DUBLIN (The Thursday Times) — U2 have released Carnaval de Luz, their first full studio album in nine years, and saved its most talked-about moment for the final track: “Torn”, a duet between Bono and Dolly Parton that is the country singer’s last recording.
Parton, who died of cancer in August at the age of 80, recorded her vocal in June. She wrote the song with the band and Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid.
“When she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song. And you can hear that,” Bono said in an interview. “And I can’t even listen to it now.”
‘A little too Irish’
Bono first approached Parton for a side project about Irish roots, but she turned it down. “She goes, ‘That’s a little too Irish for me. Just for where my voice is right now,’” he said on Friday. Instead, she offered him a song of her own and told him he could “take it wherever you want, and maybe I’ll like where you take it”.
Parton wrote “Torn” about a woman forced to choose between two men. Bono and McDaid reworked it into a song about a mother watching her family split apart, which Bono linked to the divisions in American homes. “People say in the US now, people are scared to go into Thanksgiving,” he said.
The album’s producer, Garret “Jacknife” Lee, said Parton approved the final mix and “loved it”. After recording her part, she wrote to Bono: “Hey Bono, hope you like what I did… I love the song, and I think it could be something really special.”
Fifty years on
Lee produced the album with the Dutch DJ Martin Garrix, Brian Eno, and Ryan Tedder, and the drummer Larry Mullen Jr is back behind the kit. Another track, “The Mirror Maker”, is a tribute to the Spanish singer Rosalía, who won the Latin Grammy for album of the year this week.
Early reviews have been warm, with critics calling it the band’s brightest and most immediate record in years. It follows two shorter and more political EPs released earlier this year, Days of Ash and Easter Lily.
U2, who marked 50 years together in September with a return to Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin, where they formed, will take the album on the road in 2027 on The Greatest Show on Earth tour. Its four London nights at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium sold out last week, and thousands of tickets have already appeared on resale sites at several times their face value.
