COBL = Super City Mania?

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drt4

The Fly
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Since COBL is described as a song that was worked on for Pop, does anyone remember Super City Mania? This was one of the working titles for one of the Pop songs. They are both about cities, could it be the same song?

I always wonder what happens to these song titles they mention when they are working an album, and they never appear. Like Bulldozer for ATYCLB.

Anyway. I somehow got the impression that Super City Mania was on the extreme side of their electronica influence for Pop. Lots of crazy dance beats. Though I probably made that up. But maybe they reworked it into a more traditional rock song and it became COBL!

What do you think?
 
Super City Mania is and was Miami.

It was on the early DJ copy of POP that went out in 96, very very rare, but in fact that's exactly what ended up being Miami.

And I think Bulldozer is Love and Peace or Else, but that's my specualtion only.
 
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Well so much for my theory. What was this early DJ copy of Pop? Was it the same songs but some different names?

So are there any working titles from Pop that could have been COBL?

I kind of guessed Bulldozer maybe became Elevation.
 
yes there are likely more working titles for COBL back to 96.
But as far as I understand it was only a piece of music from back then. Very likely it only was the melody line that goes thru the whole song. It probably had a title, even as an instrumental, or it could have had lyrics, but the way I read it, was that it was only some bits of music.

'Firefly' was one that was reported Spring '04, prior to the album coming out, which you can only deduce is COBL because of the lyrics.

Alot of folks spoke about Elevation being Bulldozer but we gathered on this board, that they are seperate songs because Bono described Bulldozer (during promo for ATYCLB) as a song that didn't quite make the cut. At the same time also mentioned Levitate, which as we know now is a seperate song.

My speculation is that the music from Bulldozer was what becamse Love and Peace or Else. There was a song called Love and Peace from the ATYCLB sessions, but Bono is known to hijack lyrics from one song to another. And all most of them are, are working titles. This is just an educated guess, might not be accurate, it's just what I think.

Back to the 96 DJ copy, you can find a picture over on U2wanderer.org.

"Symptom of the Universe" was another working title back in the POP era, and it was later revealed as Playboy Mansion. There may have been a few more, I can't recall off the top of my head.

It's difficult to decipher which are working titles, which have changed and which are actually songs that still exist. But I am MOST interested in this aspect, and I have sort of read and tried to catalog as much as I can remember.

Full Metal Jacket/Native Son=Vertigo was painfully obvious.
But other songs aren't so easy, like Levitate or Big Girls are Best were songs that were completed and never released as a B-side when they were recorded. Only later. Same with "Are You Gonna Wait Forever" is an ATYCLB leftover released on a HTDAAB single. Big Girls was recorded during POP but was a B-side on a ATYCLB single.

Seems to me U2 recorded a bunch of songs back in 99/00 for ATYCLB sessions, they released some as B-sides, reworked others for HTDAAB and may still hold on to some of it. Chances are, a lot of this material has been exhausted. They spent a solid two years recording HTDAAB. If they haven't hashed out the old 1999/2000 ideas, then they might be all exhausted.

I am more convinced now that there are more completed songs that we haven't heard, but more than likelt they are more recent. I think the band hold on to ideas that they might want to work on. And if they feel a song can't progress much, they just release it as a B-side.

Mercy is an example of a song that might have been worked on for the next album, but since it leaked, I doubt the band do anything with it.
 
Another title tossed around was Hymn to the Universe. Any idea what happened to that? And for Pop didn't they also mention Be There as a song they were working on? Which is a really old song, like Boy era or something isn't it?

You are right that Firefly makes sense for COBL. I did not remember that title.

It is also interesting when lyrics reappear, like the newborn baby's head line from Levitate.

And of course they worked on Orginal of the Species during ATYCLB also, calling it Origin of the Species. Originally I guessed that might have become Wild Honey, because of the monkey lyrics, but clearly that was not the case.

As for Mercy, that would be pretty interesting if they did end up reworking it. We can hope.
 
In 2004 lots os titles for HTDAAB (called "Solar" at the time) emerged. some became those we know from the album, others can be missing song, working titles, or missing ideas. "Sky hawk", "Lead me in the way I should go", "You can't give your heart away", "down with the day" are the unknown titles.

