Dolly Parton's final recording revealed as star is set to make appearance on album after death
Dolly Parton is set to appear on a brand-new U2 song despite having died months before the band's next album is released.
The country music legend recorded Torn with U2 frontman Bono before her death, with the track now set to appear on the band's upcoming album Carnaval De Luz.
Parton died in August aged 80 following a brief battle with cancer. Her appearance on the U2 record will therefore come posthumously, with Torn set to close out the band's 12-track album when it arrives on November 13.
The song is particularly notable because it wasn't simply a collaboration between two music icons.
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It was co-written by U2, Parton and Snow Patrol guitarist Johnny McDaid, and explores the subject of broken family ties.
When is U2's new album Carnaval De Luz being released?
The new record is due to arrive on November 13 and marks U2's first album of new material since 2017's Songs Of Surrender.
The band first gave fans a taste of what's coming in July, when it released Street Of Dreams as the album's first single.
CARNAVAL DE LUZ is U2's 16th album and comes as the band marks 50 years since it was formed in Dublin.
The anniversary dates back to September 1976, when drummer Larry Mullen Jr put a handwritten note on the noticeboard at Mount Temple Comprehensive School looking for musicians to form a band.
Five decades later, the group is still made up of Mullen Jr, Bono, The Edge and Adam Clayton.
The new record is said to explore themes including spirituality, friendship, freedom and endurance in the face of 'dark, encroaching forces'.
And Bono has already offered an appropriately dramatic description of what listeners can expect.
What did Bono say about U2's new album?
Speaking about Carnaval De Luz, Bono told The Independent: "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!"
He went on to say the band's creativity could also produce 'monsters', adding that U2 would respond by making its music louder and its 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," he said.
The Edge also teased one particularly niche detail about the recording, saying it features the first-ever use of flat-wound strings on a U2 recording.
While Torn is the only song on the album featuring Parton, the collaboration gives the forthcoming record an unexpected connection to the late singer.
U2 and Parton had worked together before, with the country star joining the band for a performance of The Wild Rover during U2's 2015 Innocence + Experience Tour.
Topics: Dolly Parton, Music
Thomas Bamford