Dolly Parton's final recorded vocal performance is set to reach listeners in an unexpected place: the closing track of U2's new album. The country music legend recorded "Torn" with Bono in June, just two months before her death at 80. The duet will appear on Carnaval De Luz, scheduled for release on November 13.
The collaboration began with a different idea. Bono said he had played Parton sketches for an Irish folk project, hoping they might sing together. She passed on that material and offered him a song of her own instead. That song was "Torn," which Parton asked Bono and Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid to develop with her. She shares a writing credit on the finished track.
That origin gives Parton a central place in the story of the duet. She did more than accept an invitation to sing on a U2 record: she brought the song to Bono. The album announcement describes "Torn" as a country song about broken family ties, though listeners will have to wait to hear how Parton and Bono tell that story together.
Bono said Parton was ill by the time she recorded her vocal, but got out of bed to sing it. He praised the strength of her performance and said she approved the final mix before her death. Hearing it now is difficult for him, he told Rolling Stone. Those details make the coming release especially poignant, but they also speak to Parton's determination to finish a song she had chosen to share.
Placing "Torn" at the end of Carnaval De Luz means Parton will have the album's final word alongside Bono. U2 has not yet released the duet, so its sound and full lyrical story remain to be heard. The question hanging over November 13 is what Parton wanted to express through this particular song-and what listeners will hear in her voice knowing it was her last recording.
