Sinéad O'Connor: a guide to the lesser-known songs that reveal the key to her brilliance
Retrieved on:
Tuesday, August 8, 2023
She is probably most well-known for her cover of the Prince song, Nothing Compares 2 U.
Key Points:
- She is probably most well-known for her cover of the Prince song, Nothing Compares 2 U.
- The hit transformed her career but there is so much more to her work that, as we commemorate her incredible life, should be remembered.
- There’s a magical moment in Rememberings, O'Connor’s 2022 memoir, when she recalls a childhood encounter with her grandmother’s piano.
Cover albums
- This yearning, tender sense of history animates all of O’Connor’s work – but most vividly her two covers albums, the first of which, Am I Not Your Girl?, was released in 1992.
- She does so with a big-band jazz sound and a stunning set of vocal performances.
- To praise O’Connor as a maker of covers albums, a singer of other people’s songs, is not to denigrate her immense talent as a writer.
- The best writers (think Virginia Woolf) are always attentive readers, and the best songwriters (think David Bowie) are always attentive listeners, often with uncanny abilities to hear fresh tunes in the songs they cover.
Original hits
- Beyond her ability to cover songs in newly resonant ways, O'Connor also wrote her own heart-wrenching and thoughtful music.
- The self-penned Jackie, which begins her first album, The Lion and the Cobra (1987), is the most electrifying opening track of any album I have ever heard.
- Similarly, the jumpy joy of the arrival of new love is rendered beautifully in Old Lady, from her 2012 album How About I Be Me (and You Be You)?
- It’s a rap-based piece with its own theory of history as something which can be stolen and something, consequently, for which people can long.