As the exact changing point of the 80s and its new wave pop and rock sensibilities into 90s grunge and techno Nothing Compares 2 U was released filled with such palpable pain, and singer Sinéad O’Connor’s tears, that worldwide we responded.
The song, of course, is Prince’s originally. It was never intended as a single and even after Prince’s death at age 57, only a year older than Sinéad whose death was announced overnight at 56, and a posthumous release, the song is defined by O’Connor.
I’d encountered Sinead before, in 1988, when her Emperor’s New Clothes was a minor hit expressing characteristically that she was not prepared to fit the boxes others had put her into.
The heartbreak ballad was not a new concept then or now. For many that will be how Sinéad O’Connor will be remembered.
For me, and many women, she was so much more.
We love to use the word “brave” for people who have overcome hurdles. Sinéad created them and then ran headlong into the danger.
In October 1992 she appeared on Saturday Night Live as a musical guest and ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II while proclaiming “fight the real enemy”. This led to a ban from the show and the network NBC for life.
Two weeks later O’Connor was invited by Bob Dylan to appear at a tribute concert at Madison Square Garden, where she was booed off stage, in tears, to be comforted by Kris Kristofferson. It would be nine further years before John Paul II acknowledged sexual abuse within the Church.
She also refused to perform if the US national anthem was played before any of her concerts and withdrew her name from consideration after being nominated for four Grammy awards.
Her personal life was tempestuous too, with relationships with Peter Gabriel (which she penned the beautiful Thank you for hearing me about) and Frank Bonadio making headlines and the 2022 death of her seventeen-year-old son Shane seemingly breaking her irreparably.
It was my university boyfriend’s mother who introduced me to Sinead beyond Nothing Compares 2 U, and the movie In the Name of the Father.
The film stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Emma Thompson and is based on the true story of the Guildford Four. The soundtrack’s original tracks written by U2’s Bono and Gavin Friday. Sinead once said she had to outlive Bono so he wouldn’t speak at her funeral. Yet, he wrote for her You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart, which appears in that film, and took my breath away.
In an increasingly watered down world, Sinead O’Connor was Guinness. Not an icon, but an iconoclast, and one of the last of her types.
