Dolly Parton's final recorded vocal performance arrives this Friday, a duet with Bono called “Torn” that closes out U2's 16th studio album. Parton recorded the track in Nashville in June, just weeks before her death in August, and it stands as a quiet, unplanned farewell from one of country music's most towering figures.
“Torn” is the closing track on U2's “Carnaval De Luz,” set for release Friday, November 13, on Island Records, according to a statement on Dolly Parton's official website. The song was co-written by U2, Parton, and Johnny McDaid, produced by Jacknife Lee, and features Daniel Lanois on pedal steel. Per the same statement, Parton recorded her vocals in Nashville in June 2026, making the song her final recorded vocal performance before she died on August 25.
A country rendition, labeled the Kent Wells Version, was set for an exclusive country radio world premiere airing all day Thursday, November 12, the site notes. That version offers fans a more familiar Parton sound alongside the U2 original.
Bono Describes Parton Rising From a Sickbed to Sing
The emotional weight of the recording session has come into sharper focus through Bono's own account. Bono told Rolling Stone, in interviews for an upcoming feature, that Parton got out of bed while ill to sing the song, and he said he could not listen to it now. The magazine also reports that Parton was able to approve the final mix before she died, with producer Garret “Jacknife” Lee saying simply that she loved it.
Parton died in August after a brief battle with cancer at age 80, closing out a career spanning more than six decades. Over that span she won 11 Grammy Awards and wrote more than 3,000 songs, including “Jolene,” “9 to 5,” and “I Will Always Love You.”
Not Her Only Posthumous Release
“Torn” isn't the first Parton recording to surface since her death, and the Rolling Stone feature notes the broader context. Another posthumous track, a Stanley Brothers tribute called “Bound to Ride,” was recorded much earlier, around 2022, according to the magazine's reporting. That timeline underscores that Parton left behind more than one piece of unreleased music, even as “Torn” is described as her final vocal performance.
One of those earlier recordings has an especially long road ahead of it. As The Washington Post reported, Parton recorded a song called “My Place in History” more than a decade ago and sealed it in a time capsule at Dollywood's DreamMore resort in Tennessee. Per ABC24/WATN, Parton first revealed the existence of that unreleased song in her 2020 memoir, “Songteller: My Life in Lyrics,” and it is scheduled for release on what would have been her 100th birthday, January 19, 2046.
Parton had mixed feelings about that long wait. In 2022, she said the delay in hearing the time-capsule song had bothered her and that she wanted to dig it up early, the station notes. She described “My Place in History” as a really good song and said she hoped it would resonate with future listeners.
For now, fans will have to settle for “Torn,” a far more immediate reminder of Parton's voice. It closes U2's new record this Friday as the final vocal performance of an artist whose songwriting shaped American music for more than sixty years.
