Dolly Parton's Last Recording Is a Duet With Bono on U2's New Album
The last song Dolly Parton ever recorded is out today. It is a duet with Bono, and it closes U2's 16th studio album, Carnaval de Luz.
How Bono came to Parton
The track is called "Torn". Parton, who died in August at the age of 80, recorded her part in June. She shares writing credits with the band and with Johnny McDaid of Snow Patrol.
It began with a different plan. Bono first approached her about an Irish-roots side project that was still in progress. He played her a few sketches over the phone, and she told him they sounded too Irish.
She later sent him a song of her own, also titled "Torn".
From two lovers to a divided family
Parton's original version told of a woman choosing between two men. Bono and McDaid rewrote the lyrics so that the song follows a mother watching her family break apart.
Faint voices drift in over a steady heartbeat, and Parton's vibrato soon takes over every line. The chorus, sung with Bono, moves past lovers to a wider split: "Torn apart these loving hearts that beat and break the same."
What Bono says about it
In a September cover story with Rolling Stone, Bono described the recording session. "When she got ill," he said, "she got out of her bed to sing this song." He added that you can hear that in the take, and that he can no longer listen to it.
Discussing the tensions the song evokes, he said people in the US now say others are scared to go into Thanksgiving.
Source: Rolling Stone