Lemon Byte ([email protected])
Tue, 26 Jan 1999 10:18:21 PST
Salman Rushdie: Rock Star
U2 will have nothing to say if conservative parents accuse them of
publishing songs with satanic verses on their next album.
That's because Bono and the boys are getting lyrics from Mr. Satanic
Verses himself, controversial author Salman Rushdie.
Rushdie--a friend (and sometime houseguest) of Bono--is contributing
lyrics to a romantic ballad called "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" on the
forthcoming U2 album, according to The Guardian newspaper in
London. The song is apparently adapted from Rushdie's new novel, which
has the same name.
The report says the band wants to release the single--which tells the
Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice--when Rushdie's book comes out April
13. (U2's New York publicity firm was not immediately
available for comment. Meanwhile, Rushdie's literary agency has declined
to talk about the matter.)
Rushdie tells the newspaper he simply showed his musical pal his new
book, and a song was born. "Bono and I have been friends for several
years, and I sent him the novel when I'd finished it, and he responded
by coming up with this beautiful melody. Simple as that, but of course,
very pleasurable."
Rushdie has been hiding out from Islamic extremists ever since he
offended them with his 1989 novel, The Satanic Verses. He spent part of
that time hiding out at Bono's palatial Irish beach house. (We're
guessing "Bullet the Blue Sky" was banned from the house playlist, lest
Rushdie get jumpy.) The writer also appeared on stage with U2 in 1993 at
Britain's Wembley Stadium--a remarkable feat at the time,
considering how bleak things looked for Rushdie just four years earlier.
In 1989, then-Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a
fatwa--the Islamic equivalent of a death sentence--against the writer,
for what he believed to be a blasphemous novel. A bounty of several
million dollars was put on Rushdie's head, and the writer went
underground with the help of British officials.
Last September, Rushdie--who's managed to sustain his literary career
through almost 10 years of this madness--received good news from Iran's
current, much-more-moderate government. Desiring a better
relationship with Western countries, Iranian foreign minister Kamal
Kharrazi told British foreign secretary Robin Cook that his country was
"disassociating" itself from the death sentence.
Still, that didn't get Rushdie off the hook entirely. To many Islamic
fundamentalists, a fatwa can only be rescinded by its issuer--and he's
dead.
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