"Zoo Station " is the opening track from U2's 1991 album Achtung Baby . During the Zoo TV Tour, "Zoo Station" opened every concert except for one. It is one of the band's first songs to incorporate electronic music influences, as the song includes several layers of distorted vocals, guitars, and other effects. It refers to the Bahnhof Zoo (the official name is Berlin Zoologischer Garten) station in Berlin. Coincidentally, the station has been on the U2 line of the Berlin metro since 1993; however, at the time the song was recorded this part of the Berlin metro was served by the U1 line. [1]

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Recording

U2 was in Dublin in 1991 for the second phase of the recording sessions for Achtung Baby . ^[2] One song, "Lady With the Spinning Head", later released as a B-side, proved troublesome, but would inspire portions of three separate songs, "Zoo Station" being one of them, and "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" and "The Fly" the other two. The band ultimately decided to take "Zoo Station" in a more industrial direction than "Lady With the Spinning Head".

"Zoo Station" came together near the end of the recording sessions when Flood was mixing the song and introduced heavy distortion to the drums. The song's direction was largely influenced by the production team of Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno, and Flood. The lyrics were inspired by a story Bono heard of Berlin during World War II in which animals escaped the city's zoo after it was damaged in overnight bombing. Rhinos, pelicans and flamingoes wandered around the next morning while people were sifting through the rubble. Bono was also influenced when he learned of a subway station in Berlin called Zoo Station, since it stopped at the zoo. He compared the song to the actual subway station, saying "it was written as an opening track, the beasts breaking out of their cages."

Composition

The first track on an album that was a major reinvention for the band, the song gives listeners an introduction to the U2's new sound, featuring many sound effects and several guitar layers by guitarist The Edge. The song begins with a startling distorted guitar sound and loud, booming drums, along with a strange marimba-like texture in the background. This was achieved by picking the guitar's D string behind the bridge and the stopbar. The Edge says "Danny [Lanois] provided an incredibly mad intro which sounds like a keyboard, but is in fact guitar on which I'm creating strange textures." Of the song's introduction, bassist Adam Clayton says, "When people put on the record, we wanted their first reaction to be either 'this record is broken' or 'this can't be the new U2 record, there's been a mistake.' So there is quite a dramatic extended intro where you just don't know what you are listening to."

Many of the lyrics suggest new anticipations and appetites ("ready for the laughing gas...ready for what's next...ready to let go of the steering wheel"). The lyrics also use the eponymous subway station as a metaphor for time:

Time is a train

Makes the future the past

Leaves you standing in the station

Your face pressed up against the glass.

There is a droning note throughout most of the song and a variety of riffs entering and leaving. The song also features a simple bass hook and industrial percussion. Bono's voice was recorded with distortion and several layers of vocals appear on the track. Irish rock journalist, Bill Graham, cites David Bowie's album, Low , as a major influence on "Zoo Station" which he called a "new brand of glam-rock" of "Spartan rhythms and sudden flurries of melody" ^[3]

Reception

"Zoo Station" was not released as a single, yet became a radio success in the United States, reaching the top spot on the mainstream rock charts and No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart ^[4].

The song was featured in the 2002 film About a Boy .

Live performances

On the Zoo TV Tour, "Zoo Station" opened every concert except for one show. "Zoo Station" was not played during the PopMart and Elevation Tours. It was played on the Vertigo Tour. It appears on the video releases Zoo TV: Live from Sydney and Vertigo 2005: Live from Chicago . A live version of "Zoo Station" from the Vertigo Tour also appears as a b-side on the maxi single for "Window in the Skies."

References

1. Berliner Untergrundbahn: Linienchronik. Markus Schomacker, February 2008. Retrieved on 17 May 2009.
2. McCormick, Neil (ed), (2006). U2 by U2. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-00-719668-7. p. 224-5, 232.
3. Graham (2004), pp. 43-47.
4. u2 > Charts & Awards > Billboard Singles