U2’s new album Carnaval de Luz closes with one of the year’s most poignant collaborations. “Torn,” a duet between Bono and Dolly Parton, arrived on November 13, 2026, as the final track on the Irish band’s 16th studio album—and as Parton’s last recorded vocal performance.
Torn (feat. Dolly Parton)
Listen to Torn (feat. Dolly Parton) on Spotify. Song · U2, Dolly Parton · 2026
Parton laid down her vocals in Nashville in June 2026, just two months before her death at age 80 on August 25 following a brief battle with cancer. She co-wrote the song with U2 and Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid. Producer Jacknife Lee shaped the track, which also features longtime U2 collaborator Daniel Lanois on pedal steel and a drum part from Larry Mullen Jr. inspired by Bob Dylan’s “Most of the Time.”
The collaboration began when Bono approached Parton for an Irish folk-leaning side project. After she found some of those sketches “a little too Irish,” she offered a song of her own called “Torn.” Her original version centered on a woman choosing between two men. Bono and McDaid reworked the lyrics into a story of a mother caught between two sons as a family splits along lines of belief and politics. Lines such as “Torn apart these loving hearts that beat and break the same / We share a house divided and the blood that fills our veins” and “nothing hurts a mother more than a family at war” give the song a broader resonance that Bono has described as feeling like a prayer—for America, and for any place where politics divide the kitchen table.
Bono has spoken movingly about the session. “When she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song. And you can hear that,” he told Rolling Stone. “She sang her heart out, and I cannot believe that’s an 80-year-old woman.” Parton approved the finished mix and sent Bono a note: “Hope you like what I did. I did quite a few things. Take from it what you want and what you need, but I love the song, and I think it could be something really special. Thanks for including me in your life. I’ve always loved you and always will.”
A country-leaning mix produced by Kent Wells premiered across major country radio platforms on November 12, one day before the album release. A third version reworked by T Bone Burnett also appeared with the digital single. Carnaval de Luz itself is U2’s first full-length of new original material in nine years, following 2017’s Songs of Experience.
In a career that spanned seven decades, Parton was known for bringing people together. On “Torn,” that instinct remains audible in the final vocal she ever recorded—gentle, resolute, and still reaching across the divide.
