U2 have written a song which pays tribute to Paris following the recent terrorist attacks.
Having cancelled their gig in the French capital in the days after the attacks, the band played their rescheduled show on Sunday (6 December) evening . Before the show, Bono revealed that the band had written a new song, titled Streets of Surrender, which features lines about Paris being the “city of liberty”.
In an interview with CNN, in which the singer was asked about the possibility of writing a song about the threat from Isis, Bono described a track that he originally started penning for an Italian performer named Zucchero. Its lyrics include:
Every man has two cities he needs to be. The one he can touch and the one he can’t see/The one where a stranger’s a friend/Every man’s got one city of liberty/For me it’s Paris/I love it/Every time I get lost down these ancient streets, I find myself again/You’re free, baby, baby, free now and for ever/It’s Christmas time, you can decide to forget or to remember/You’re free, baby, baby/I didn’t come here to fight you/I came down these streets of love and pride to surrender/The streets of surrender.
Following rumours that Eagles of Death Metal, the rock group who performed on stage during the attack at the Bataclan concert hall, would perform on stage with U2, the band instead brought on Patti Smith. She performed a portion of Gloria and People Have the Power with the band.
At another stage in the show at the AccorHotels Arena, the names of the victims of the terror attacks were projected on to a video screen. Bono said: “We stand together with the families of those killed in Paris.”
“We stand together with the families of those killed in San Bernardino.”
As an encore, Bono wrapped himself in a tricolour flag and sang a verse of French singer Jacques Brel’s Ne me quitte pas.
U2’s second rescheduled show in Paris takes place on Monday 7 December.
