Зуропа: История создания и смысл песни U2 1993 года.

1993 song by U2

"Zooropa" is a song by Irish rock band U2, and is the opening track from their 1993 album of the same name. The song was the result of combining two pieces of music, the first of which was conceived in the studio, and the second of which was a soundcheck recording from one of the group's concert tours that was discovered by guitarist the Edge. The lyrics were written by lead vocalist Bono and describe two characters in a brightly lit city in a futuristic version of European society. Some lyrics in the song were taken directly from advertising slogans, and they also featured the phrase "dream out loud", which has appeared in other U2 media. The song touched on several themes, including moral confusion and the future of European society. Promotional recordings of the song were released in the United States and Mexico, and the song appeared on two record charts shortly after its release in 1993. The song was briefly performed at three shows on U2's Zoo TV Tour in 1993. The band had difficulties performing it in 1993, and it was not played again until the U2 360° Tour in 2011. The recording of the song received mostly positive reception from critics, who praised it as the album's opening track.

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". Bono has referred to Zooropa as being a concept album, The song was created from two separate pieces of music. The first was a jam session recorded by the band in Dublin during the album's sessions. The second was a soundcheck the band had recorded a few years prior on tour in Australia or New Zealand that the Edge found while listening to cassette recordings of their soundchecks. Along with sound engineer Joe O'Herlihy, the Edge edited the best parts of the soundcheck using Sound Tools to create a song arrangement, which served as a backing track. and was later titled "Zooropa I & II" in a June 1993 issue of Billboard.

"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 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. 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. The following verse begins with, "And I have no religion", which was included in the lyrics because Bono stated that he believes "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. – a B side to the "Beautiful Day" single released in 2000  — and was spoken by Bono in the PopMart: Live from Mexico City video.

"Zooropa" was the opening track from the eponymous album, and promotional recordings (promos) of the song were distributed by Island Records in the United States and Mexico. The U. S. promo features an edited version of the song that fades in at the first guitar riff (removing the intro), The logo represents an urban legend about a Soviet cosmonaut left floating in orbit for weeks after the collapse of the Soviet Union. "Zooropa" was one of four songs from the album to be featured on the Billboard charts, and was the only song to chart that was not released as a single. On 24 July 1993, it appeared on the Album Rock Tracks chart at number 26, and remained on the chart for ten weeks, eventually peaking at number eight. "Zooropa" also appeared on the Modern Rock Tracks chart on 7 August 1993 at number 28, and peaked at number 13 during its eight weeks on the chart.

During the Zoo TV Tour, clips of "Zooropa" were played during the beginning of the show. The clips included the lyric "What do you want?" repeated twice, which was displayed on video screens in various languages, and interspersed with a voice saying "It's very simple". This part of the opening segment was intended to create confusion among the audience regarding the show's message, and eventually lead to information overload. U2 performed "Zooropa" live at three consecutive concerts during the fourth leg of the Zoo TV Tour in 1993. After Zoo TV, "Zooropa" was not performed live for 18 years until it was played towards the end of the U2 360° Tour in 2011. Clayton said that adding the song to the tour's set list was "very experimental" and that it was a "bit cheeky" to introduce to the tour as the band had little experience performing it. The return of the song was so popular that the word "Zooropa" became a trending topic on Twitter during the evening of its tour debut. "Zooropa" was performed at the remaining 26 concerts on the tour, in addition to a private show in Denver. as of 2011, "Zooropa" has been performed live at 31 shows. The Edmonton Journal commented that by hiding themselves from the fans during the performance, the combination of advertising slogans and flickering lights "help portray this Blade Runner type world that U2 wants us to escape." A live recording of "Zooropa" from the U2 360° Tour was featured on the U2. com member exclusive album, U22, taken from the performance in Baltimore on 22 June 2011. The song was not performed during the first leg of the Innocence + Experience Tour, but at the first show of the European leg in September 2015, a stripped down version was performed during the second half of the concert. This interpretation of the song lacks the piano intro and first verses, serving as a segue from "Bullet the Blue Sky" into "Where the Streets Have No Name".

