Watch first, because this is the one everybody's going to be talking about: the official lyric video for Torn, U2's duet with Dolly Parton, is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8ASCUN00_c and it's the closing track on the new album. Press play. I'll wait.
Carnaval De Luz is out today, Friday, November 13, on Island Records. It's U2's 16th studio album, their first album of brand new material since Songs of Experience in 2017, and it lands in the band's 50th year together. Fifty years. Larry Mullen Jr. put up an ad looking for musicians at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin in 1976, and the band that answered it is still putting out new records in 2026.
THE LAST SONG
Torn closes the record, and the story behind it is the whole ballgame. Dolly Parton co-wrote the song with U2 and Johnny McDaid, Daniel Lanois plays pedal steel on it, and Parton recorded her vocal in Nashville this past June. She died on August 25 at 80, after a brief battle with cancer, per her reps. That June session makes Torn her final recorded vocal performance.
“Dolly Parton got out of bed while she was ill to sing it.”
Moe Train
Bono told Rolling Stone he can barely play it back now. His words: "When she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song." He says you can hear that in the take, and his verdict on hearing it himself was plain: "I can't even listen to it now." Parton's own note to Bono about the song, dated June 2, ended like this: "Thanks for including me in your life. I've always loved you and always will." That's a goodbye letter with a melody on it, and it sits at the end of a U2 record.
THE RECORD AROUND IT
The album runs 12 tracks, produced by Jacknife Lee. Brian Eno plays synths on the title track, Go (Carnaval De Luz). Silencio is a two and a half minute burst of surf punk with extra production from Ryan Tedder, which is a sentence I enjoyed typing. Martin Garrix co-wrote Glorify. This record follows two surprise EPs the band dropped earlier this year, Days of Ash and Easter Lily, so U2 has put out 24 new songs in their 50th year. Most bands celebrate an anniversary with a box set and a nap.
The country version of Torn, the Kent Wells Version, got its first play on country radio yesterday, November 12, a day ahead of the album. However you come to this record, save the last track for a moment when you can actually sit with it. Dolly Parton got out of bed while she was ill to sing it. Give it the four quiet minutes it asks for.
Source: PEOPLE
