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Kissing Lips and Breaking Hearts: U2’s Days of Ash Has Us Shook: Season 8, Episode 8

  • Writer: The Garden Tarts
    The Garden Tarts
  • Feb 25
  • 4 min read

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Wednesdays are out at 2 pm Eastern for non-subscribers.


This week on Kissing Lips and Breaking Hearts with The Garden Tarts, we dove headfirst into U2’s brand new EP Days of Ash, six songs that somehow manage to be specific, political, intimate, and absolutely gorgeous all at once. It’s the kind of release that reminds you exactly what this band can still do when the stakes are high and the world feels like it’s on fire.


First Impressions: Acquaintances, Not Yet Friends

We recorded this episode just a few days after release, which means we’re still in that delicious “getting to know you” phase with these songs. As Jenny puts it, they’re still just acquaintances: you’ve had coffee, you’ve exchanged a few texts, you know you like each other, but you haven’t gone soul-baring besties yet. Hilary, meanwhile, has basically listened to nothing else since Wednesday, so the obsession has begun.


We also talk a bit about our own little universe: the wild response to our breaking news episode, why your YouTube subscriptions matter more than you think, and yes, even lipstick and whiskey make an appearance.


“American Obituare”: A Modern Protest Song

We start with “American Obituare,” a track we both hear as a kind of 21st‑century cousin to “Sunday Bloody Sunday” if it had been born in the era of Vietnam, psychedelic edges, war imagery, and all. The song is rooted in the real-life murder of Renee Nicole Macklin Good, and the note at the end — “Renee Nicole Macklin Good was great. 1988–2026” — hits like a punch to the chest. Somehow, despite being so specific and so rooted in one woman’s story, the lyrics never feel forced or “written to assignment." They are fluid, furious, and heartbreakingly human.


Musically, we gush over Edge sounding like he’s finally been let out of a nine‑year garage captivity, guitars exploding with purpose instead of polish. We also talk about all the American symbolism, crossing guards, yellow school buses, kids playing in the street, and how this track feels like the statement piece U2 needed after a long, quiet stretch. Listeners agreed: in our poll, “American Obituare” landed tied for third place and inspired comments like “a true U2 protest song” and “what a statement after being dormant for so long.”


“The Tears of Things”: U2 Fan Kryptonite (Crack?)

Then there’s “The Tears of Things,” which quickly emerged as the song of the EP for a lot of fans. For Hillary, it might be Bono’s best lyrical work ever. Jenny calls it “U2 fan Kryptonite”: the exact mathematical equation of a U2 song designed to destroy us emotionally while we keep crawling back for more. Structurally, it’s a slow, unassuming build that detonates in a way that recalls “With or Without You” or “Exit” – that moment where the emotional dam breaks and your eyes just flood.


Lyrically, this is college-seminar-level stuff. The song imagines Michelangelo and his David in conversation about the Holocaust and the Israel–Gaza reality, folding art, history, and morality into a single narrative voice. We talk about Bono’s refusal to conflate “all Jews” with the actions of one leader, the moral force of Judaism in shaping Western civilization, and the way he manages to name Mussolini while reducing Hitler to a “shadow” rather than giving him the dignity of being sung.


We also highlight those classic Bono through-lines — hearts and homes, exile and belonging — that run from earlier work straight into this song. In our listener poll, “The Tears of Things” ran away with the top spot, with comments calling it “a masterpiece, maybe their best song ever” and praising the band as “still masters of the build.”


“Song of the Future”: Sleight of Hand in a Pop Song

“Song of the Future” is where U2’s old-school sleight of hand shows up: a peppy, catchy track you could bop to on the radio that’s secretly about a 16‑year‑old girl murdered at a protest for women’s and human rights in Iran. Jenny’s husband immediately heard “Red Flag Day” DNA in it. He was humming it around the house within minutes, which feels exactly right; sonically, it could live comfortably on Songs of Experience.


The song explicitly references both Jina Mahsa Amini and Sarina Esmailzadeh, naming their years, “1999–2022” and “2006–2022," so their stories can’t be reduced to vague symbolism. Hillary connects this to Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s idea that you die twice, once physically, and again when your name is spoken for the last time, and notes how "Song of the Future" gives these women a kind of second life. It was your second‑favorite track in our poll, with listeners calling out Adam and Larry “bringing the fire” and praising the band for being five decades in and still at the top of their game.


Why Days of Ash Doesn’t Need a Press Tour

One of the recurring themes in our conversation is that Days of Ash doesn’t actually need a traditional press cycle. The songs and the written Propaganda that accompany them explain themselves; they are statements, not products that require defending. We’d love to see the band show up on a late-night stage and blow the roof off with one of these tracks, but we also kind of love the idea of them just…letting the songs speak.


In the meantime, we’re more than happy to keep talking. In this episode, we work through our own processing in real time, from initial confusion to full-body goosebumps, with whiskey in hand and lipstick slightly crooked. If Days of Ash is U2 fighting their way back into the conversation, this EP, and this episode, prove they’ve still got plenty to say.


If you’ve ever wanted an excuse to overthink U2 with people who absolutely understand the assignment, this episode is your invitation.


Stream the episode, smash subscribe, and help these two snarky U2 fans build this into a real‑life business.


Catch Season 8, Episode 8 of “Kissing Lips and Breaking Hearts with the Garden Tarts” on your favorite platform:





 
 
 

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