Late country legend Dolly Parton makes her final ever appearance on the new U2 album. Parton duets with Bono on a track called Torn, which features on the band's upcoming 16th studio LP, The Carnaval De Luz, out November 13.
Final Duet with Bono
The tender country song, penned by U2, Parton and Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid, details "broken family ties that holds wider resonances".
Bono and the band have history with Parton and sent a musical message for her 80th birthday earlier this year. Nashville-based Irish bagpiper Patrick D'Arcy turned up at her ranch to play an impromptu rendition of Happy Birthday. A cake was brought out featuring candles and icing that read, "Love... Bono".
A stunned and amused Parton joked to the bagpiper, "Are you calling me an old bag?" before laughing, thanking the musician, and blowing out her candles.
50th Anniversary Album
U2 are currently celebrating their 50th anniversary, and the first single from the new LP, Silencio, is out now. Carnaval De Luz is the band's first album of new material in nine years. Recorded all over the place and produced by Jacknife Lee, it is a collection of 12 songs exploring themes of spirituality, friendship, freedom and endurance in the face of dark, encroaching forces.
Sonically, there are echoes of the band's most experimental work combined with some strict songwriting in the shape of 'The Greatest Show On Earth', 'Glorify' and 'Midnight Sunshine', as well as the 2mins 35second homage to early surf-punk insolence that is 'Silencio'.
The roots of Carnaval De Luz can be traced directly to U2's two surprise-released and critically acclaimed six-track EPs of early 2026, recorded during the same creative period as the new album. Those releases, Days of Ash and Easter Lily, followed the liturgical calendar, and so Carnaval De Luz sits, stands and dances before them in timeline. Carnival, a celebration of the flesh, 'carne', before the denial that is Lent, a period of reflection, and the rebirth of Easter.
Collaborations and Track Listing
Carnaval De Luz is released in the band's 50th year, 2026, one in which U2 will have released 24 new songs. The album also sees collaborations from Brian Eno (co-writing and synthesizers on 'Go (Carnaval De Luz)', 'The Greatest Show on Earth' and 'Can't Stop Us Now'), Martin Garrix (co-writing on 'Glorify'), and Daniel Lanois (playing pedal steel on 'Torn'); with additional production from Ryan Tedder on 'Silencio'.
The Edge said: "It's a messy, provocative, sacred collection of songs — and features the first-ever use of flat-wound strings on a U2 recording. Just saying."
Bono said: "Roll up, roll up, roll up! Bring your purple socks, your broken hearts, your rose-tinted naivety… oh be amazed in the hall of mirrors. There will be loud guitars, deep bass, some ecstatic rhythms and, yes, some silver tears will make an appearance!'Cause in the near distance just outside our carnival of light there are all kinds of creatures… the same imagination that brings us our creativity can also bring us monsters. So we make the drums louder. We build a bigger fire. We make our stories wilder and funnier. We make the melodies sweeter and the songs, they better shine, because if the world is in darkness we better not be."
The track listing for Carnaval De Luz is: Go (Carnaval De Luz), La Reina, Street Of Dreams, The Mirror Maker (Rosalía), Superficiality, If The World Is At War We Better Not Be, Silencio, The Greatest Show On Earth, Glorify, Midnight Sunshine, Can't Stop Us Now, and Torn (Feat. Dolly Parton).
