In an interview with the Los Angeles Times,Bono and the Edge talked about the upcoming record, which is slated for an April release. They explained that they came up with a concept for the record where songs are told from the perspective of a young person just figuring things out and partly from someone who is older and wiser. The lyrics are said to focus on the “collision between hard-earned wisdom and youthful hunger.”
The band
wants to experiment a little this time around, hence the reason they recruited Danger Mouse to produce the album. But the new record with also have them returning to their roots, channeling their classic records from the ’80s likeWar and Unforgettable Fire. And don’t worry, Bono’s signature falsetto is still front and center on this album. ”There’s just something about a bloke who sings like a chick,” Bono explained.
wants to experiment a little this time around, hence the reason they recruited Danger Mouse to produce the album. But the new record with also have them returning to their roots, channeling their classic records from the ’80s likeWar and Unforgettable Fire. And don’t worry, Bono’s signature falsetto is still front and center on this album. ”There’s just something about a bloke who sings like a chick,” Bono explained.
Bono also noted that their upcoming release was influenced by “stuff we were really listening to when we were younger” like the Clash and Sex Pistols and Kraftwerk, along with with soul and old-school R&B.
Bono also talked about “Ordinary Love,” the band’s first new song in three years that is featured on the soundtrack to the Mandela biopic Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, explaining that it was “a plea for common decency among the people who’ve been oppressed.”
“And it’s a plea for common decency in a marriage as it starts to fall apart,” Bono said, referring to the marriage of Mandela and his first wife, Winnie, which is shown in the film
. The two were married for 38 years — including the 27 years during which Mandela was imprisoned — before getting divorced in 1996.
. The two were married for 38 years — including the 27 years during which Mandela was imprisoned — before getting divorced in 1996.
Edge added, “We thought it should be a love song, a very human song. Not epic, not earnest in dealing with world-changing political shifts, but personal in two people trying to hold on to one another in the face of dreadful mistreatment and heartbreak.”