Others became true: "Tough" was the workint title for SYCMIOYO, "A man's a man" became "A man and a women", "Full metal jacket/Native son" became Vertigo and "Xanax and Wine" (that was reffered too) was a previous version of Fast Cars. By the time it was said too that "Origin of species" (the title ddidn't change too much) has its origin on the POP era, like COBL.
 
I remember reading they had over 100 songs for ATYCLB...so I bet a number of those will be on the next album, and I don't think they will have exhausted those sessions either.
 
drt4 said:
Another title tossed around was Hymn to the Universe. Any idea what happened to that? And for Pop didn't they also mention Be There as a song they were working on? Which is a really old song, like Boy era or something isn't it?

You are right that Firefly makes sense for COBL. I did not remember that title.

It is also interesting when lyrics reappear, like the newborn baby's head line from Levitate.

And of course they worked on Orginal of the Species during ATYCLB also, calling it Origin of the Species. Originally I guessed that might have become Wild Honey, because of the monkey lyrics, but clearly that was not the case.

As for Mercy, that would be pretty interesting if they did end up reworking it. We can hope.
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It is Hymn to the Universe that became Playboy Mansion. I said Symptom of the Universe, which I think is a Black Sabbath song.

I have an mp3 of Be There. It's an actual song that never materialized on an album anywhere. I don't think much of the song, honestly.

I agree with you about Original of teh Species. I thought it became Wild Honey too back when ATYCLB came out. But it looks like Wild Honey came from Flower Child after all. Maybe. maybe not.

I think "Sky Hawk" is COBL too, just with different lyrics.

"Lead Me the Way I Should Go" might be Yahweh or it might be a song all on it's own. Doubtful it still has that title.

"You can't give your heart away"= same as above song. It might be a song that made the album, we won't know, but I don't thin kthat title would have lasted.

As for 100 songs for ATYCLB.

Well, I guess techincally maybe they could have. But they could all be branches from the same tree, so to speak.

I think it's more logical that they had about 25 workable songs, unique songs. Two songs with the same music and different lyrics, to me are the same song. Whoever quoted the 100 probably doesn't argee. Bono is the one who changes the song titles up, because it all depends on what he is writing or improvising.
 
I think I recall Bono once said that a working title for COBL was Scott Walker. I forget how the guy's name came to be a working title, though.

Be There was recorded during an aborted US recording session in 1982 and evolved into All I Want Is You.
 
Axver said:
I think I recall Bono once said that a working title for COBL was Scott Walker. I forget how the guy's name came to be a working title, though.

Be There was recorded during an aborted US recording session in 1982 and evolved into All I Want Is You.
Click to expand...

It was my understanding that All I Want Is You grew from the live performances of With or Without You on the Joshua Tree tour, the AIWIY riff coming from the extended ending of WOWY.
 
Clayton: “This began as an outtake from Pop. To us, it was an homage to Scott Walker. The working title was ‘Scott Walker’.”

Adam talking about COBL in Blender

as for Be There, I think it's from POP too. This is an excerpt form an article on Interference by Swan269

U2 have recorded about 38 new songs for the album, provisionally titled Expect Nothing But The Best.”

The above-mentioned “Be There” is the only as yet unheard of song that I could find from Pop. I do remember a song from War called “Be There” that was never released, but I don’t know if it is the same song. “Holy Joe” and “Big Girls are Best” were the only B-sides to exist from those recording sessions. “Hymn to the Universe,” “Super City Mania,” and “MFRR” turned into “Playboy Mansion,” “Miami,” and “Mofo” respectively. I personally believe that even though the report said 38 songs, many songs had two lives - the trip-hop version and the rock version. (i.e., the guilty and garage mixes of “Holy Joe”).


this is a pretty cool article that is pertinent to this discussion, y'all check it out, http://forum.interference.com/t78563.html
 
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I thought Hymn to the Universe was still being thrown around as a title during the ATYCLB sessions. But that does not seem to be the consensus here, that it became Playboy Mansion.

