Reportage (album) - Songs Recorded For Reportage

Songs Recorded For Reportage

Keyboardist Nick Rhodes described the album's edgy sound in an interview with Details magazine: "It was a very angry record for Duran Duran, quite political. We've always reflected what's around us; it's just that we always tried to pick the more uplifting subjects. But there was so much doom and gloom and horror that it had got pretty deep under our skin. There's one track on there called 'Criminals In The Capital,' about our dueling leaders on both sides of the Atlantic... there was one song about a fighter pilot in the war. There's another song, one of my favourites on the record, actually, about the decay of the world and how we're all ignoring it — a song of desperation."

Singer Simon Le Bon had this to say about the album in 2011: "I would be failing in my duty if I didn't get at least the song '48 Hours Later', which is sublime. It's one of the best Duran Duran songs I've ever heard. And it would work well with what we're doing now. You could easily have it on All You Need Is Now. There's another one called 'Transcendental Mental' which sounds great. There's another called 'Traumatized' which lyrically isn't as strong, but the melody is great." He also mentioned a song with the working title of 'Nobody' in a September 2005 interview on YouTube: "We wanted to recapture the rawness and energy of our first album and I think we've got it with songs like 'Traumatized' and 'Nobody', which are working titles obviously."

John commented on a song called "Under The Wire" in April 2006:

We have been working on around fifteen songs over the last couple of months... We're mixing today, a song for the new album. It's a noisy one, quite aggressive in places, and Mike Patterson our Engineer/Co-Producer is working several knobs at once so that Simon sounds just the right mixture of nasty and cool. It's new territory for us, this song. It's about alienation…or is it? I have to be careful making assumptions about Simon's lyrics. The chorus line, 'We go under the wire, we go in under fire.' But this war zone is domestic, a council estate.

He also mentioned the songs "Angel Fire" and "Criminals In The Capitol" during the band's 2007 XM Radio session: "we were writing songs about the stuff that was on the television, the stuff that was in the newspapers -- there was a song called 'Criminals In The Capitol', there was a song called 'Angel Fire'."

Information on another song was provided by the Duranasty news site: "There is one song of Reportage called 'Judy, Where Are You'. Nick told me that the song is about their friend in New Orleans who went missing after Katrina. Nick said it's a beautiful song and has got Kinks influence." Additionally, the song titles 'Naomi Tonight' and 'You Ain't Foolin' No One' were revealed by music industry insiders on the Velvet Rope message board. Both song titles have also been registered by the band with ASCAP.

These are the working song titles that have been identified by band members and music industry sources as being part of the Reportage project before it was abandoned:

• Criminals In The Capitol
• 48 Hours Later
• Transcendental Mental
• Traumatized
• Angel Fire
• Under The Wire
• Judy, Where Are You?
• Naomi Tonight
• You Ain't Foolin' No One

All of the above song titles are registered with ASCAP. 'Criminals In The Capital' was registered as 'Criminals In The Capitol, 'Traumatized' was registered with the American spelling and 'Judy, Where Are You?' was registered as 'Judy'. The song mentioned by Simon as having the working title 'Nobody' is likely the same song that was registered with ASCAP as 'You Ain't Foolin' No One'.

Additional working song titles have also been confirmed with ASCAP's ACE Title Search engine:

• Cathedral
• Faster
• Finally
• Lions And Wolves
• Midnight City
• Under Snow

The title 'City' was also registered prior to 'Midnight City'. All of these song titles can be confirmed as originating from the Reportage sessions based on their ASCAP songwriting credits and assigned Work ID number sequences.