Dolly Parton’s Final Recording Is ‘Torn,’ a Duet With Bono on U2’s Album

• Dolly Parton‘s last recorded vocal is “Torn,” a duet with Bono that closes U2’s new album, Carnaval de Luz, out Nov. 13.
• She recorded it in June, two months before she died at 80. “When she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song,” Bono said.
• The same week, her sisters denied any family fight over her estate.

One more song. Dolly Parton, who died on Aug. 25 at 80, sings on the closing track of U2’s 16th album, Carnaval de Luz, the band announced on Thursday (Sept. 24). The song is called “Torn,” and it is the last vocal she recorded.

She cut it in June. “When she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song,” Bono, 66, told Rolling Stone. “And you can hear that. And I can’t even listen to it now.”

What is Dolly Parton’s final recording?

“Torn,” a duet with Bono, credited to U2, Parton and Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid. The band’s announcement calls it “a tender country song detailing broken family ties,” and says it “has sadly turned out to be her last recorded vocal performance.”

Longtime U2 collaborator Daniel Lanois plays pedal steel, and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. based his part on a Lanois production, Bob Dylan’s “Most of the Time.” Producer Garret “Jacknife” Lee said Parton heard and approved the final mix: “Dolly loved it. She was so proud of her vocal.”

How did Dolly Parton end up on a U2 album?

By turning Bono down first. He had approached her for an unreleased side project built on Irish folk music and played her sketches over the phone. “She said, ‘That’s a little too Irish for me,'” Bono recalled.

Then she offered him a song of her own called “Torn,” and asked whether he wanted to take it somewhere else. Bono and McDaid rewrote the lyrics around a mother watching her family split apart, and Parton agreed to sing that version.

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

Bono, to Rolling Stone

The song had been hiding in plain sight. After her death, U2 posted a drawing of Parton with handwritten lines over it and the caption “Every heart is torn.” The lines now read as lyrics from the track.

When does U2’s Carnaval de Luz come out?

On Friday, Nov. 13. It is U2’s first album of new songs in nine years. The second single, “Silencio,” came out the same day as the announcement, with a video of the band playing in a dance hall.

“Torn” is not her only posthumous release. “Bound to Ride,” her tribute to the Stanley Brothers, was just released, but it was recorded around 2022. In January she released a new version of her 1977 song “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” with Lainey Wilson, Miley Cyrus, Queen Latifah and Reba McEntire.

Is there a Parton family feud?

Her sisters say no. “I’ll say this and this only: there is no feud within our family,” Freida Parton wrote on Instagram on Wednesday. “No one among the Parton/Owens family is fighting over Dolly’s estate. We all love Bryan, just as we all love each other.” Her sister Stella Parton posted the same message.

Bryan is Bryan Seaver, Parton’s nephew and former head of security, who is on the other side of the restraining order her company won against him. Her sisters’ statement does not address the court case.

More on Dolly: the wigs she wore, and how they work. And from this week’s music news, Taylor Swift’s “Patient Zero” video. More in Music.

— Bruno Monteiro

Sources: U2’s announcement of Carnaval de Luz, Sept. 24, 2026; Bono and Garret “Jacknife” Lee to Rolling Stone (Brian Hiatt); Freida Parton and Stella Parton on Instagram, Sept. 23. Also reported by ABC News (Angeline Jane Bernabe), Consequence (Ben Kaye) and Fox News. Photos: “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” (official video, January 2026) and “I ain’t dead yet!” (October 2025), both from Dolly Parton’s official channel; “Silencio” (U2).