How To Write & Record Your Own U2 Song At Home Over A Weekend

[Chill Mike D]

When I go home to visit my family, I'll play with my brothers and one of our friends when we get together to play music. We all rotate on guitars, bass, drums, etc.

Anyway, the friend does not like U2, to put it mildly. When we play, someone inevitably starts playing root-note bass lines and minimalist guitar and he makes some comment about how nice that "bullshit gravy train" must be, and then we laugh.

That said, he is well-versed in U2 and has listened to pretty much all their stuff through Zooropa since he was a fan when he was a kid.

We decided to make a fake U2 song that sounds like archetypal U2 circa 1984-1987. It's not a cover, but a parody. He wrote the nonsense lyrics, since he says that all of Bono's lyrics are meaningless bullshit strung together, and I did all the music, and also gave the vocals my best shot with my Kermit the Bono voice.

So, this is all in good fun, and if you're buzzed you might get a kick out of it. I was able to test out my new mixer by doing this.

Spy Plane (Over The Heart Of Africa)

Lyrics:

Like a rocketing Blackbird
tearing through the skies
my lover comes to me
with all her secrets and sighs

my love is her surveillance
as she spies from above
picture me in silence
capturing love

I am the dark soul
of the shantytown poor
an African death field
empty temple floor

This is the beginning
or is this the end?
denials are plausible
the truth she can bend

Espi-o-nage!
what's your frequency?

Espi-o-nage!
what does this mean to me?!

Espi-o-nage!
This is not a drill!

Espi-o-nage!
lover's license to kill!

red dust through the heat waves
rising through the air
she delays my release
from the cold lense's stare

I flee the to the shaman
through the byzantine streets
as she follows me down
to collapse and defeat

The child runs his way home
finds a smoldering husk
As the tanks rumble past
towards the African dusk

There she awaits
her empty lover's call
confirmation or failure
she records it all

Espi-o-nage!
Decrypt and decode!

Espi-o-nage!
Empty Node to node!

Espi-o-nage!
This does not compute!

Espi-o-nage!
my love's a black jackboot!

 

[theedgeu2]

Dude that was really awesome! I liked it, great sound. What mixer and program did you use? The quality is great!

 

[Chill Mike D]

The mixer I got two weeks ago as a gift. It's a Behringer XENYX 1204 USB, and I use Garageband.

Really though, this song was pretty simple. There are only two guitar tracks. It was a chord progression that I had lying around for a while, and it fit his lyrics. Lol.

 

[theedgeu2]

Awesome! I was gonna get one of those but got M Audio's Fast Track Pro Interface instead. I never really have liked the sounds I've got through it. Maybe I need to spend more time with it? Anyway, it sounded like it was simple but still awesome! Loved the intro too. Very eery and U2-like.

 

[Chill Mike D]

Ha, thanks. Until I got this mixer I had just been using DI modelers and occasionally miking my amp with a crappy mixer I borrowed from work that's not really meant for this purpose. M-Audio makes good stuff though, maybe stick with it and mess around with it. I have a USB MIDI keyboard of theirs that I like a lot.

 

[edge-evans]

Nice. Didn't even need to pull a "bee and the flower" or "honey on my tongue" reference either. Did not use the word "Baby" or "Jesus" much to boot!

 

[theedgeu2]

Yeah no problem. Crappy mixers don't really go anywhere for you haha. I was talked out of one of those Behringer mixers and I kind of regret it now.

 

[thelaj]

If someone had told me this was on the B-sides disk of TUF remaster, I would believe them...

"I flee the to the shaman
through the byzantine streets
as she follows me down
to collapse and defeat"

Is this from an earlier version of Breathe? Ha. Ju Ju man.

 

[Chill Mike D]

Nice. Didn't even need to pull a "bee and the flower" or "honey on my tongue" reference either. Did not use the word "Baby" or "Jesus" much to boot!

I think he started hating U2 too early to get into those kinds of lines, but yeah, I'm sure they could fit in the song almost anywhere.

 

[digitize]

Okay. I'll be totally honest here. Except for the lyrics, I really like this song in a non-parody way.

 

[Chill Mike D]

Thanks. I also have a very sloppy "It Might Get Loud"-inspired jab at Jack White that I recorded in 10 minutes while I was waiting on someone.

 

[JoRu]

That sounds pretty damn awesome! It's clear that the lyrics are meant completely as parody (they make absolutely no sense ), but I'm serious when I say that the music itself, the melody, rhythm and guitar sounds really professional and something U2 could've done in this period. Reminds me a bit of Rise Up (I love that song btw).

 

[Chill Mike D]

Ah, gracias. It turned out better than I thought it would at first. The "espionage" vocal bit actually took more time than almost anything else. I was trying to make it sound like an Edge backing vocal, and making your own voice sound like somebody else providing backing vocals to your own voice isn't so easy, I found out.