An Cat Dubh
| "An Cat Dubh / Into the Heart" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by U2 from the album Boy | ||||
| Released | 20 October 1980 | |||
| Genre | Rock, post-punk | |||
| Length | 8:14 | |||
| Label | Island | |||
| Producer(s) | Steve Lillywhite | |||
| Boy track listing | ||||
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"An Cat Dubh / Into the Heart" is a song by U2, composed of two tracks, "An Cat Dubh" (English: "The Black Cat") and "Into the Heart", from the band's debut album, Boy. The two tracks are played together as one song, both on the album and during live performances.
On European pressings of Boy, "An Cat Dubh" runs at a track length of 4:47, and "Into the Heart" runs at 3:28. On North American pressings of the album, "An Cat Dubh" runs at 6:21, and "Into the Heart" runs at 1:58. This can be easily noted by the visible difference between the two vinyls. However, the tracks together sound identical on both pressings, and also both have a total run time of 8:14. Early compact disc releases combined the two songs into a single track. Due to the track time differences, it is difficult to make an official determination of where one song begins and where one ends (although the band's digital box set The Complete U2 and the 2008 remastered version of Boy standardized the original European pressings' running times). Because of this, the songs are usually considered to be one track.
The 1998 single "Sweetest Thing," features a live performance of both songs from the War Tour, but only "An Cat Dubh" is listed.
The title "An Cat Dubh" means "The Black Cat" in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, although its lyrics are in English. The song was written about a short relationship Bono had with a woman while split from his girlfriend (now wife) Ali Hewson.
Gavin Friday, a very close friend of Bono, claims that the song is undoubtedly about sex.Bono agrees it is about sex and says that the song conjures the image of a cat and a bird, where the cat kills the bird and then plays with it before sleeping next to it. The song is layered with several guitar parts, a vibraphone and a sustained guitar sound.
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Wikipedia