Friday Bloody Friday

Looking down the track listing on U2’s new album No Line On The Horizon, you can’t help but notice the two distinctly Middle Eastern track names towards the bottom. Number eight is called “Fez: Being Born”, while the 11th and final tune is called “Cedars of Lebanon”. Then you learn that much of the album was written in an old Moroccan house in Fez and that, as we are led to believe, the track that now carries its name actually began life with the name of another Arab city, “Tripoli” – although whether it was the Lebanese one or the Libyan one, we’re not sure.

The Moroccan/Arab influence is certainly writ large throughout the production, with the band playing, recording and jamming many of the tracks in a traditional courtyard house during their extended stay in late 2007, with their gear set up on dozens of local carpets and in between palm trees. According to Observer journalist Andrew O’Hagan, they even took refuge in Arabic music, with Brian Eno urging the band to rework some sounds: “We need to find that nightclub-in-Tripoli feel,” he would bark over the sound desk. “Whenever there was an aesthetic decision to be made we’ve asked, ‘How would it be solved in Arabic music?’ It doesn’t mean we always do what an Arabic player might have done, but it gives us a different frame of reference.”

And for added Arabic flavour, Her Majesty Queen Rania actually turned up to listen in on a rehearsal – with Bono crooning a ballad right there and then. As for the tracks, “Fez: Being Born” is an experimental piece, while “Cedars of Lebanon” takes the point of view of a war correspondent during the 2006 attack by Israel. So, it’s official – U2 are the latest cultural icon to be bitten by the Arab bug. Next, Metallica do a dabbkeh. And Rihanna ululates at a wedding.

No Line On The Horizon is U2’s 12th studio album and will be released in the UK on March 3rd.