Bono didn’t want to “look like a stalker” calling Rosalía to ask for her permission to name a U2 song after her.
The 34-year-old singer is the inspiration for the track The Mirror Maker (Rosalía) on the Irish rock veterans’ forthcoming LP Carnaval de Luz, set for release on November 13.
The 66-year-old singer’s friend Penélope Cruz connected him to Rosalía, but he was apprehensive at first.
Bono told Rolling Stone UK in a new cover interview: “It’s just a little embarrassing that she became so popular before we put out the song. But that doesn’t matter to me. Everyone knew about Martin Luther King too.”
He recounted: “I called Penélope: ‘What am I gonna do?’ (Penélope said), ‘Just call her.’ I’m like, ‘I look like a stalker.'”
Rosalía was flattered, but Bono is still too scared to meet her and show her the final mix of the track.
He said: “(Rosalía has) been really encouraging, and made me laugh a lot.
“I sort of don’t think I could meet her now. I’m just working up courage to send her the final mix.”
Bono later expanded on the idea that some artists “want to go through the mirror and see what’s on the other side.”
He pointed to the figures who did that for him: “Patti Smith was one for me when I was growing up. There are many, though not enough. Rosalía is certainly one of them.”
He described the quality they share: “It’s this idea that we’re body, soul and spirit – a rather old-fashioned, quaint notion – and she approaches it with great courage and a self-effacing humour. There’s not just physics; there’s metaphysics.”
The upcoming album features the final song recorded by the late Dolly Parton, Torn.
Bono has struggled to bring himself to listen to the song following the passing of the country music icon.
Dolly insisted on recording the song despite her illness.
He explained to Rolling Stone: “When she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song. And you can hear that. And I can’t even listen to it now.”
The Vertigo singer revealed he had originally discussed a separate folk-inspired project with Parton, but she instead offered him Torn – a song she had written and wanted the band to explore.
He recalled: “She said: ‘That’s a little too Irish for me.’ But then she said: ‘I’ve got this song called Torn. Maybe you can take it somewhere else?’”
Bono described her performance as astonishing, adding: “She sang her heart out and I cannot believe that’s an 80-year-old woman.”
He said the experience of working so closely with her in her final months has stayed with him: “It’s very moving to have had these intimacies with such a figure. The fact that she’s not here now, except through her songs, is very sobering.”
