NEXT U2 ALBUM
These are songs that have been mentioned
in the buildup to U2's next studio album::
* "Love Is All We Have Left" - a song Bono named during his May, 2006, trip to Africa as one that he had recently written. "It’s like an old Broadway tune. I thought it was a Frank Sinatra song," Bono said.
* "North Star," a song from the How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb sessions which included a guest organ appearance from Michael W. Smith. In this CCM article, Smith describes the song as a tribute to Johnny Cash.
* "Mercy", one of the last songs to get cut from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, described in Blender magazine as "a six-and-a-half-minute outpouring of U2 at its most uninhibitedly U2-ish"
* "Lead Me In The Way I Should Go" -- a contender for Atomic Bomb first mentioned in this February, 2003, interview with Bono in Grammy Magazine
* "You Can't Give Away Your Heart" - a contender for Atomic Bomb first mentioned in SPIN magazine
LATEST NEWS
December 25, 2006: In an interview that airs on Christmas, Bono told BBC Radio 1's Jo Whiley about the U218 album and where U2 may be headed next:
"But when you do these collections, they are usually to mark the end of something, and our band has certainly reached the end of where we've been at for the last couple of albums. I want to see what else we can do with it, take it to the next level; I think that's what we've got to do."
You going to continue to be a rock band?
"We're gonna continue to be a band, but maybe the rock will have to go; maybe the rock has to get a lot harder. But whatever it is, it's not gonna stay where it is."
He also talked about Bruce Springsteen's recent music.
"He's amazing. There's real power there, in voice and the acoustic guitar. I would like to do a couple of tunes in that direction, with just a lot of space around the voice. I'd like to strip things down; that's something I'd be very interested in at the moment."
December, 2006: In the January, 2007, issue of Q magazine, Edge talks about U2's next studio album:
"Will there be a new record next year? We hope, but we don't know. We've got about five or six songs that are in good enough shape that we feel strong about them, but not in good enough shape that we could record them.
"It's going to be a very melodic record. It's interesting to me that some of the artists who were really glossed over in the early period of the band's existence I'm starting to 'get' more and more now. People like the BeeGees. You listen to their work now and think 'My God, how brilliant were they as songwriters?' but totally undermined by a lot of bad hair and living in Los Angeles or whatever.
"And some of the things that the Eagles wrote -- amazing songs. It's a new-found appreciation for pure melody. That seems to be what we're all interested in at the moment."
May 23, 2006: During his trip to Africa, Bono told NBC's Brian Williams that he's been writing lyrics during the trip, and has "up to" eight songs.
He recited this verse:
There's no midnight please.
You're just on your knees.
There is a harbour in a safe port.
What was is now not.
There was no price to pay.
Thank you for the day.
