LEFT BEHIND

“This song is an argument with a friend--an argument I wish I could have with a friend,” Bono said during U2’s concert Monday at the Arrowhead Pond, dedicating the song “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” to late INXS singer Michael Hutchence.

The rockers were close friends, and Hutchence’s 1997 death in a Sydney hotel room, choked by a leather belt he’d placed around his neck, spurred much of the concern about mortality that fills U2’s recent album, “All That You Can’t Leave Behind.”

For weeks, Tina Hutchence had heard that the new U2 album included a song about her brother, and on a recent afternoon she steeled herself, drew a tall cup of tea and put the CD into the stereo at her Burbank apartment.

“I think it’s amazing, four years have gone by and people are still thinking of Michael,” she said as she cued up the song.

She has not been able to leave behind the grief or complications created by her brother’s death, which touched off a bonfire of tabloid coverage, much of it debating whether it was suicide or an accident during autoerotic asphyxiation.

The tawdry coverage turned to the rock star’s private life--his volatile relationship with his girlfriend Paula Yates and custody disputes over their daughter, Tiger Lily. Yates died last year and the girl, now 4, is in the custody of Yates’ former husband, Live Aid founder Bob Geldof.

To Tina Hutchence, there is no doubt that her brother committed suicide, and that drugs and the Tiger Lily battles pushed him into the abyss. She explains it in “The Real Michael Hutchence: Just a Man,” a hardcover book due for U.S. release next month.

After long months writing, she was intrigued to hear another viewpoint--that of Bono.

“Michael loved and admired him so much,” she said as she read the lyrics:

Don’t say that later will be better now

You’re stuck in a moment and you can’t get out of it.

“Michael had been talking about his unhappiness for well over a year. But at that point it was a split-second decision. A moment. Bono is right, he couldn’t get out it.” Tina Hutchence shook her head and smiled wanly. “I think I’d like to hear it again.’