Bono lambasts ICE, Putin, Netanyahu and more as U2 release first collection of new songs since 2017 | U2

U2 releases first new music collection since 2017; A politically charged EP called Days of Ash focused on a series of high-profile global deaths, including the murder of Renee Good by ICE agents.

Good, a mother of three who was killed while protesting ICE activities in Minneapolis on January 7, is the subject of the opening song, American Obituary.

“Renee Good, born to die free / on the seventh day of three January / on the seventh day of January / one bullet for every child,” Bono sings on the hard rock song over a straightforward, high-pitched riff from Edge. “Renee, ‘domestic terrorist’? / What you can’t kill can’t die / America will rise up against the people of lies.”

In an extensive interview in a fanzine accompanying the six-song release, a sequel to the Propaganda magazines to which the band began sending fans in the 1980s, Bono described Good as “a woman committed to nonviolent civil disobedience.”

He said he was deeply disturbed by being called a domestic terrorist by U.S. Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem. “This was an attempt to assassinate meaning itself, the meaning of words, the meaning of reality,” Bono said. “If people [get] “If we put that aside, you can kiss your democracy goodbye.” He called for an independent investigation into Good’s death.

In Song of the Future, the group focuses on the Women, Life, Freedom protest movement, which campaigns for women’s rights in Iran. They named Sarina Esmailzadeh, who died at the age of 16 in September 2022 after being beaten by Iranian security forces during protests, according to an investigation by Amnesty International. Iranian authorities claimed he killed himself.

Bono sings: “Sarina, Sarina, that song of the future is playing in my mind.” In his interview, he characterizes Iran’s ruling class as “a priestly class whose subjective interpretation of scripture has become a stick to beat the heads of anyone who disagrees.”

The song One Life at a Time is about Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen, who was killed by an Israeli settler in the West Bank in July 2025. Hathaleen worked on the Oscar-winning film No Other Land. Bono called the murder “disgusting” and said he hoped the song would be “a salve”.

Tears of Things takes its name from Richard Rohr’s book, which deals with today’s violence and anger by drawing on the wisdom of the Jewish prophets. The lyrics imagine a conversation between Michelangelo’s David and its sculptor. The EP also includes a reading of Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai’s poem titled: wild peaceIt was recited by Nigerian musician Adeola to the music of U2.

Bono said: “It is the moral strength of Judaism that helped shape Western civilization” and praised Jewish “mathematicians, scientists, writers and songwriters”. He added: “As with Islamophobia, antisemitism must be opposed whenever we witness it. The rape, murder and kidnapping of Israelis on October 7 was bad, but self-defense is no defense against the sweeping brutality of Netanyahu’s response.”

He also acknowledged the lives lost and displaced during the conflict in Sudan and criticized the Trump administration for cutting US foreign aid.

In the closing track, Yours Eternally, Ed Sheeran features with Ukrainian musician and soldier Taras Topolia, who inspired the song, which is sung as a letter from a soldier serving in the conflict with Russia. Sheeran had initially brokered a meeting between Topolia, Bono and Edge, which later materialized when the three played on a set converted into a bomb shelter in a Kiev metro station in May 2022.

“Ask anyone in East Germany, Poland or Latvia if they think Putin will stop in Ukraine if he gets away with it?” said Bono. “If it had suited his purposes he would have found an excuse to invade Ireland.” He praised Sheeran as a “talented whirling dervish” and Topolia as having “the dark sense of humor and defiant spirit we love in the best rock’n’roll music.”

A short documentary accompanying Yours Eternally, directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Ilya Mikhaylus, who served with Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines, will be released on February 24 to mark the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion.

U2 has released several one-off new songs in recent years, such as Atomic City and Your Song Saved My Life. In 2023, they released the album Songs of Surrender, which reworked earlier songs, and in 2024, they released unheard material from the sessions for 2004’s How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb album. However, they have not released an album or EP of new material since 2017’s Songs of Experience.

In the accompanying fanzine, The Edge wrote: “We believe in a world where borders are not erased by force. In which culture, language and memory are not silenced by fear. In which the dignity of a people is indisputable. This belief is not temporary. It is not a political fad. It is the ground on which we stand. And we stand there together.”

Larry Mullen Jr added in an interview: “Going back to our early days working with the Omani Organization or Greenpeace, we were never shy about taking a position and sometimes it can be a little messy, there’s always some kind of pushback but it’s a big part of who we are and why we still exist.”

Drummer Mullen Jr. was unable to attend U2’s concert at the Las Vegas Sphere while recovering from neck surgery. He added: “To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to return to play, so it was very important to come back.” He said he adapted his stance in the kit to enable his playing and changed his “approach and intention” to the music.

Elsewhere in the magazine, bassist Adam Clayton shared his cultural picks (including the band Geese and author Deborah Levy) and heralded the importance of “tolerance, freedom, and choosing not to be too quick to judge.”

Bono also outlined his vision for a “radical centre” in politics.

“The death of truth is the birth of evil,” he said. “I believe the righteous will rise up against this heresy. I have many dear conservative friends who worry about the far right as much as my Democratic friends worry about the far left. Of course, the world needs a ‘radical center’ that draws on both traditions.”

U2 also confirmed a long-rumored new album, saying it would arrive later in the year and would be completely separate from the EP material.

“The songs on Days of Ash are very different in mood and theme from the songs we will put on our album later in the year,” Bono said. “These EP tracks were impatient; these songs were impatient to go out into the world. These are songs of defiance, terror, and lament… because despite all the awfulness we see normalized every day on our small screens, there is nothing normal about these crazy and maddening times, and we need to stand up to them before we can get back to believing in the future and each other.”

He said the new album would have “a carnival atmosphere… a more defiantly joyful feeling”, adding, “Celebratory songs will come, we’re working on them right now.”

Despite the political content of the EP and U2’s songwriting and activism over the years, he acknowledged: “We have to be careful with our amplification. [of political messaging] … I propose to rationalize the bad news because there is only so much a soul can handle.”