After the Satanic Verses, the romantic lyrics

The lyrics are taken from Rushdie8217;s new novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet, a story of love, death and music, the tale of an Orpheus in the Underworld of rock 8216;n8217; roll, set in India, England and America and covering a quarter of a century up to the 1980s.

Although some of the lyrics bear a passing resemblance to the pop standard You Are My Sunshine, the inspiration is the 1960s single Concrete And Clay byUnit 42. Rushdie, who described the music as a ballad, said: 8220;Bono U28217;s singer and I have been friends for several years, and I sent him the novel when I8217;d finished it, and he responded by coming up with this beautiful melody. Simple as that, but of course very pleasurable.8221;

Paul McGuinness, the band8217;s manager, confirmed that the song, which is currently in demo form, had been recorded. 8220;The track exists and it would be great to make it available on its own at the same time as Salman8217;s book comes out and well before the next U2 album. Let8217;s wait and see if we can pull it off.8221;

One plan is for the song to be released on the Internet to coincide with the publication of Rushdie8217;s new novel on April 13. Any commercial tie-in between author and pop group would doubtless please Rushdie8217;s publishers Cape, who are reputed to have paid Acirc;pound;1 million for the rights to his latest novel, the follow-up to The Moor8217;s Last Sigh.

The lyrics for the song are included in the novel, which tells the myth ofOrpheus and Eurydice against a rock and roll background. Described in the text as an old song with new words, it begins: 8220;All my life I worshipped her. Her golden voice, her beauty8217;s beat. How she made us feel, how she made me real, and the ground beneath her feet.8221;

As with the Orpheus myth, the lovers are separated. The song continues: 8220;Go lightly down your darkened way, go lightly underground, I8217;ll be down there in another day, I won8217;t rest until you8217;re found. Let me love you true, let me rescue you, let me lead you to where two roads meet. O come back above, where there8217;s only love, and the ground8217;s beneath your feet.8221;

Rushdie8217;s musical excursion with U2 the two first worked together when the author appeared on stage with the band at Wembley in 1993 8212; is not his first attempt to break into the world of pop. When working in advertising in the 1970s, during which time he brought the world the phrase 8220;Naughty, but nice8221;, the future best-selling novelist wrote a song extolling the virtues ofthe now defunct Burnley Building Society.

Titled The Best Things Begin With B, the song climaxed with the lines: 8220;You can dream a little/ You can dream a lot/ But the best dreams of all/ Are the ones you got/ Building in the Burnley.8221; A challenge, even for a tunesmith of Bono8217;s calibre.

The Observer News Service

Those Rushdie lyrics in full8230;
8230;From the forthcoming novel, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

All my life I worshipped her. Her golden voice, her beauty8217;s beat. How she made us feel, how she made me real, and the ground beneath her feet.

And now I can8217;t be sure of anything, black is white, and cold is heat; for what I worshipped stole my love away, it was the ground beneath her feet.

She was my ground, my favourite sound, my country road, my city street, my sky above, my only love, and the ground beneath her feet.

Go lightly down your darkened way, go lightly underground, I8217;ll be down there in another day, I won8217;t rest until you8217;re found. Let me loveyou true, let me rescue you, let me lead you to where two roads meet. O come back above, where there8217;s love, and the ground8217;s beneath your feet.