U2 Release First Song, “Your Song Saved My Life,” From the Film ‘Sing 2’

U2 has shared the new song “Your Song Saved My Life,” a track featured on the soundtrack of the upcoming animated film Sing 2, hitting theaters on Dec. 22. The movie will star U2 frontman Bono in his animated film debut as the rock star lion Clay Calloway.

A fan of Jennings, Bono didn’t hesitate to sign on as the animated character after the director told the U2 singer “some people sing for a living and some people sing to survive.”

Exploring the more cathartic side of music and its healing power, Bono sings You know your song saved my life / I don’t sing it just so I can get by/ Won’t you hear me when I tell you darlin’/ I sing it to survive… Your song saved my life/ The worst and the best days of my life/ I was broken now I’m open your love keeps me alive/ It keeps me alive on the piano and strings-driven “Your Song Saved My Life,” which will appear in the closing credits of the film.

The band, with their first new music since 2019 release Ahimsa, teased the song on Nov. 1, along with launching their own TikTok page. “Your Song Saved My Life” is one of two songs the band recorded for Sing 2, a sequel to the 2016 Garth Jennings animated musical, also starring Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Taron Egerton, Nick Kro, Tori Kelly, Halsey, and Scarlett Johansson, who can also be heard singing a U2 song in the film.

Sing 2 isn’t U2’s first cinematic endeavor. In 2002, the band picked up two Oscar nods for Best Original Song for “The Hands That Built America” from Gangs of New York and again for “Ordinary Love” from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom in 2013.

In addition to the new music and film, U2 is set to release rare, previously unpublished footage from Achtung Baby performances on their TikTok page to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the band’s seventh album.

Photo: Sam Jones