A bug-eye shaded Bono leads U2 on the official video for Achtung Baby’s ‘The Fly’; Photo: U2Vevo/YouTube
It turns out U2 may have borrowed the axe to take a swing at 1991’s Achtung Baby buzzsaw pop classic, “The Fly,” Bono infamously describing the song in the past as the “sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree.”
Reuters is reporting on Tuesday (July 18), U2 asked a United States judge to throw out a February 2017 lawsuit that claims the band stole elements of British songwriter Paul Rose’s 1989 instrumental song, “Nae Slappin.”
Valid or not, Bono’s narrative on “The Fly” is entertaining to look at out of context, with the stress of the lawsuit looming:
It’s no secret that the stars are falling from the sky
It’s no secret that our world is in darkness tonight
That said, U2 aren’t having any of it.
In the filing with the U.S. District Court of Manhattan, U2 said the general public would hear no similarities between the two songs, saying that the tunes sound “nothing alike” and that any jury in their right mind would agree.
Furthermore, in their request for the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, U2 wondered why Rose waited until 2017 to file the lawsuit, noting that “nothing about ‘The Fly’ has changed in the quarter century since it was released.”
The lawsuit says Rose had given a demo of “Nae Slappin” to U2’s label, Island Records, and then when “The Fly” came out, it used the guitar solo and the percussion effects from Rose’s song.
Rose is asking for $5 million in damages from not just the members of U2, but also UMG Recordings Inc, which releases music under U2’s label Island Records. Rose’s lawyer had no comment at this time.
What this means for the 1993 Zoo TV Tour era in which Bono adopted the fly character for a better half of the year terrorizing people in a skintight leather suit and bug-eyed sunglasses like a “lifelong master of hype,” as described in an old interview in Rolling Stone, the world may never know.