David Sinclair of The Times and Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone both felt that "Zooropa" set the album's tone from the start. DeCurtis described Bono's singing and lyrics as a "Mephistophelean seducer". Allmusic compared "Zooropa" to the anthems of U2's The Joshua Tree album, and Entertainment Weeklys David Browne described the song as Where the Streets Have No Name' transported into the land of cyberpunk", comparing parts of the song to the techno and metallic music genres. The Independent felt "Zooropa" was "a sprawling multi sectioned piece that drifts from two minutes of gentle radio babble into a more familiar reverb rock structure".

Robert Vagacs, author of the book Religious Nuts, Political Fanatics: U2 in the Theological Perspective, describes the song as the antimatter of "Where the Streets Have No Name", in both musical and thematic aspects. Vagacs discusses the concept of Zooropa in detail throughout the book, and refers to Zooropa as a "wasteland" and a "dystopia", due to its lack of fulfilment and certainty. He also states how the Babylonian like location uses its demigods to control its people through scientism, technicism, and economism. The final track from Achtung Baby, "Love Is Blindness", is described as "an interpretive bridge into the land of Zooropa", which Vagacs explains is the setting for the album, as well as the setting for songs on U2's following album, Pop. "Beautiful Day", the opening song from U2's 2000 album, All That You Can't Leave Behind, describes "a fresh start in Zooropa". The use of consumer slogans as song lyrics was also commented on by various sources. Critic Perry Gettelman interpreted them as meaning to "signify the emptiness of modern, godless life". Kieran Keohane of York University stated that the slogans in "Zooropa" were to express an alienating form of interpellation, while J. D. Considine of The Baltimore Sun referred to the slogans as a parody of the economic hype used to pass the Maastricht Treaty, through the promising of impossibilities, such as "Be a winner" and "Eat to get slimmer". English professor Kurt Koenigsberger of Case Western Reserve University stated that the consumer advertisements constitute Zooropa as a "sardonically dystopic" location. In the book Reading Rock and Roll, Robyn Brothers said that the song conveys a "sense of confusion in the wake of a technology speeding beyond our control", while referencing the lyrics "I hear voices, ridiculous voices / I'm in the slipstream". Brothers also compared the song to "Acrobat", stating both songs reference a response to uncertainty and an unavoidable feeling of alienation.

Zooropa producer Flood said that "Zooropa" was one of his favourite songs on the album, along with "Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car", "The First Time", and "Numb". Mullen felt that the song was "absolutely mesmerizing". Following the release of "Zooropa", references to the song have appeared in professional writings and in other media. On the day of the U2 concert in Sarajevo during the PopMart Tour in 1997, tour set designer Willie Williams wrote about waking up that day with "Zooropa" playing in his head and stated that Sarajevo "is the city of Zooropa, if there ever was one." José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, quoted the song's lyrics at a 2005 press conference after enlisting Bono in an effort to get governments in the European Union to give more money to developing countries, and stated that the lyrics inspired an article he wrote about the future of Europe. Thomas Diez of the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute made references to "Zooropas lyrics in a 1999 book review about the history of the European Union; lyrics also appeared in a 2005 German–English dictionary, under its listing for "Vorsprung durch Technik". Kurt Koenigsberger's book The Novel and the Menagerie mentioned "Zooropa" in a section discussing Salman Rushdie and his appearance on the Zoo TV Tour. In 2008, the word "Zooropa" was used in an international finance textbook as the name of a fictional, generic city. The book Religious Nuts, Political Fanatics lists "Zooropa" as one of 22 U2 songs for "recommended listening". A 2009 review of U2's album No Line on the Horizon, MusicRadar described the song "Magnificent" as New Year's Day' meets 'Zooropa.