Dolly Parton's final recording - a duet with U2 - played on radio for the first time

LAST UPDATE | 12 hrs ago

DOLLY PARTON’S FINAL recording, a duet with U2, has been played on air for the first time today.

The track, titled Torn, was recorded in June, two months before the country icon’s death.

In a pre-recorded video that was aired at a remembrance event, Bono said the band was “blessed” to have been able to work with Parton.

“We’d no idea it would be her last, but I wonder if she knew,” he said.

“It was like she was singing herself to somewhere else.”

The frontman recounted a time when they had been trying to work together, but their schedules didn’t align.

“Unfortunately, Bono, I have more love than time,” he says she told him.

Torn will feature on U2′s upcoming album Carnaval De Luz, which will be released on Friday.

Torn is co-written by Parton, U2 and Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid.

In a note she wrote to Bono the day she recorded her part, Parton said: “Hope you like what I did. I did quite a few things.

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“Take from it what you want and what you need, but I love the song, and I think it could be something really special.

“Thanks for including me in your life. I’ve always loved you and always will.”

Dave Fanning, who, since the band’s early days, has had the global first-play on U2 singles, introduced the track on Oliver Callan’s Radio 1 show this morning. 

The broadcaster said the song was “brilliant”, but also “very sad”.

“You can hear it in her voice,” he said, referencing that Parton was near the end of her life at the time of recording.

“It does add a certain poignancy to it,” he said.

“Bono really didn’t know it was that bad. He didn’t know this was going to be the end.”

Reacting to the track on Good Morning America, co-anchor Lara Spencer described it as “angelic”.

Robin Roberts said it was nice “to hear her voice again”.

The song is about division and disagreement within a family.

Here are some of the lyrics to the song: 

The glass that frames the picture crack like ice
The photograph remembers all that we now deny
When halfway seems too far to meet
Across the table too hard to reach
Apples falling from the same tree can roll
Torn apart these loving hearts
That beat and break the same
We share a house divided
And the blood that fills our veins
Brothers turn to strangers
And sons deny their name
Somebody loses either way
And every heart is torn