In early June 2026, Dolly Parton, already ill, recorded a vocal in Nashville for a song called “Torn.” It was the last time she ever sang on a record. Less than three months later, on August 25, she died at 80 after what her publicist called a brief battle with cancer.
On November 13, “Torn” was finally released as the closing track of Carnaval de Luz, U2’s 16th studio album. It is a duet between Dolly and Bono, and the songwriting credit is shared by Dolly, U2 and Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid. The band’s announcement described it as a tender country song about broken family ties, and a representative for Dolly confirmed it was her final vocal performance.
What makes the song special is how it came to be, and how much of it was Dolly’s idea from the start.
“A Little Too Irish for Me”
Bono had not set out to make a country song. He had spent months chasing Dolly Parton for a separate Irish-roots side project he was still working on. He told Rolling Stone there was “a courtship involved,” and part of that courtship was a birthday present: a set of bagpipes. Dolly answered on Facebook in the way only she could: “This old bag sure feels the love!”
Over the phone, Bono played her a few of his sketches. Dolly listened and turned them down politely. As Bono told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, he pushed back, reminding her that people from the Appalachians have deep Scots-Irish roots. Her reply was short.
“Yeah, but I’m talking about my voice.”
Producer Garret “Jacknife” Lee remembered her putting it just as plainly: none of the songs they had sent were ones she could sing.
The Song Dolly Had Already Started
Dolly did not leave Bono empty-handed. She had a song of her own in progress, called “Torn,” and she offered it to him to see where he could take it. Her original version was about a woman trying to decide between two men.
Bono heard something bigger in it. Working with Johnny McDaid, he rewrote the lyrics around a mother torn between two sons. He told Zane Lowe the song was about more than American families, describing arguments at the kitchen table and brothers who have stopped speaking to each other. At one point, Bono even thought about renaming it “Civil War,” because he felt it could fit Ireland, America or any divided place. Dolly agreed to sing the new version, and the name she gave it stayed.
Out of Bed and Into the Studio
By the time the session came around in June, Dolly Parton was already unwell. She had cancelled appearances earlier because of her health. According to Bono, nobody on the U2 side understood how serious it was. “We didn’t know how ill, of course,” he told Zane Lowe.
“When she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song. And you can hear that.” — Bono, to Rolling Stone
Bono said she sang her heart out, and that he could hardly believe he was hearing an 80-year-old woman. To Zane Lowe, he described her performance as if “she just took flight.”
Building the Record Around Her Voice
Bono’s first instinct was to make the track sound like “sci-fi folk,” a nod to the time Johnny Cash sang on U2’s 1993 album Zooropa. Jacknife Lee steered it somewhere more grounded. His reasoning was simple: this was Dolly Parton, and the record needed to reach the people who love Dolly Parton.
So the arrangement stayed close to home. Daniel Lanois, the longtime U2 collaborator, played pedal steel. Drummer Larry Mullen Jr. added an echoing drum part inspired by Lanois’ production on Bob Dylan’s “Most of the Time.” Bono kept his own vocal in the background on purpose. In a note to Dolly, he wrote, “I just got out of your way.”
“She Was So Proud of Her Vocal”
Before she died, Dolly Parton heard the final mix. The band had been nervous that she might not approve or would feel uncomfortable with it. Jacknife Lee told Rolling Stone it went the other way: she loved it, and she was proud of how she sang.
The Edge heard something older than country music in the closing moments of her performance. He compared it to the keening women once did at Irish funerals, and said Dolly had that sound “in her blood.” Her last line on the record circles back to the word that gives the song its name.
A Version Made for Country Radio
Dolly’s fans did not have to wait for a rock album to hear her. A country version titled “Torn (Kent Wells Version)” received an all-day world premiere on country radio on Thursday, November 12, the day before the album came out. Big Machine Records, Dolly’s most recent label partner, is promoting that version to country stations.
For Bono, the song is still too close. He has said it was moving to share those moments with someone like Dolly Parton, and that he can’t even listen to it now.