Zooropa (song) - Background and Recording

Background and Recording

During the Zoo TV Tour in 1992, U2 were trying to create a vision of an attractive future for Europe, as opposed to a negative, dystopian image that would be found in science fiction. With recent and ongoing events in Europe, such as the Revolutions of 1989, the enlargement of the European Union, and the Bosnian War, lead vocalist Bono created a surreal vision of a European location called "Zooropa". This concept was first implemented into the fourth leg of the Zoo TV Tour, which was named "Zooropa", and was later used as the name for the song and the album. Bono has referred to Zooropa as being a concept album, with a main theme of the exploration of interpellation within the European Union. The place, "Zooropa", was also the setting for all the songs on the album.

" was our attempt to create a world rather than just songs and it's a beautiful world. The opening was our new manifesto the audio equivalent of Blade Runner's visuals. If you closed your eyes you could see the neon, the giant LED screens advertising all manner of ephemera."

Bono and guitarist The Edge had been reading works by cyberpunk author William Gibson, who wrote about a futuristic urban environment known as "The Sprawl". Gibson was an influence in the texture of the song, and Bono described his work as "fucked up sci-fi". Bono wanted to use noise to create a visual setting for the song, similar to Gibson's futuristic world, filled with advertisements on LED displays and neon signs, as in the 1982 film Blade Runner. With "Zooropa" as the album's opening song, Bono stated that he wanted the album's music to be like "legal drugs" that would create a trip where "you come out of the other end and you feel like you've been on some kind of a journey". The closing song on the album, "The Wanderer", features Johnny Cash on vocals, and was intended on being the "antidote" to the futuristic-sounding opener.

The song was written during the album's sessions in Dublin, which took place from March to May 1993 between legs of the band's Zoo TV Tour. "Zooropa" was first developed after The Edge listened to cassette recordings of the band's soundchecks from the Zoo TV Tour. Along with the album's sound engineer Joe O'Herlihy, The Edge edited the best parts of the soundchecks together using Sound Tools to create a song arrangement, which served as a backing track. The song's introduction was recorded separately from the remainder of the song. The band based the intro on a jam session in the studio, and producer Flood took parts of the jam and created an ambient mix. The bass guitar during the intro was written and performed by drummer Larry Mullen, Jr., who came up with the piece during the recording sessions while The Edge was working on the album's guitar riffs. The song pieces were then edited into a stereo mix, with the intro mixed in by Flood using a crossfade. Synthesizer sounds were added by producer Brian Eno on a Yamaha DX7 keyboard, including a "squishy, mad-synth sound" that connected the different segments of the soundcheck. The Edge later added guitar tracks, as well as additional sounds to the song using an EMS Synthi A synthesiser. At the last minute, the band had misgivings about the first segment of the soundcheck backing track. Having established an arrangement for the song, they performed it in the studio from start to finish; they used this replaying for the first part of the soundcheck backing track, while using portions of the new performance for the second segment.

The band had originally intended on recording an EP during the sessions, but Zooropa eventually evolved into full-length album. "Zooropa" was one of five songs that were part of what would have become the band's EP, which also included "Babyface", "Numb", "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)", and "The Wanderer". The original working title for the track was "Babble–Zooropa", as mentioned in a May 1993 issue of Hot Press, with the song composed of two parts—the two-minute introduction titled "Babble", and the remainder of the song titled "Zooropa". A later working title was featured in a June 1993 issue of Billboard, which listed the song's title as "Zooropa I & II", also splitting the track into two parts. When the album was released the following month, the track was simply titled "Zooropa".