The killing of Renée Good by a US immigration agent in Minnesota last month and the fatal beating of an Iran schoolgirl by the country’s security forces in 2022 are among subjects tackled on a new politically-charged EP by U2.
Days of Ash, which features five new songs and a poem, is billed by its producers as an “immediate response” to current events, inspired by the “many extraordinary and courageous people fighting on the front lines of freedom”.
It is the first record produced by the Irish band since March 2023 and its first collection of original material in nearly nine years. Lead singer Bono said the band would put out a more celebratory album later this 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,” he said.
“Awfulness” is being normalised daily on TV, he said, but there is “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”.
Four of the five songs on the 2026 EP tell of people whose lives were “brutally cut short”, while the fifth is about a Ukrainian soldier who is ready to die for freedom, the band said.
The EP was released today, Ash Wednesday, with a short documentary film accompanying the song “Yours Eternally” due to be released on February 24th, the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine.
It is not the group’s only release to feature heavily politicised lyrics. The rock band’s third studio album War, released in 1983, features Sunday Bloody Sunday about the 1972 killing of 14 civilians in Derry by British soldiers and New Year’s Day, which was inspired by the Polish solidarity movement formed in 1980.
U2 Days of Ash EP cover art
The 2026 EP opens with American Obituary, which tells the story of the fatal shooting of Good (37) by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agent on January 7th last.
“A bullet for each child … Three bullets blast, three babies kissed, Renée the domestic terrorist,” sings frontman Bono.
The lyrics are a reference to the mother of three being shot in her forearm, breast and head before being labelled, without evidence, a domestic terrorist by officials in US president Donald Trump’s administration.
“America will rise against the people of the lie” and “hate loves war” are among the track’s refrains.
Renée Good’s partner Becca Good said, in a statement issued by lawyers on behalf of the family, “Renée didn’t just believe in kindness; she lived it, fully and fiercely … She would be deeply moved by this tribute from U2, and would hope it makes a difference in the world.”
Song of the Future tells the story of 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh who, according to Amnesty International, was killed when Iranian security forces beat her with batons amid nationwide protests by women and girls against religious rule.
On this Ash Wednesday, Days Of Ash is released as a self-contained collection of five new songs and a selected 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). This new EP is a… pic.twitter.com/iagPGWRLEB
— U2 (@U2) February 18, 2026
Ukrainian musician-turned-soldier Taras Topolia and British singer Ed Sheeran contribute vocals to the EP’s final song, Yours Eternally. The track, inspired by Toplia, is written in the form of a letter from a soldier on active duty in Ukraine.
Bono met first Topolia in a Kyiv metro station when he and The Edge performed there in May 2022, a few months after the invasion.
The album also features a poem by Israeli writer Yehuda Amichai and a song written for Palestinian teacher and activist Awdah Hathaleen, a father of three, who was killed by an Israeli settler in the West Bank last July.