Bono, the front man for U2 “can’t even listen” to Dolly Parton’s final song.
The country legend died in August after a secret battle with cancer and it’s now been revealed she put her illness to one side to record a song called Torn with the band for their new album Carnaval De Luz in June, just two months before her death in August.
Bono has now confessed he still can’t listen back to the track because it’s too emotional for him. He told Rolling Stone, ” When she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song. And you can hear that. And I can’t even listen to it now.”
The singer revealed he had talked to Dolly about working with him on a side project which is inspired by Irish folk music but she ended up offering him her track Torn which was recorded with U2 instead.
He recalled, “She said: ‘That’s a little too Irish for me’. But she said: ‘I got this song. It’s called Torn and do you wanna see where you can take it somewhere else, maybe?'”
Bono said of her performance, “She sang her heart out and I cannot believe that’s an 80-year-old woman,” adding, “It’s very moving to have had these intimacies with such a figure. The fact that they’re not there now, in any way you can call back, other than through her songs, is very sobering.”
Dolly was able to sign off on the final mix of the track before her death and the album’s producer, Garret “Jacknife” Lee, revealed the music legend was “thrilled” with the final result.
He told the publication, “Dolly loved it. She was so proud of her vocal and the recording. She was thrilled with it. We were very nervous that she might not approve, or would be uncomfortable with it, but she loved it.”
Carnaval De Luz is U2’s 16th studio album and is due for release on November 13.
In a statement announcing the record’s release, Bono said, “Roll up, roll up, roll up! Bring your purple socks, your broken hearts, your rose-tinted naivety … oh be amazed in the hall of mirrors. There will be loud guitars, deep bass, some ecstatic rhythms and, yes, some silver tears will make an appearance!”