Slug (song)

"Slug" is a song by Passengers, a side project of musician Brian Eno and rock band U2. It is the second track on Passengers' sole release, the 1995 experimental album Original Soundtracks 1. Initially titled "Seibu", the song and was nearly omitted from the album until being rediscovered later during the recording sessions. Though Eno made the majority of the creative decisions during the sessions, "Slug" was one of the few tracks on the album that the members of U2 attempted to create independently.

Lyrically, it depicts the thoughts of a desolate soul with the confusion of romance and faith. When Eno and U2 were producing songs for fictional soundtracks, they attempted to create a visual suggestion from the music that was more significant than the story in the lyrics. The instrumentation in "Slug" is intended to be visual music, symbolising city lights turning on at night. The song was primarily inspired by U2's experiences in Tokyo following the completion of their Zoo TV Tour in 1993. Critics from numerous publications regarded "Slug" as one of the best songs on the album, both when it was first released and in retrospective reviews.

Following the conclusion of their Zoo TV Tour in 1993, rock band U2 planned to collaborate with musician Brian Eno on recording a soundtrack for Peter Greenaway's 1996 film The Pillow Book. Although the plan did not come to fruition, Eno suggested that the band continue recording music suitable for film soundtracks, as Eno did with his 1978 album Music for Films. The result was Original Soundtracks 1, an experimental album of ambient and electronica music, created as a side project between Eno and U2 under the pseudonym "Passengers". Vocalist Bono felt the visual suggestion from the music was more important than the story told by the lyrics, so the band tried to create visual music when recording. U2 spent time in Shinjuku, Tokyo at the end of the Zoo TV Tour in December 1993, and their experience in the city influenced the recording sessions. The vivid colours of the city's street signs and billboards reminded them of the set of the 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner. Bono said that Original Soundtracks 1 evokes the setting of "the bullet train in Tokyo".

Recording sessions for Original Soundtracks 1 began with a two-week session in November 1994 at Westside Studios in London, and continued for another five weeks in mid-1995 at Hanover Quay Studios in Dublin. "Slug" was originally titled "Seibu", after the Japanese department store. It was written to create the visual of lights turning on at dusk in a city like Tokyo, beginning with "tinkling" opening notes resembling twinkling Christmas lights, and a gradually rising and falling synthesiser rhythm throughout the song. After recording "Seibu", the band set it aside, and the piece was forgotten as the sessions progressed. It was almost left off the album, until guitarist the Edge rediscovered the track while looking through the session's discarded songs. Recognising its potential to become a great song, the Edge brought "Seibu" to Eno's attention, and in early June 1995, Eno listed "Seibu" as a late entry to be considered for the album.

As producer, Eno had most of the artistic control during the sessions, limiting U2's creative input on the recordings, which prompted the Edge to ensure extra work was put into arranging the song. He said that along with "Miss Sarajevo" and "Your Blue Room", "Seibu" was one of only three tracks from the album in which U2 "really dug in [their] heels and did more work on and tried to craft". It was mixed and sequenced by Eno, and engineered by Danton Supple, with assistance from Rob Kirwan. By early July 1995, the group renamed the song "Seibu/Slug", and Eno noted that the piece started to sound better, describing it as a "lovely song". Bono later deconstructed the song's original mix; Eno initially disapproved, but was satisfied after hearing the changes. The Edge later said he felt the band's effort to put extra work into the song "paid off". It was released with the title "Slug" on 7 November 1995, as the second track on Passengers' sole album, Original Soundtracks 1; out of the fourteen tracks on the album, it is one of six tracks with vocals.

As the compositions on Original Soundtracks 1 were written as film soundtrack music, each track is associated with a specific film in the album's liner notes, which were written by Eno. Four of the tracks are associated with real films, while "Slug" is credited as having been written for a fictional German film of the same name, directed by "Peter von Heineken" (an in-joke reference to U2 manager Paul McGuinness). The liner notes describe the plot of Slug as the story of a young car mechanic who aspires to attract the attention of a cashier by staging a robbery and pretending to be the hero. However, the "robbers" decide to abandon the scheme and commit an actual robbery, causing a shootout where the cashier accidentally shoots a security guard and is arrested, and the mechanic must find a way to get her released from prison.

"It's a portrait of somebody a little the worse for the wear, which we were all in Tokyo, because it was the end of the tour. So tired you can't sleep. Wanting to go out to see what's going on in the city and not being able to stop yourself though you should be looking after yourself better."

"Slug" runs for 4:41 and features a synthesiser rhythm and guitar harmonics laid over a drum track. Jon Pareles of The New York Times described the song's sound as a mix of "shimmering echoed guitars with swampy electronic rhythms". Vocals are sung by Bono in a crooning voice, which begin 1:45 into the song. The lyrics form a laundry list song with 19 lines, most of which begin with "Don't want"; the song's title is included in the lyrics "Don't want to be a slug". The line "Don't want what I deserve" was written by Bono with a sense of "ironic, self-deprecatory humour". Lyrically, the song portrays the thoughts of a desolate soul, as heard in the final lines "Don't want to be a pain / Don't wanna stay the same". The lyrical themes also include the confusion between romance and faith, a theme which continues on the album's following track, "Your Blue Room".