ahittle said:
Didn't someone corner Edge about Mercy at the WITS video shoot? I thought he said, "It's not finished!"
I posted a summary of the conversation in this thread:
http://forum.interference.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=173929&perpage=15&pagenumber=1
The_Edge89 said:
Mercy
According to a fan in Melbourne that spoke to Edge during the shooting of the first video for "Window in the Skies"
http://forum.interference.com/showthread.php?s=&tthreadid=170434
Fan: Edge whats the story with Mercy?
Edge: Mercy?!
Fan: Yes, Mercy.
Edge: It's not finished yet.
Fan: Not finished?? Its 6:15 min long and that good but not finished?
Edge: Yes, not finished there are still some parts of it we are working on.
Also the Italian fan website U2place reported in May this year that Bono said that Mercy would be on the new U2 album, although he was confused about how it leaked:
http://www.u2place.com/newsdett.asp?idN=3038
And I'm more a fan of Mercy than Window In The Skies, although I think that Mercy will not be the same song we have heard if they choose to release it.
The track was leaked about three years ago prior to the release of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb and since then fans have spoke to The Edge and Bono about it, so they must know that people have heard it already.
Edge said that they were still working on it (which probably means rearrange it and making it different in some way).
It is quite possible that they worked on it in Dublin this May since Daniel Lanois was also spotted and that was probably the Dublin Passengers session or something.
Then came the summer holidays when we got the '06 beach clips, it's possible that they have worked on the song in their studio in France without letting the people on the beach hear any of it.
After that they've had the Fez Sessions where they came up with lots of stuff and I don't doubt that Mercy would have been worked on if they really expect it to be on the next studio album.
The six musicians - or perhaps the band on it's own, but Lanois says they have been working three times together so far - have also been heard working in France this summer, however no recordings have surfaced yet.
Now there's a week or two until their next regrouping together and the band is already writing on their own as well.
I'm just pointing out that a lot of time has passed since they recorded that song which at the time was probably more than a demo since it was considered to be put on the last album. And I'm sure that if what they say is true, and if they want the next album to be a departure from the sound of the last two records then they might have to tweak it a little bit. I love it the way it is, but it's also exciting to imagine what U2 could bring out of the track with the help of their, in my opinion, best collaborators.
And I know that it sounds like it's going to be a Passengers release but since Eno/Lanois are close friends of U2 it is still likely that the band has discussed the track with them. We still don't know who will actually produce the U2 album so Eno/Lanois might be in charge of that.