Last week, U2 announced Carnaval de Luz, the followup to 2017’s Songs Of Experience. There was some confusion when the tracklist included a song called “The Mirror Maker (Rosalía),” and now Bono is offering us insight into the track.
“We normally just write songs about people in jail or dead people,” Bono told Rolling Stone. “You know, dead heroes, or trying to get them out of jail. This is just celebrating somebody just because they’re an extraordinary artist.” Like everyone else, he’s obsessed with last year’s critically acclaimed blockbuster Lux. “She’s arrived at the same point just before us, which is annoying and also really inspiring,” he said.
“We all have some narcissism to contend with,” he explained about the meaning of the song, continuing:
Just the act of writing, or thinking somebody should be interested in your ideas — it’s very easy to get lost in the mirror there. Or just what’s reflected behind you as you look in the mirror, the world that’s behind you. But there are artists who want to go through the mirror and see what’s on the other side of the mirror. Patti Smith was one for me when I was growing up. There’s many. Not enough … Certainly Rosalía is one of them. And it’s this idea that we’re body, soul, and spirit. This rather old-fashioned, quaint idea. And she approaches it with great courage and great self-effacing humor … There’s not just physics, there’s metaphysics.
“It’s just a little embarrassing that she became so popular before we put out the song,” he added. “But that doesn’t matter to me. Everyone knew about Martin Luther King too.”
He reached out to a mutual friend he had with Rosalía, Penélope Cruz, to inquire about permission. “I called Penélope: ‘What am I gonna do?’ ‘Just call her’ … I’m like, ‘I look like a stalker.'” But Rosalía, he said, was “really encouraging, and made me laugh a lot.” They’ve continued to text but haven’t yet met. “I sort of don’t think I could meet her now. I’m just working up courage to send her the final mix,” he said.
The track begins with Bono “impersonating her soprano,” he said. Jacknife Lee explained, “The idea was to try and convince Rosalía to do it. And then we realized, why would somebody sing on a song about them? Doesn’t make any sense. ‘Listen to me sing how great I am!’ I thought he sounded great doing it, so I thought, why would we replace it?”
Carnaval de Luz is out 11/13 on Island. Read the full interview here.
