U2 Days of Ash - EP

The standalone 6-track EP, Days of Ash was released on February 18th 2026. 'Six postcards from the present … wish we weren't here.'

In advance of a new album set for late 2026, the 'U2 - Days Of Ash' EP is a self-contained collection of five new songs and a poem - 'American Obituary', 'The Tears Of Things', 'Song Of The Future', 'Wildpeace', 'One Life At A Time' and 'Yours Eternally' (ft. Ed Sheeran & Taras Topolia).

An immediate response to current events and inspired by the many extraordinary and courageous people fighting on the frontlines of freedom. Four of the five tracks are about individuals – a mother, a father, a teenage girl – whose lives were brutally cut short. Another is about a soldier who'd rather be singing but is ready to die for the freedom of his country.

"It's been a thrill having the four of us back together in the studio over the last year,' said Bono. '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. And each other.
"If you have a chance to hope it's a duty…" is a line we borrowed from Lea Ypi. A laugh would be nice too. Thank you."

"Who needs to hear a new record from us?" asked Larry, back at the drums after injury meant he couldn't participate in the shows at the Sphere in Vegas. "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."    

'American Obituary' speaks to the shocking event the world witnessed in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 7th, 2026 where Renée Nicole Macklin Good, an idealistic mother of three, was shot at almost point-blank range while exercising her right to peacefully protest, a right that is protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. 

'The Tears Of Things' borrows its title from a book by Franciscan friar Richard Rohr, which examines, through the writings of the Jewish prophets, how one can live compassionately in a time of violence and despair. The song imagines a conversation between Michelangelo's David and his creator… where the young man with the sling and five smooth stones refuses the idea that he has to become Goliath to defeat him... 

The star of the lyric, Sarina, in 'Song of the Future' honours the life of 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh, one of thousands of Iranian schoolgirls who took to the streets as part of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in 2022.  These protests were sparked by the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in Tehran on 16th September that year from injuries sustained following her arrest by the so-called 'morality police' for not wearing a hijab in accordance with government standards.  Seven days later, Sarina was beaten by the Iranian security forces and died from her injuries, the regime claiming she killed herself.  The song aims to capture Sarina's free spirit, the promise and hope of her short life.

'Wildpeace' - a poem by Israeli author and poet Yehuda Amichai - is read by Nigerian artist Adeola of Les Amazones d'Afrique, with music by U2 and Jacknife Lee.

'One Life At A Time' is written for Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian father of three. A nonviolent activist and English teacher, Awdah was killed in his village in the West Bank by Israeli settler Yinon Levi on July 28th, 2025.  Awdah was a consultant on the Oscar-winning documentary "No Other Land," made by Palestinians and Israelis.  At his funeral, one of the directors, Basel Adra, spoke of the slaughter of his friend and the experience of Palestinians being erased "one life at a time." U2 took that line and turned it around to suggest that a peaceful resolution will be wrought "one life at a time." 

'Yours Eternally' sees Bono and The Edge joined on vocals by Ukrainian musician-turned-soldier Taras Topolia, as well as Ed Sheeran. In the spring of 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Bono and The Edge traveled to Kyiv to busk in a metro station at the invitation of President Zelensky. A couple of days prior to that, Ed connected Taras Topolia, and by extension his band Antytila, with Bono. Bono, Taras and The Edge met for the first time on that subway platform. They've been friends ever since. Taras is the inspiration for 'Yours Eternally', a song written in the form of a letter from a soldier on active duty with a bold, mischievous spirit to match Ukraine's.

The U2 Days of Ash EP was accompanied by the return of 'Propaganda' as a one-off digital zine, with a limited-edition print run - forty years after the first issue of 'Propaganda' dropped through the letterboxes of U2 fans around the world. The 52-page special publication  ncluded exclusive interviews with 'Yours Eternally' film director Ilya Mikhaylus and film producer Pyotr Verzilov, as well as musician and soldier Taras Topolia.