Checking your phone to find an unprompted message from Bono is strange enough, but parsing his attempts at Spanish poetry is another matter entirely. Rosalía addressed that exact situation during a visit to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday night, recounting how a surprise text from the U2 frontman turned into an impromptu tutorial in vocabulary. Bono had reached out to ask whether the Spanish lines he had written for a forthcoming U2 song were linguistically sound, having penned an entire track in her honor despite the two of them never actually meeting in person.
The piece in question, titled "The Mirror Maker", appears on U2's upcoming record, Carnaval De Luz. When Bono sent over his lyrics to ensure his phrasing made sense, one specific term left Rosalía scratching her head. She consulted reference books to see if she had simply overlooked an obscure regional phrase, only to discover that the word was entirely fabricated. Rather than suggest a correction, she told him to run with it, offering him free rein to invent his own vocabulary if the rhythm demanded it.
For Rosalía, the interaction was completely surreal. She grew up with U2 in the background, a detail she proved on Fallon by humming a quick bar of "With Or Without You" and referring to Bono as an undisputed legend. Bono, meanwhile, had spent weeks fretting over how to initiate the conversation. Uncomfortable with the prospect of approaching her out of nowhere to ask permission to use her name, he went through their mutual acquaintance Penélope Cruz. He later confessed that he worried an unexpected message might make him look like a persistent stalker rather than an appreciative peer.
Bono's motivation came directly from Rosalía's 2025 album, Lux. Discussing the song last month, he joked that U2 typically draw their lyrical portraits from historical figures who have passed away or political activists sitting in prison cells. Dedicating an anthem to a thriving, contemporary artist was an unusual step for the band. Bono explained that Lux tapped into questions of re-enchantment and spirituality that U2 were also trying to articulate on Carnaval De Luz. Watching her arrive at those ideas first was, in his words, equal parts inspiring and slightly irritating.
The music beneath those lyrics has had its own exhausting history. Long before it became track four on the new album, officially titled "The Mirror Maker (Rosalía)", the composition existed as a 2017 instrumental track built by The Edge. Originally named "Kuti Rocker", the piece took cues from the polyrhythmic grooves of Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. Producer Jacknife Lee revealed that the band spent the better part of nine years tinkering with the arrangement, cycling through 196 separate versions before landing on the finished take.
While her dialogue with Bono played out over a screen, Rosalía has also established a direct creative link with another Irish outfit. She lent guest vocals to "Where Is Gone?", a cut from the upcoming fifth Fontaines D.C. LP, Dopamine Chamber, which XL Recordings brings out on October 16. That release sits alongside a busy autumn schedule, including a musical guest spot on Saturday Night Live on October 10 for an episode hosted by Shane Gillis.
U2 will follow shortly after, releasing Carnaval De Luz on November 13. While "The Mirror Maker" highlights Bono's willingness to coin his own Spanish, the record carries considerable emotional weight elsewhere, closing with "Torn", which features the last studio vocal recorded by Dolly Parton. From demos nine years in the making to transatlantic text exchanges about invented phrases, the release suggests that even after four decades, U2 are still finding strange, roundabout paths toward finishing a song.
