February 21 2026, 08:15 
Irish rock band U2’s new EP includes a track dedicated to Renée Good, the 37-year-old queer mother of three killed by an ICE agent last month.
In a post on their official Instagram account, the band describes Days of Ash, a six-track EP released on February 18 to coincide with Ash Wednesday, as “a response to current events, inspired by the many extraordinary and courageous people fighting on the frontlines of freedom.”
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On Thursday, the band shared a post about “American Obituary,” the song about Good, which opens the EP.
“American Obituary speaks to the shocking event the world witnessed in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 7th, 2026 where Renée Nicole Macklin Good, a peaceful protestor, was shot and killed at almost point-blank range by ICE, an arm of her own government,” the post’s caption reads.
“This unarmed mother of three was then described as a ‘domestic terrorist’ by an administration who will not withdraw the description even though they know it’s not true or mount a proper enquiry into what happened for the sake of everyone involved,” the caption added.
The post also includes slides featuring quotes from the U2 lead singer Bono, explaining that the song was the last one the band worked on for the EP and that he started writing the lyrics the day after Good was killed. He describes Good’s killing and the Trump administration’s deliberate mischaracterization of her as “a domestic terrorist” as “the final straw for so many.”
“That when the world realized we were dealing with something much bigger than the killing of a peaceful protester by her own government,” the singer writes. “This was an attempt to assassinate meaning itself… the meaning of words… the meaning of truth. If you let people [get] away with that, you can kiss your democracy goodbye.”
In addition to Good, other songs on Days of Ash were inspired by Sarina Esmailzadeh, an Iranian teenager beaten to death by security forces during protests against the Islamic Republic in 2022; Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen, a consultant on the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, who was murdered by an Israeli settler last July; and Ukrainian singer Taras Topolia who, along with his bandmates, enlisted in Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces following Russia’s invasion of the country. Topolia appears alongside U2 and Ed Sheeran on the track “Yours Eternally.”
The release of Days of Ash is also accompanied by a one-off 40th anniversary digital edition of U2’s official fanzine Propaganda, featuring lyrics from the songs on the EP, an interview with Bono about the people who inspired them, and other writing on the songs’ themes.
As NBC News notes, Days of Ash is U2’s first collection of new material since 2017’s Songs of Experience. While the band continues to work on new music, the songs on the EP “were impatient to be out in the world,” Bono said in a statement.
“They are songs of defiance and dismay, of lamentation,” he said. “Songs of celebration will follow, we’re working on those now.”
The band describes the new EP as “self-contained,” and according to Propaganda, the songs will not be included on a forthcoming full-length album. In a press release, Bono described the material the band is currently working on for its 15th studio album as more “joyful” than Days of Ash.
“It can’t all be ashes,” the singer said in his Propaganda interview. “You can only kick at the darkness for so long… We’re going to try to make the light brighter real soon.”
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