Just six weeks after the surprise release of their EP Days of Ash, U2 have dropped another six-song collection without any advanced notice. This one is entitled Easter Lily, and it’s available right now on YouTube and all streaming platforms.
Unlike Days of Ash, Easter Lily is not political. The songs instead focus on spiritual matters, friendship, loss, and hope. “We are in the studio, still working towards a noisy, messy, ‘unreasonably colourful’ album to play LIVE… which is where U2 lives,” Bono says in a statement. “We still look to vivid rock n roll as an act of resistance against all this awfulness on our small screens. These are for sure ‘wilderness years’ for so many of us looking at the mayhem out there in the world.”
“It’s a time that has our band digging deeper into our lives to find a wellspring of songs to try meet the moment,” he continues. “With Easter Lily we ended up asking very personal questions like: Are our own relationships up to these challenging times? How hard do you fight for friendship? Can our faith survive the mangling of meaning that those algorithms love to reward? Is all religion rubbish and still ripping us apart…? Or are there answers to find in its crevices? Are there ceremonies, rituals, dances that we might be missing in our lives? From the rite of Spring to Easter and its promise of rebirth and renewal… Patti Smith’s album Easter gave me so much hope when it was released in 1978. I wasn’t yet 18. The title is a nod to her. We will attempt hoopla and fanfare at a later date to remind the rest of the world we exist but in the meantime… this is between you and us.”
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The EP begins with “Song For Hal,” a tribute to the late Hal Wilner featuring the Edge on lead vocals. “I rarely take a lead vocal,” Edge says in an interview for the brand new issue of the U2 fanzine Propaganda. “When people ask why, I explain that we actually have a great singer in the band. I always imagined Bono would sing the lead, but he felt strongly I should sing it. He liked where it hit my voice. That was a big compliment.”
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“In a Life” is an ode to friendship. “While we accept how absurd it is to talk about faith and friendship in such nihilistic times, we are unrepentant… this is emotionally direct which for some will be uncool,” says Edge. “But that’s the point, to be confrontational and challenging to the coolness that creeps into relationships. Listening to it after ‘Song for Hal’, I’m reminded not to take friends for granted.”
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“Scars” draws music inspiration from the early Eighties post-punk scene. The lyrics are about self-acceptance and owning the scars you’ve accumulated over the years. “Scars are helpful, mistakes are helpful — if they can be owned,” says Edge. “That’s the key. When they’re hidden or denied, that’s bad news.That’s the root of narcissism, not self-love but fake perfection. Bono takes this idea someplace else with a reference to the wounds of Christ, reminding us that they were inflicted by the State combined with religious authority. Church and State is a dangerous combo.”
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The roots of “Resurrection Song” go back a decade to a demo that Edge created with producer Jackknife Lee. “I was trying fro a song with some uplift in its DNA,” says Edge. “The band took it to a whole new level. Larry is playing some of the best drums he’s ever recorded on this track.”
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The band also spent lots of time fine-tuning “Easter Parade.” It began as a “retread of older U2 ideas” until Bono and Jackknife Lee shaped it into something new and fresh, though the lyrics remained very spiritual. “I guess the question is, why these songs of transcendence now?” asks Edge. “Our hunch is that our audience is as hungry as we are for something to hold onto in these difficult times. We don’t write songs which shy away from witnessing a world in its trauma, its rage and pain and in these more spiritual songs we bear witness to the source of the strength we have found to walk through this world.”
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Easter Lily wraps up with “COEXIST (I Will Bless The Lord At All Times?),” which features a “soundscape” by Brian Eno. “We started this one with Brian Eno,” says Edge. “It was a Bono riffing over these beautiful chords from Brian. Bono and Jacknife Lee revisited the track and like a jazz man Bono went all out. Totally unbridled. I had very little to do with this track but it’s one of my favorite pieces of music we have made recently.”
The 12 songs that appear on Days of Ash and Easter Lily will not appear on U2’s upcoming album. And when work on the LP began, they didn’t have any plans for EPs to precede it. These decisions were largely made at the last minute, and required much scrambling. “I’ve been averaging two hours sleep a night,” Jackknife Lee says in a separate Propaganda interview for the upcoming issue. “I feel like I’m living on the International Space Station. I’ve lost all sense of time. It’s been really intense, but also very exciting. There is a lot of jeopardy, and there’s nervous excitement, which is a great source of creative fuel.”
After missing U2’s residency at Sphere in 2023 and 2024 to recover from neck and back surgeries, Larry Mullen Jr. has been back behind the kit. “Larry has had to learn a new style of drumming because of previous inures,” says Jacknife Lee, “but it’s really opened up so many possibilities for him.”
As of now, there’s no exact window of time for the release of the new album. They’ve also not revealed any tour plans.
Steve Cohen*
