From 1983’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” to 1984’s “Pride (In the Name of Love),” 1987’s “Mothers of the Disappeared” and “2000’s “Walk On,” U2 have always stepped boldly up to share their views on the state of the planet. And, in a world that often feels like it’s gone mad lately, the veteran band have done it again with Wednesday’s (Feb. 18) release of the urgent, literally ripped-from-the-headlines surprise EP Days of Ash.
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The emotional, classically stirring U2 collection of five songs and a poem is described as “an immediate response to current events inspired by the many extraordinary and courageous people fighting on the frontlines of freedom.”
In a statement, frontman Bono wrote, “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 collection kicks of with the pealing sounds of The Edge’s signature guitar chiming on “American Obituary,” an homage to Renée Macklin Good, the 37-year-old mother of three and American citizen killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis in January. “Renée Good born to die free/ American mother of three/ Seven day January/ A bullet for each child, you see,” Bono sings urgently over a track that sounds like it could have appeared on a classic early aughts album such as 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind.
The song’s final verse is like a zen koan (spiced with a tribute to Patti Smith’s “People Have the Power”) in which Bono repeats, “The power of the people is so much stronger than the people in power.”
The band is joined by Ed Sheeran and Ukrainian solider-turned-musician Tara Topolia on the uplifting “Yours Eternally,” inspired by Bono and Edge’s trip to Kyiv in the spring of 2022 to busk in a train station at the invitation of besieged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, where they first met and befriended Topolia. The song is written in the form of a letter written from a active-duty soldier on the frontlines of war.
“As your so-called companion/ The worst jokes and the greatest times/ You got me high/ And the stars got me home/ Your faith in me was blinding,” Sheeran sings over the crackling drums and a swelling gang chorus of vocals on the refrain: “Don’t sleep/ Don’t even think about it/ No need/ Maybe a little bit.”
The acoustic ballad “The Tears of Things” imagines a conversation between Michelangelo’s David statue and his creator, in which the young man with his sling full of stones pushes back against the notion that he has to “become Goliath to defeat him.” It is followed by the driving “Song of the Future,” which pays tribute to 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh, one of the thousands of Iranian schoolgirls who joined the nationwide 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement, driven to speak out after the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, who died in Tehran in 2022 of injuries suffered following her arrest by the “morality police.”
“If you put a man into a cage and rattle it enough/ A man becomes the kind of rage that cannot be locked up,” Bono sings on the track.
Also included is “Wildpeace,” a poem by Israeli author and poet Yehuda Amichai, read by Nigerian artist Adeola of Les Amazones d’Afrique over an squelchy arrangement written by U2 with producer Jacknife Lee (Weezer, Taylor Swift). The collection also features “One Life at a Time” a moody track written in honor of Palestinian father of three Awdah Hathaleen. The non-violent activist and teacher was killed in his village in the West Bank by an Israeli settler in July 2025 in the midst of the ruinous Israeli-Gaza war sparked by militant group Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The songs all have their own vivid lyric videos and a short documentary film to accompany “Yours Eternally” is slated for release on Feb. 24, the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In addition to the EP, the band rebooted their official Propaganda ‘zine, dropping a 40th anniversary edition titled “U2 Days of Ash: Six Postcards From the Present… Wish We Weren’t There.” In a pointed allusion to the still-roiling controversy about the Jeffrey Epstein files chronicling the convicted child sex offender’s decades-long friendship with Donald Trump and other powerful and important world figures, the magazine’s table of contents, like the Epstein files, is heavily redacted.
Singer Bono weighs in on the people who inspired the songs on the EP, their first set of new songs since 2017’s Songs of Experienece, noting that they are very different in theme than the 25 or so in consideration for the group’s next proper album, or albums. He wrote that the in-process LP tracks are “more songs of celebration than lamentation,” tagging EP’s mood as “reactions to present day anxieties.”
It also features contributions from guitarist The Edge, who writes in an essay that, “we believe in a world where borders are not erased by force. Where culture, language and memory are not silenced by fear. Where the dignity of people is not negotiable.”
Drummer Larry Mullen Jr. addresses the injury that kept him sidelined from U2’s gigs opening Las Vegas’ Sphere in 2023, saying “it wasn’t easy” missing out on the gigs, as well as the changes he made to his kit, and approach, in the wake of the injury and time off. “Who needs to hear a new record from us?” he asks in answer to a question about the proper LP due out after the surprise EP. “It just depends on whether we’re making music we feel deserves to be heard. I believe the new songs stand up to our best work.”
Bassist Adam Clayton shared some books he’s been reading, what he’s been listening to (Geese, Fela Kuti, the Waterboys’ Mike Scott), lessons he’s learned about “tolerance, freedom and not to jump to judgement,” as well as the flower he’s looking forward to in the spring (daffodils, the Magnolia campbelli). The 52-page ‘zine — which will have a limited-edition print run — also features the lyrics to the EPs songs, links to articles about ICE’s militant immigration tactics against U.S. citizens and legal residents, a chat with the Ukrainians behind the documentary short the band filmed for “Yours Eternally” and the EPs full credits.
The band said contributions in support of human rights and freedom will be made to Amnesty International, The Committee to Protect Journalists and the UN Refugee Agency.
Listen to Days of Ash below.
