Dolly Parton got off bed rest to record one final song with U2

U2 frontman Bono has revealed that Dolly Parton recorded one final song with him only months before her death.

Speaking with Rolling Stone, he revealed that Parton got off bed rest to feature on the band’s upcoming track Torn, adding that “you can hear” the struggle in her voice.

Torn is set to be released on U2’s upcoming album Carnaval De Luz, the band’s first album in nine years, due for release on November 13.

In a press release, the song was described as “a tender country song detailing broken family ties that holds wider resonance”. It was co-written by Parton, U2 and Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid and performed as a duet between Parton and Bono.

Parton told Rolling Stone that he had wanted to collaborate with Parton for some time, but she’d been concerned that the band’s music was “a little too irish for me”.

But Parton had this song up her sleeve, offering it to Bono to see if he could take it “somewhere else” for a duet.

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So, Bono and McDaid rewrote the lyrics, and it’s that song that Parton will be heard on on the upcoming album.

“When she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song,” Bono told the publication.

“And you can hear that. I can’t even listen to it now.

“She sang her heart out, and I cannot believe that’s an 80-year-old woman.”

Parton was able to hear the finished song before her passing. It ended up being her final vocal recording.

Parton died on August 25, 2026, surrounded by family.

Following her passing, Parton’s family revealed that the beloved star had been privately battling cancer, the type of which has not been disclosed.

“After bravely facing a brief battle with cancer, Dolly departed her Earthly life today at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Centre surrounded by loved ones,” a statement shared by the family read.

The country singer’s death was announced hours earlier in a social media video by her nephew, with revealing that her passing came after a sudden decline in her health. 

Before her passing, Parton recorded a song titled My Place In History that has been stored in a time capsule at her Dollywood theme park in Tennessee.

It will be opened in 2045 for the world to hear on what would have been her 99th birthday.