U2 reveal Dolly Parton gave them old song to finish as theirs were ‘too Irish’

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The Irish rock band and the late country music star worked together on the single Torn, which appears on U2’s latest album, Carnaval De Luz.

U2 have revealed their collaboration with Dolly Parton on the single Torn came about after she declared their songs were “too Irish” for her.

The Irish rock band and the late country music star worked together on the track, which appears on U2’s latest album, Carnaval De Luz.

The single was co-written by the band, Parton and Snow Patrol star Johnny McDaid.

It also became Parton’s last ever recording, with the singer dying in August at the age of 80 following a “brief battle with cancer”.

Speaking on BBC Radio 2’s Track Of My Years With Vernon Kay, the band’s frontman Bono – real name Paul David Hewson – explained how they came together.

He said: “We were looking for something to unify our album because it would be nice if when the characters in our album could deal with what’s going on in the outside world. It’s a really fractious time that we live in where everyone’s got a point of view and, you know, you’re the enemy if you don’t agree with them. She’s the penicillin for that, isn’t she? She’s the antidote to all that.

“But we didn’t know it would work. And Dolly has started a song called Torn. And she said, ‘look, you can take it whatever way you want, you know, and I might like where you take it’. And we took it quite a ways away from where she started. So, when we sent it back, it was very different. It was a kind of sci-fi country soundscape.”

Guitarist The Edge, real name David Howell Evans, added: “Basically she said, your songs are too Irish for me. So, what about this one?”

Bono then explained that the folk album they were making “didn’t hit her voice”, which he suspected might have made her want to make changes to the track – which is about two brothers who do not talk.

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