{"id":361486,"date":"2026-04-03T06:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/361486\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T06:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:07:08","slug":"u2-surprise-release-six-song-spiritual-ep-easter-lily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/361486\/","title":{"rendered":"U2 Surprise Release Six-Song Spiritual EP ‘Easter Lily’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJust six weeks after the surprise release of their EP Days of Ash,<\/a> U2<\/a> have dropped another six-song collection without any advanced notice. This one is entitled Easter Lily, and it\u2019s available right now on YouTube and all streaming platforms.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnlike Days of Ash, Easter Lily is not political. The songs instead focus on spiritual matters, friendship, loss, and hope. \u201cWe are in the studio, still working towards a noisy, messy, \u2018unreasonably colourful\u2019 album to play LIVE\u2026 which is where U2 lives,\u201d Bono says in a statement. \u201cWe still look to vivid rock n roll as an act of resistance against all this awfulness on our small screens. These are for sure \u2018wilderness years\u2019 for so many of us looking at the mayhem out there in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a time that has our band digging deeper into our lives to find a wellspring of songs to try meet the moment,\u201d he continues. \u201cWith Easter Lily we ended up asking very personal questions like: Are our own relationships up to these challenging times? How hard do you fight for friendship? Can our faith survive the mangling of meaning that those algorithms love to reward? Is all religion rubbish and still ripping us apart\u2026? Or are there answers to find in its crevices? Are there ceremonies, rituals, dances that we might be missing in our lives? From the rite of Spring to Easter and its promise of rebirth and renewal\u2026 Patti Smith\u2019s album Easter gave me so much hope when it was released in 1978. I wasn\u2019t yet 18. The title is a nod to her. We will attempt hoopla and fanfare at a later date to remind the rest of the world we exist but in the meantime\u2026 this is between you and us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe EP begins with \u201cSong For Hal,\u201d a tribute to the late Hal Wilner<\/a> featuring the Edge on lead vocals. \u201cI rarely take a lead vocal,\u201d Edge says in an interview for the brand new issue of the U2 fanzine Propaganda. \u201cWhen people ask why, I explain that we actually have a great singer in the band. I always imagined Bono would sing the lead, but he felt strongly I should sing it. He liked where it hit my voice. That was a big compliment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn a Life\u201d is an ode to friendship. \u201cWhile we accept how absurd it is to talk about faith and friendship in such nihilistic times, we are unrepentant\u2026 this is emotionally direct which for some will be uncool,\u201d says Edge. \u201cBut that\u2019s the point, to be confrontational and challenging to the coolness that creeps into relationships. Listening to it after \u2018Song for Hal\u2019, I\u2019m reminded not to take friends for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cScars\u201d draws music inspiration from the early Eighties post-punk scene. The lyrics are about self-acceptance and owning the scars you\u2019ve accumulated over the years. \u201cScars are helpful, mistakes are helpful \u2014 if they can be owned,\u201d says Edge. \u201cThat\u2019s the key. When they\u2019re hidden or denied, that\u2019s bad news.That\u2019s the root of narcissism, not self-love but fake perfection. Bono takes this idea someplace else with a reference to the wounds of Christ, reminding us that they were inflicted by the State combined with religious authority. Church and State is a dangerous combo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe roots of \u201cResurrection Song\u201d go back a decade to a demo that Edge created with producer Jackknife Lee. \u201cI was trying fro a song with some uplift in its DNA,\u201d says Edge. \u201cThe band took it to a whole new level. Larry is playing some of the best drums he\u2019s ever recorded on this track.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe band also spent lots of time fine-tuning \u201cEaster Parade.\u201d It began as a \u201cretread of older U2 ideas\u201d until Bono and Jackknife Lee shaped it into something new and fresh, though the lyrics remained very spiritual. \u201cI guess the question is, why these songs of transcendence now?\u201d asks Edge. \u201cOur hunch is that our audience is as hungry as we are for something to hold onto in these difficult times. We don\u2019t write songs which shy away from witnessing a world in its trauma, its rage and pain and in these more spiritual songs we bear witness to the source of the strength we have found to walk through this world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tEaster Lily wraps up with \u201cCOEXIST (I Will Bless The Lord At All Times?),\u201d which features a \u201csoundscape\u201d by Brian Eno. \u201cWe started this one with Brian Eno,\u201d says Edge. \u201cIt was a Bono riffing over these beautiful chords from Brian. Bono and Jacknife Lee revisited the track and like a jazz man Bono went all out. Totally unbridled. I had very little to do with this track but it\u2019s one of my favorite pieces of music we have made recently.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 12 songs that appear on Days of Ash and Easter Lily will not appear on U2\u2019s upcoming album. And when work on the LP began, they didn\u2019t have any plans for EPs to precede it. These decisions were largely made at the last minute, and required much scrambling. \u201cI\u2019ve been averaging two hours sleep a night,\u201d Jackknife Lee says in a separate Propaganda interview for the upcoming issue. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m living on the International Space Station. I\u2019ve lost all sense of time. It\u2019s been really intense, but also very exciting. There is a lot of jeopardy, and there\u2019s nervous excitement, which is a great source of creative fuel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter missing U2\u2019s residency at Sphere in 2023 and 2024 to recover from neck and back surgeries, Larry Mullen Jr. has been back behind the kit. \u201cLarry has had to learn a new style of drumming because of previous inures,\u201d says Jacknife Lee, \u201cbut it\u2019s really opened up so many possibilities for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs of now, there\u2019s no exact window of time for the release of the new album. They\u2019ve also not revealed any tour plans. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just six weeks after the surprise release of their EP Days of Ash, U2 have dropped another six-song…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69,4931],"class_list":{"0":"post-361486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-u2"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}