Dolly Parton will be featured on U2’s highly anticipated new album, Carnaval De Luz. The country music legend appears as a special guest on the Irish rock band’s 16th studio album, which marks U2’s first collection of entirely new material in nine years. Rosalía is also among the featured artists on the 11-track project, set for release November 13.
via Variety:
The concluding track on the album is a duet with Dolly Parton, “Torn,” described in a release as “what has sadly turned out to be her last recorded vocal performance,” put down on tape in June by the country superstar. The song was co-written by U2, Parton and Johnny McDaid, and is described as “a tender country song detailing broken family ties that holds wider resonances.” The track features pedal steel guitar from Daniel Lanois.
“When she got ill,” Bono said in a Rolling Stone story published shortly after news of the album came out, “she got out of her bed to sing this song. And you can hear that. And I can’t even listen to it now… She sang her heart out, and I cannot believe that’s an 80-year-old woman.”
The forthcoming album is being previewed with a new single, “Silencio,” released to DSPs in conjunction with the morning announcement. The song was described in a release as a “2mins 35second homage to early surf-punk insolence.”
Parton’s appearance adds a special cross-genre collaboration to U2’s long-awaited return and another notable recording to the country icon’s extensive catalog. With Carnaval De Luz arriving during U2’s 50th-anniversary year, the project brings together the band’s five-decade legacy with guest appearances from Parton and Rosalía as U2 begins its next musical chapter.
