Zooropa (song) - Composition and Themes

Composition and Themes

"Zooropa" begins with a two-minute-long introduction. As the song fades in, sustained chords are played, and a noisy collage of mainly indecipherable human voices from radio signals fades in at 0:19. The voices from the background voices include a clip of George H. W. Bush saying "Peace talks", and are referenced in the album notes as "courtesy of the advertising world". A quiet piano and bass guitar are heard above the voices, which get louder with each beat. At 1:30, the volume of the voices raises suddenly and the bass part changes. The introduction then begins to fade out fifteen seconds later, while a guitar riff played with a delay and wah-wah effect joins the mix. The riff is briefly played on its own before the bass guitar and drums join in at 2:03. This is followed by background voices saying, "What do you want?" in both English and French ("Qu'est-ce que tu veux?"), and "De quoi as-tu peur?" ("What are you afraid of?"). In response to the questions, the lyrics in the first three verses of the song consist of various advertising slogans. At 3:45, following the first three verses, a break in the song's instrumentation occurs, except for guitar, and the song returns to a state similar to the introduction's end. A rapid rhythmic synthesiser fades in and at 4:03, the drums and bass re-enter and the song assumes an increased tempo. The theme of moral confusion and uncertainty becomes present in the remaining lyrics.

"There's this image of the 'overground'. It was a time when everyone was all indie and grey and dull—the 'underground'. The overground was like coming out into the bright light of a modern city. It's an amazing place to be, walking around these modern cities like Houston or Tokyo. And the idea was coming out into that, embracing it, going after it."

The song describes two characters in a setting with a dull and grey appeal, who emerge from blinking neon signs into a brightly lit modern city. The radio sound effects in the introduction were intended to create a mood and setting for the song. DJ Carter Alan noted that the sounds seemed to draw a connection from Achtung Baby, but Bono stated that it was not intentional and that he didn't want it to have "anything to do with the past". Several advertising slogans were implemented word-for-word in the song's lyrics, including "Vorsprung durch Technik" ("Advancement through technology") (Audi), "Be all that you can be" (United States Army), "Fly the friendly skies" (United Airlines), and "The appliance of science" (Zanussi). Other lyrics in the first three verses feature references to product slogans or phrases, such as Colgate's "Ring of confidence" ("We've got that ring of confidence"), Daz's "Bluey white" ("A bluer kind of white"), and Fairy's "Mild green Fairy liquid" ("We're mild and green and squeaky clean"), the latter of which The Edge claimed to be his favourite line of the song.

Following the first three verses of advertising slogans, the song continues with the lyrics, "I have no compass, and I have no map" and "No reason to get back", referring to the uncertainty of the new direction of U2's music at the time. The following verse begins with, "And I have no religion", which was included in the lyrics because Bono stated that he "believe that religion is the enemy of God." A review of the album in Melody Maker compared the lyric "Uncertainty can be a guiding light" towards the end of the song to the line "If you walk away, I will follow" from U2's 1980 single "I Will Follow". The reviewer stated "The man (Bono) that once had so many answers now sounds simply confused." The theme of moral confusion was first used in U2's song "Acrobat" from Achtung Baby. The coda in "Zooropa" features the lyric "dream out loud", which Bono included as a reference to "Acrobat". The phrase "dream out loud" was first used by Bono during the Lovetown Tour in 1989, and has appeared several times in U2's work since then. The phrase was also used in the song "Always" — a B-side to the "Beautiful Day" single released in 2000 — and was spoken by Bono in the PopMart: Live from Mexico City video.