U2 vs Avicii Leak

Original Story by Aaron J. Sams (2022-08-13)

We’ve known for a while that U2 had worked with Avicii on a song. On Saturday, the song leaked on YouTube. It was titled “Stars Don’t Go” and was posted to YouTube by an Avicii fan account. As expected, the song has since been removed for copyright issues due to a copyright claim by Universal Music.

The song very much sounds like an early version of “Iris”, which U2 redid for Songs of Innocence in 2014. In mid-2010, U2 were speaking about working with various dance acts such as David Guetta, RedOne and will.i.am on their new album, and its likely the work with Avicii was part of that project. “Iris” was later developed with Danger Mouse and then later with Ryan Tedder and Paul Epworth for the final album version. It was one of the last songs completed for Songs of Innocence.

Avicii was a Swedish DJ and producer who passed away in 2018 after a long string of hits on the dance charts. He was a two time Grammy winner.

The song with U2 is part of a series of leaks that have happened of unreleased music since his death. It has been referred to as “Stars Don’t Go” and “Come and Go” over the years. A snippet of the song first appeared in 2021, but it was only yesterday that the full version of the song appeared.

We’ve taken a quick attempt at the lyrics below. You can see the similarities to “Iris”.

Many thanks to Andrew for the heads up!

The lyrics go:

The star
That gives us light
Has been gone a while
But it’s not an illusion
The ache
In my heart
Is so much a part of who I am

You said free yourself to be yourself
If only you could see yourself

I have seen the dark
And I am waking from that sleep
Something in your eyes
Took a thousand years to get to here
The hearts are in the skies
Can see our lies becoming clear

We know what the stars don’t know
Our light doesn’t come and go
And I know
We’re higher than they can ever go

Once we are born
We begin to forget
The reasons that we came
But I am sure it was you I met
Long before I had to
Name myself
Gain myself
I needed you to remain myself

I have seen the dark
And I am waking from that sleep
Something in your eyes
Took a thousand years to get to here
The hearts are in the skies
Can see our lies becoming clear

We know what the stars don’t know
Our light doesn’t come and go
And I know
We’re higher than they can ever go

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