U2 have released their rocking new single Atomic City ahead of the launch of their Las Vegas residency.
Recorded at Sound City in Los Angeles, the single is produced by Jacknife Lee and Steve Lillywhite channels the spirit of ’70’s post punk, paying homage to one of the group’s biggest inspirations, Blondie.
Speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, Bono said of the track: “It’s just an invitation to our audience. It’s like a come-all-ye. You know what come-all-ye is? It’s an Irish word for… A come-all-ye is like a song that invites everybody in.
“Las Vegas was known as Atomic City because they had atomic bomb tourism here in the fifties. ‘Come and watch the mushroom cloud.’ But now all the fear and dread of splitting the atom and using it as a weapon of mass destruction, there may be clues for how we get out of the climate crisis through fusion rather than fission.
“Though even fission, which is regular nuclear energy, is getting safer and smarter. And we’ve campaigned against nuclear energy and we’ve kind of turned around a little bit on that one. And so the lyric, ‘atomic sun for everyone’, that’s that reference.
“So we’re using it as in a comic sense, Atomic City, but actually the idea that by not splitting the atom, by fusing the atom, you have unlimited energy, it’s just a beautiful idea to plop in the middle of a seventies swing stomp…”
Alongside the single, a video – directed by Ben Kutchins – features the band’s surprise late night surprise performance of the track in Fremont Street, Downtown Las Vegas – where the group filmed their iconic video for I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For over 36 years ago.
Listen to Atomic City and watch the official music video below.
