U2 singer and advocate of global peace Bono is set to recite a lengthy poem about Elvis Presley on British radio next week.
There’s really no stopping Bono. When no releasing records with U2 the diminutive singer is busy haranguing world leaders into stopping all war and ending hunger. When that happens, we’ll know who to thank!
However it seems that Bono has found a new hobby. With U2’s new single due out this week, the singer has coincidentally agreed to recite a lengthy ode to Elvis on British radio. The piece is thought to have been written in 1994, round about the time when U2 stopped making decent records and began recording with Pavorotti.
The poem was originally recorded for a documentary on Sun Records, the legendary launching pad for rock and roll. However Bono was persuaded to recite the poem again by director Des Shaw.
“I said I’d love to hear it and he ran upstairs and grabbed it and just read it for us,” Shaw explained to The Times. “He said, ‘There you go, do with it what you want’.
“I suppose, really, it’s his thoughts on Elvis. He’s a huge fan and he knows an awful, awful lot about his music.”
“We’ve been tossing ideas around for two years, keeping on going back to it and trying to work out how we’d use it. It took a while to work out how to produce it in a very effective but bonkers way. It’s a difficult one for Radio 4.”
The poem is said to last 14 minutes and contains the following lines:
“Elvis the bumper stickers/Elvis the white knickers/Elvis the white nigger ate at Burger King and just kept getting bigger”.
U2 are set to begin their new tour ‘No Line On The Horizon’ later this year. The group have managed to keep ticket prices low, but have still been able to splash out on an enormous claw which will be placed onstage.
