WHAT:
The 2025 Woody Guthrie Prize celebration, hosted by the Woody Guthrie Center, brought together music legends and guests in Tulsa to honor the spirit of folk icon Woody Guthrie. The recipient this year was the world-renowned band U2, represented by Bono and The Edge, who accepted the award and participated in an on-stage conversation about art and activism with legendary producer and musician T Bone Burnett. The evening included a surprise six-song performance from Bono and The Edge.
The 2025 Woody Guthrie Prize celebration, hosted by the Woody Guthrie Center, brought together music legends and guests in Tulsa to honor the spirit of folk icon Woody Guthrie. The recipient this year was the world-renowned band U2, represented by Bono and The Edge, who accepted the award and participated in an on-stage conversation about art and activism with legendary producer and musician T Bone Burnett. The evening included a surprise six-song performance from Bono and The Edge.
WHEN & WHERE:
Date: Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025
Location: Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa, Okla.
Time: 7–11pm
Date: Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025
Location: Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa, Okla.
Time: 7–11pm
HIGHLIGHTS:
- Bono and The Edge accepted the Woody Guthrie Prize on behalf of U2 for embodying the social-conscious legacy of Woody Guthrie through music and message.
- Bono and The Edge returned to Cain’s Ballroom for the first time since U2’s Boy 1981 U.S. tour stop
- Bono and The Edge surprised attendees with a six-song performance
- Preceding the presentation, the two band members participated in an intimate on-stage moderated conversation with legendary producer and musician T Bone Burnett.
- Remarks also included those by Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter Anna Canoni and Woody Guthrie Center Director Cady Shaw, recognizing U2 as torch-bearers of the Guthrie legacy.
- The evening served as a fundraising event to support the Center’s educational programs, public concerts, exhibitions and the legacy of Woody Guthrie.
- The event was presented by the Harper House Music Foundation.
- “Running to Stand Still” (with snippet of “Bound for Glory” by Woody Guthrie)
- “Mothers of the Disappeared”
- “Sunday Bloody Sunday”
- “One”
- “Pride (In the Name of Love)” (with snippet of “Jesus Christ” by Woody Guthrie)
- “Yahweh”
QUOTES:
– Bono
– Bono
- “Bob Dylan really did bring us to the place where the song was an instrument to open up worlds. And the world of Woody Guthrie, I wouldn’t have entered if not for Bob.”
- “America is the greatest song still yet to be written. The poetry is there but it’s still being written… don’t imagine it will continue to be extraordinary on its own, that if you fell asleep and woke up in twenty years, the world would be fairer or freer. It won’t, that’s not the way it works.”
– The Edge
- “Our favorite protest songs always had a sense of vision, something to aim for…you don’t talk about the darkness, you make the light brighter”
- “I believe music can actually change the mood of the room and actually shift a culture.”
– Anna Canoni
- “Woody and U2 have been aligned for decades… Whether it is protesting against war and violence, standing up for humanitarian rights, singing about greed, corruption and injustice”
ADDITIONAL HIGHLIGHT:
- When speaking with T Bone about the songwriting process relative to protest songs, Bono and Edge both spoke about needing to be moved. Bono said, “you can’t write a song to order.” He elaborated with a surprise to the audience by reading lyrics to a song that is a work in progress, written about the killing of Awdah Hathaleen, the Palestinian activist and consultant on the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land” murdered in July 2025 by an Israeli settler. It’s been widely reported that U2 is in the studio working on new music and this was the first glimpse of any content. Bono cited lyrics that began:
One father shot
three children crying
if there is no law
is there no crime
if there is no hope
what’s there to rhyme
history is written
one life at a time
ONE LIFE AT A TIME