The 1995 song U2 were ashamed of making: “The worst”
There’s no one on planet Earth who thought that U2 were one of the most eclectic artists in the world.
Bono could do a lot of things, but becoming one of the biggest names in rock and roll was about as far as we would let them go before they started committing cardinal sins by making synthetic music on records like Pop. They could still find another outlet for their tunes, though, but that didn’t mean that all of them sounded absolutely perfect in their beginning stages, either.
But the idea of working on songs with American legends wasn’t out of the question. Working with BB King is something that most artists wouldn’t trade for the world when the band first started making Rattle and Hum, and since Bono and The Edge found the time to work with some of the biggest names in rock and roll like Roy Orbison, taking a risk by giving a song to Tina Turner wasn’t going to be all that difficult when they really broke everything down.
She could sing like no one else in her field whenever she picked up a microphone, and while many people like to say that she belonged in the categories of R&B and soul music during her career, she was the true Queen of Rock and Roll long before the likes of Janis Joplin and Grace Slick came along. But even through every single classic that she played on, the initial tune for GoldenEye needed a fair bit of work before it was ready for prime time.
But when looking at her solo career, there was always going to be more passion in the way that she approached all of her records after Private Dancer. She had all of the gusto that would have suited a massive rock band like U2 when she was given the theme tune to the next James Bond film, but even when looking at the initial version of the song, The Edge remembered being slightly ashamed of the version that they ended up with on record.
They were still trying to be as professional as possible, and while Turner was happy to have the song completed, The Edge admitted that they didn’t have the best first impression, saying, “It was kind of rough. It’s like the worst kind of Holiday Inn band sounds. So poor Tina, when she heard the first version she was like, ‘What is that?’ But when she heard it with us she took a second listen.”
But that shouldn’t have deterred Turner in the slightest. She was used to making some of the greatest songs out of a few building blocks, and a lot of her mannerisms whenever she performed were absolutely perfect for her voice. And when you look at the way that Bono was approaching his stage craft, it wasn’t all that different from listening to Turner wail away on one of his songs.
If anything, a lot of what Bono’s doing has the same kind of passion that you would expect out of any of Turner’s performances. She made every one of her shows feel like hard work whenever she got off the stage, and while Bono is the same way, you can tell that he feels as if he has some higher calling whenever he performs, as if the world could all come to an end if everything doesn’t sound perfect.
Can that get a little irritating? Sure, but Turner was never going to get annoyed by someone who genuinely believed every word they were singing. She knew that Bono felt that he could change the world with music, and since her own work helped change her life for the better in the 1980s, Turner was happy to hear the Irish legend talk about anything and everything.
