U2 have emerged from a long hiatus with a surprise six-song EP, Days of Ash, available now, in which they address political flashpoints around the world, including ICE raids in the U.S., the Iranian uprisings, the war in Ukraine, and Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The six songs — “American Obituary,” “The Tears of Things,” “Song of the Future,” “Wildpeace,” “One Life at a Time,” and “Yours Eternally” (featuring Ed Sheeran and Taras Topolia) — are all on streaming platforms. They’ve also created lyric videos for each one.
“It’s been a thrill having the four of us back together in the studio over the last year,” Bono says in a statement. “The songs on Days of Ash are very different in mood and theme to the ones we’re going to put on our album later in the year. These EP tracks couldn’t wait; these songs were impatient to be out in the world. They are songs of defiance and dismay, of lamentation. Songs of celebration will follow, we’re working on those now … because for all the awfulness we see normalized daily on our small screens, there’s nothing normal about these mad and maddening times and we need to stand up to them before we can go back to having faith in the future.”
The EP kicks off with “American Obituary,” which is dedicated to Renee Good, who was killed by ICE officers in Minneapolis during a protest. “Renee Good born to die free,” Bono sings. “American mother of three/Seventh day January/A bullet for each child, you see.”
In a new interview with the U2 fanzine Propaganda — which is being relaunched as a one-off digital zine and will also be available in print at select stores — Bono discusses the song. “The rhythm of the lyric is a nod to one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs, ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),'” he says. “In his song the child is singing to the mother, and in ours the mother is singing to her children: ‘I love you more than hate loves war.'”
“The Tears of Things” takes its title from the 2025 Richard Rohr book, The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage. It’s an imaginary conversation between Michelangelo and his statue, David, reflecting the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza. “If you put a man into a cage and rattle it long enough,” Bono sings, “A man becomes the kind of rage that cannot be locked up … The tears of things/Let the desert be unfrozen.”
In the Propaganda interview, Bono says that the band has become close to Richard Rohr, and finds deep meaning in his writings. “He’s a mystic, a deep thinker,” Bono says. “[His book] suggests that the greatest of the Jewish prophets found a way to push through their rage and anger at the injustices of the day, until they ended up in tears.”
“Song of the Future” is a tribute to 16-year-old Iranian Sarina Esmailzadeh, who was beaten to death by Iranian security forces after participating in the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom movement. “Here again, we have a priestly class of men whose subjective interpretation of sacred text becomes a club to beat the heads in of anyone who disagree,” Bono says. “We all remake God in our own image to some degree, but sadly, it’s much more likely that we create a God of fire and brimstone than a God of ‘love and mercy,’ to quote Brian Wilson.”
“Wildpeace” is a poem by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai read by Nigerian artist Adeola Fayehun, set to music written and arranged by producer Jacknife Lee. “I can hardly listen to [Fayehun]’s voice,” Bono says. “It cuts right through me and somehow suggests other conflicts on the African continent just by the lily of her achingly beautiful voice … Sudan, dead God.”
“One Life at a Time” was inspired by the 2025 Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land. They wrote it for Palestinian Awdah Hathaleen, a consultant on the film, who was killed in his West Bank village by an Israeli settler. The title of the song comes from a line that No Other Land filmmaker Basel Adra said at his funeral. “One life at a time is kinda an existential suggestion,” Bono says. “We can change the world for the better or for the worse … one life at a time.”
Days of Ash wraps up with “Yours Eternally,” which features guest appearances by Ed Sheeran and Ukrainian singer Taras Topolia, whom Edge and Bono met when they traveled to Ukraine shortly after the Russian invasion. The lyrics began as a letter to him. “When we told [Ed Sheeran] about this song in a shape of a letter wondering if he could be the voice replying to the letter, he jumped right on it, but with a caveat,” Bono says. “[He said], ‘I love the song, I love Ukraine. But I’d rather not be a part of any political polemic right now.… You’re not going to get me involved in politics, are you?’ ‘No, of course not, Ed.’ I might have been bluffing there.”
The songs are produced by the band’s longtime collaborator Jacknife Lee. “Who needs to hear a new record from us?” U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr. asks in a statement. “It just depends on whether we’re making music we feel deserves to be heard. I believe these new songs stand up to our best work. We talk a lot about when to release new tracks. You don’t always know … the way the world is now feels like the right moment. Going way back to our earliest days, working with Amnesty or Greenpeace, we’ve never shied away from taking a position, and sometimes that can get a bit messy, there’s always some sort of blowback, but it’s a big side of who we are and why we still exist.”
Matt Collyer of The Planet Smashers