Anyway, this is all interesting stuff!
 
miss becky said:


It was my understanding that All I Want Is You grew from the live performances of With or Without You on the Joshua Tree tour, the AIWIY riff coming from the extended ending of WOWY.
Click to expand...

I've read the origins of AIWIY initially lie in Be There, but of course, it would've grown over the years and could've picked up some instrumentation from WOWY. I honestly haven't listened to Be There in ages, though, so I can't think of anything it would have given AIWIY.
 
You guys know your rarities. Heh U2DMFan, have you heard the DJ copy of Pop? And if so what is it like?
 
What about The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars from the ATYCLB sessions? Wasn't it suppose to be a b-side at one point?
 
Would any of these songs pop up on the "2006 album" any u think?

I'd love to hear them rework some of the Axtung Beibi outtakes...:drool:
 
I looked for the picture of that DJ copy of POP from '96, but couldn't find it. Trust me, it exists, I've seen it on this forum 4 or 5 times. I thought it was on wanderer's page, but it's not, and it's not on atu2 either. It must be a non-english speaking site that hosts the image. Somebody who has it will post it.

I have read speculation about Sun, Moon, Stars in that it might have ended up as Electrical Storm. Take it for what it's worth, it could have ended up as any number of songs. It could still be on the shelf, who knows?

MY guess is that most of the material on U2's next album (2007/2008) will come from more recent material, seeing that the more time passes, how reasonable is it that they have something from a decade ago on the shelf? Most, not all, but most of those ideas either morph into another song, or are released.

U2 put out rare and unreleased on the digital box set, and it basically didnt have shit on it, but a few HTDAAB and ATYCLB outtakes and b-sides. One obscurity from Joshua Tree, other than that we didn't get shit.

They either have completed pre-1998 songs sitting on a shelf, like Big Girls are Best, for example and just haven't put them out yet, or they still see them as "works in progress". How many "City of Blinding Lights" ideas are sitting around the studio almost 10 years old? It was likely just a piece of music, so that could lead to more material from that era.

They haven't been giving much in the way of B-sides on the last two albums, which tells me they like those ideas from ATYCLB and HTDAAB and want to work on them more.

It also leads me to think that they don't have much left over from pre 1998, and are less willing to part with those ideas that are unfinished.

Basically I would be surprised if there were another COBL type song sitting around for 10 years, seems to me, as long as they spent recording ATYCLB and HTDAAB, that even what remains of those sessions, they probably have exhausted them.
 
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I will be writing an article about Mercy that will be coming out soon....I am glad I am not the only dork that knows all of the song titles
 
the only place is to find the achtung baby outtakes...other than that all you can go by is rumours from articles and fans
 
Steved1998 said:
What about The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars from the ATYCLB sessions?
Click to expand...


I've been interested in this one, didn't some mysterious poster present some lyrics from the song on here at one point? I wouldn't bet against it showing up on the next album..
 
drt4 said:
Since COBL is described as a song that was worked on for Pop,
Click to expand...

If this indeed is true, the reason that they didn't proceed with COBL for the Pop sessions is cos indeed the song is crap. And I reckon it took Bono a few years to think up the worst lyric of his life "oh you look so beautifuuuuuuuuuuuul tonight"! Ahh them Backstreet Boys lyrics really do make for the best songs.:wink:
 
Backstreet Boys lyrics???

Backstreet Boys do not write lyrics about cities as U2. So for that boysband the verse "Oh-You-Look-So-Beautiful tonight" would always refer to a girl or some kind of that situation...
 
Aygo said:
Backstreet Boys lyrics???

Backstreet Boys do not write lyrics about cities as U2. So for that boysband the verse "Oh-You-Look-So-Beautiful tonight" would always refer to a girl or some kind of that situation...
Click to expand...

Crap lyric, however the lyric is used.
 
This thread is fascinating.

I would love to hear some of the early Pop stuff.

I really, really hope Mercy shows up on the next album. It's one of the best songs U2 has ever written, who cares if it's leaked?! It deserves to be on SOMETHING. When I meet Bono (cuz I'm gonna), I will tell him myself.
 
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