“We need a bit of carnival, it can't just be ashes.” This is how Bono describes U2's next album on the pages of Propagandathe fanzine that the band inaugurated for the first time in 1986 and which returned in digital edition on the occasion of the release yesterday, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, of the EP Days Of Ash. It collects notes, texts and interviews from both the band members and other figures such as the director Ilya Mikhaylus who directed the music video for Yours Eternally.
The album, which is expected to be released at the end of this year, will be very different from the EP. «The album we are working on has a different type of narrative, a different, more joyful musical mood. A carnival! » says Bono. «There are 25 new songs we are considering for U2's next projects. Those that could be included in the album are very different in mood and themes compared to those published in Days of Ash. They will be more celebratory than lamenting. The songs present here are a reaction to the anxieties of these days. These songs might offend or annoy some parties, but this is our job. It's part of U2's job to describe the world around us.”
Bono then explained the individual songs of the newly released EP. On Yours Eternally: «The text is written like a letter from a soldier from the front, in Ukraine. It's inspired by Taras Topolia, the singer of Antytila who Edge and I met when we went to Ukraine at the invitation of President Zelenskyy shortly after the Russian invasion. Ed Sheeran had given me Taras' number, but when I called him he put me down because he was at war in the field, not really in the mood to talk about music.” And on Ed Sheeran, who participates in the song: «I see a lot of the young me in him, even if he takes himself a little less seriously than I did».
On American Obituary: «It is dedicated to Renee Nicole Macklin Good, the young mother of three who was shot, in broad daylight, while she was in her car. The rhythm of the lyrics looks to one of my favorite songs: It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) by Bob Dylan.” And precisely on the tensions between ICE and the civilian population, he adds: “Is it just me or are those from ICE starting to look like a paramilitary force?”.
On American and world politics he says that «I have many dear conservative friends who are afraid of the far right and many dear Democratic friends who are afraid of the far left; the world needs a radical center that draws from both traditions. We need problem solvers, not problem creators. We need a place to meet halfway.”
After the States, there is Italy (with Michelangelo and Mussolini). The Tears of Things: «Its history dates back to the 16th century, when Michelangelo created the statue of David. A statue so tall that no one can see its eyes whose pupils are heart-shaped, a peculiar choice. And then when Mussolini took Adolf Hitler to visit the Renaissance masterpieces at the Uffizi in 1938. The David was 10 minutes away, perhaps Hitler went to see it. We don't know, but it's not inconceivable, at least for a songwriter.” To which he adds: “The Christian Church must accept that it was silent during the Jewish Holocaust.”
Song of the Future instead “it is a tribute to the exuberance of the students in Iran who are rebelling”, and has as its protagonist Sarina Esmailzadeh, an Iranian student who took to the streets in 2022 to protest after the killing of Jina Mahsa Amini and who in turn was beaten to death by the security forces.
One Life at a Time it is «inspired by Awdah (Palestinian activist and documentary consultant No Other Landed), an extraordinary Palestinian man killed in the West Bank by a violent Israeli fundamentalist.”
