An Irish musician is taking legal action against U2, claiming that he’s the rightful author of a song that appears on How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the band’s 11th album which dropped in 2004.
The Times of London reported last weekend that Dublin-based Maurice Kiely tried to sue the band in 2019 over authorship of the song “A Man and a Woman,” but the suit was filed in the U.S. and the court refused to hear it because both U2 and Kiely are based in Ireland.
Kiely was seeking $3 million in compensation then. His lawsuit has since been filed in Dublin’s High Court.
The U.S. suit, the Times says, claimed that Kiely had played the song for U2’s bassist Adam Clayton in 2004 in Dublin.
“(Kiely) claimed Clayton heard the song at a regular get-together of friends and musicians in Donnybrook and asked Kiely if he could record it and play it to the other members of U2.
"Kiely, who says he wrote the track in the late 1990s, said he later agreed verbally that U2 could use the song but asked that it not be performed live, for ‘sentimental’ reasons,” the Times revealed.
“He claims U2 later breached this agreement by playing the song at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in October 2011 during the launch of the Bill Clinton Foundation.”
Bono and U2 lead guitarist The Edge share songwriting credits for the song.
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