U2 have released their first collection of new music since 2017 \u2013 a politically charged EP entitled Days of Ash, which focuses on a series of high-profile global deaths including the killing of Renee Good by ICE agents.<\/p>\n
Good, a mother of three children who was killed on 7 January while protesting against ICE activity in Minneapolis, is the subject of the opening song, American Obituary.<\/p>\n
\u201cRenee Good, born to die free \/ American mother of three \/ seventh day January \/ a bullet for each child, as you can see,\u201d Bono sings on the hard rock song, after a forthright, pealing riff from the Edge. \u201cRenee, the \u2018domestic terrorist\u2019? \/ What you can\u2019t kill can\u2019t die \/ America will rise against the people of the lie.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an extensive interview in a fanzine accompanying the six-song release, a continuation of the Propaganda zines the band began sending fans in the 1980s, Bono characterised Good as \u201ca woman committed to nonviolent civil disobedience\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said he was deeply troubled by her being dubbed a domestic terrorist by Kristi Noem, head of the US Department of Homeland Security. \u201cThis was an attempt to assassinate meaning itself, the meaning of words, the meaning of truth,\u201d Bono said. \u201cIf you let people [get] away with that, you can kiss your democracy goodbye.\u201d He called for an independent inquiry into Good\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
On Song of the Future, the band focus on the Women, Life, Freedom protest movement in Iran, which campaigned for the rights of women. They name Sarina Esmailzadeh \u2013 who died in September 2022 aged 16 after being beaten by Iranian security forces during the protests, according to an Amnesty International investigation. Iranian officials claimed she killed herself.<\/p>\n
Bono sings: \u201cSarina, Sarina, she\u2019s the song of the future playing in my mind.\u201d In his interview, he characterises Iran\u2019s ruling class as \u201ca priestly class of men whose subjective interpretation of sacred text becomes a club to beat the heads in of anyone who disagrees\u201d.<\/p>\n
The song One Life at a Time is about Awdah Hathaleen<\/a>, a Palestinian activist who was killed in the West Bank in July 2025 by an Israeli settler. Hathaleen had worked on the Oscar-winning film No Other Land. Bono called the killing \u201cheinous\u201d and said he hoped the song would be \u201ca balm\u201d.<\/p>\n The Tears of Things takes its name from the book by Richard Rohr, which applies wisdom from Jewish prophets to address violence and anger today. The lyrics imagine a conversation between Michelangelo\u2019s David and its sculptor. The EP also features the recitation of a poem by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, entitled Wildpeace<\/a>, read by Nigerian musician Adeola with music from U2.<\/p>\n Bono said: \u201cIt\u2019s the moral force of Judaism that helped shape western civilisation,\u201d and celebrated Jewish \u201cmathematicians, scientists, writers, not to mention songwriters\u201d. He added: \u201cAs with Islamophobia, antisemitism must be countered every time we witness it. The rape, murder and abduction of Israelis on 7 October was evil, but self-defence is no defence for the sweeping brutality of Netanyahu\u2019s response.\u201d<\/p>\n He also acknowledged the lives lost and displaced during conflict in Sudan, and criticised the Trump administration for cutting US foreign aid.<\/p>\n Ed Sheeran guests on the closing track, Yours Eternally, alongside Ukrainian musician turned soldier Taras Topolia, who inspired the song, which is sung as a letter from a soldier on duty in the conflict with Russia. Sheeran had initially brokered a meeting between Topolia, Bono and the Edge, which then happened when the three played a set in a Kyiv metro station converted into a bomb shelter, in May 2022.<\/p>\n Bono and The Edge performing with Taras Topolia in a metro station bomb shelter in Kyiv, 8 May 2022. Photograph: Sergei Supinsky\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n