made It This Time? for the film?s director, Phil Joanou, to show him some of the material they were working on. The song never made the album, but it survived long enough to make it into the now-legendary ?Achtung Baby? working sessions.
Upon first listening to this song from the sessions the first question that comes to mind is, ?Does Larry ever get tired?? I think it is perhaps the most hard rocking song that the band has ever put together (whether we were meant to hear it or not). Throughout the song there are three layers of guitar with driving drums and bass. Bono is singing so fast that the song gets close to a rap session. Does this sound familiar to of any of the rumors that have been flying out of Dublin lately?
It is obvious why the song didn?t make ?Achtung Baby.? U2 was going for a more experimental industrial sound, heavily influenced by Edge listening to Nine Inch Nails and other bands of that ilk. This hard rocker just didn?t fit in. Lyrically, however, the song did fit the band?s mood at the time in that it deals with the uncertainty of relationships and would have fit in with ?So Cruel,? ?Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses,? and ?Mysterious Ways? with lyrics like:
Baby, can't miss her dancing
Give in...And journey on
She's gonna blow your house down
She's gonna turn your head around
Need you in doubt
Sure...we're without a reason
I'm calling out for love
Is there anybody home
She's got soul
She's blurry in the eyes
Got which days baby
Cut you to the eyes
Get sick with the hip
Get the right slip
If you want to, here she comes
Here she comes
Searching into the sound of the song, I can only find two instances where the band has come close to this frantic pace. For example: the climaxes of ?Gone? (see the performance on the ?U2 Elevation Tour 2001? DVD) and ?Last Night on Earth? (from the ?Popmart: Live from Mexico City" concert or on the ?Elevation? single). The band?s willingness to let all of the instruments go on at full blast though, has never been put onto an album from the studio environment. One could argue that other songs have had hard rocking elements but it is usually just the Edge playing hard with Adam and Larry keeping the structure of the song intact.
Could this song have survived this long to make it to the new album? History tells us that most U2 songs survive only for an album or two. For example, ?If God Will Send His Angels,? ?Last Night on Earth,? ?Wake Up Dead Man,? and ?If You Wear That Velvet Dress? didn?t make ?Zooropa? but stuck around to make it onto ?Pop.? ?Heartland? didn?t make it on ?The Joshua Tree? but it later surfaced on ?Rattle and Hum.? ?Love is Blindness? didn?t make ?Rattle and Hum? but made ?Achtung Baby.? It is therefore quite possible however, that the band pulled ?She?s Gonna Blow Your House Down? out of the sound vault at Hanover Quay to use it as a starting point for the new album. Edge once said that although the material from the ?Achtung Baby? sessions wasn?t finished, it didn?t mean that some of the songs were unusable for the future.
I believe that ?She?s Gonna Blow Your House Down? won?t make this new album either, but its spirit will be there from past experimentations and work. U2 will once again have reinvented itself if some of the songs even come close to the sound of this hidden gem. Alas, we can always hope to hear it as a B-side.
*Lyrics taken from the U2 Lyrics Archive: http://lyrics.interference.com/u2/index.html
*Note that lyrics were taken from all three recorded versions of the song.
*Further information taken from "Into the Heart: The Story Behind Every U2 song" by Niall Stokes
