By our reporter 25.9.2026
Irish rock band U2 frontman Bono said it was sobering recording “Torn” with the queen of country music Dolly Parton two months before her death on August 25.
“Torn” a song in U2’s latest album “Carnaval De Luz” was the last song Parton lend her voice to before bowing out at 80 after a brief illness.
The duet with Bono is “a tender country song detailing broken family ties that holds wider resonances.” Parton co-wrote the track with U2 and Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid.
“When she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song,” Bono told Rolling Stone.
“And you can hear that. And I can’t even listen to it now.”
Bono told the outlet that he wanted to collaborate on another album with Parton, but that she was worried it was “a little too Irish for me.”
Bono said the experience is not something he takes lightly.
“It’s very moving to have had these intimacies with such a figure.
“The fact that they’re not there now, in any way you can call back, other than through her songs, is very sobering.”
Dolly Parton and Bono...doing "Torn"