The Edge – Heroine – 1986

Sinéad’s first single, taken from the movie, Captive, its The Edge from U2 composed score. His guitar ringing in a characteristic With Or Without You /  I Still Haven’t Found What I Looking For way. Sinéad’s high notes always aching, unmasking her pain. Coproduced by Eno collaborator Michael Brook, the cycling synthesised strings are very Penguin Cafe Orchestra, I could imagine Jose Padilla spinning this at Ibiza’s Cafe del Mar. Fashion / style magazine The Face once asked Andrew Weatherall for a top 10 tunes. He gave them a “Club 5” and a “Yard 5”. This one was for the yard. 

Sinéad O’Connor – I Want Your Hands On Me – 1988

Remixed from Sinéad’s debut album, The Lion & The Cobra, this was big with Nancy Noise. In an article I once described this as “a quintessential Future tune”, Future being the club, where in 1988 Nancy and friends brought the Balearic beat back to London. Nancy said, “You never went, how could you know?” Well, it’s just that this pop song, souped up with rattling room-shaking TR-808 and tumbling timbales and boasting input from Brooklyn’s Audio Two and MC Lyte, perfectly bridged the gap between where the hip hop crazy capital was, and where post Ibiza / Amnesia it was heading. 

Sinéad O’Connor – Nothing Compares 2 U – 1990

The Nellee Hooper-produced hit, that secured Sinéad global fame, for me this song, instead, signposted the beginning of the end…

“Tell me baby, where did I go wrong?”

Well, I trashed my relationship for starters. Removed my far better half’s voice of reason. 

“I go out every night, and sleep all day”

When partying became everything, because while at home, alone, I felt hollow. Failing to face my parents’ bitter break-up, I instead attempted to find a place to hide. I pulled on a cover, a character, and went from a mummy’s boy to basically a petty criminal. Serving up, but not dealing with anything. Necking up, blotting, blacking out. This tune takes me right back to rolling a joint, chopping a cheeky line, while pulling on the jean jacket, packing my pockets, before calling a cab to the West End.

In those moments, alone, getting ready, I knew what I was doing. It was like preparing for a battle, a fight. “Fuck it. Bring it on.” That feeling a fear of, but a pull toward, the void, oblivion, it doesn’t go away. As the song plays now it’s still with me. I’m still capable of it. I’ve given up trying to cure it, but I can hold myself until it subsides.

“All the flowers that you planted mama, in the back yard, all died when you went away”

I’m sitting in our old garden in Norwood, smoking a spliff. Mum gone, dog dead, weeds winning, overgrown, conquering all competition, minutes before dad kicked me out. 

Sinéad O’Connor – I Am Stretched On Your Grave – 1990

A translation of the 17th Century Irish poem, “Táim sínte ar do thuama”, originally set to music by Phillip King, Sinéad here hooks it up to James Brown / Clyde Stubblefield’s hypnotic Funky Drummer. Haunting, dark, and stark, the doomed love song is beefed up by machine bass boom, and transformed into rebel music by a final frantic fiddle jig and reel. There’s  a version that works in Johnny Marr’s tremolo riff from The Smiths’ How Soon Is Now?, but this stripped back mix is the one. It was listed in Boys Own Fanzine’s Top Tunes of spring summer 1990, as the Second Summer Of Love’s rave slowed down – in certain circles – to around 98 BPM. I bought my promo copy from Phuture Records, in The Chelsea Garage, from either Steve Lee or Paul Doherty. I’d heard it played as part of Andrew Weatherall’s warm-up set at a Flowered Up gig, held at London’s ICA.*

*Backstage I thought I was being funny, repeatedly asking were Topper was – Mr. Headon, the former Clash drummer was credited with playing bongos on their single, It’s On. The band were most definitely not amused. 

Jah Wobble & The Invaders Of The Heart – Visions Of You – 1992

Jah Wobble played on Sinéad’s LP, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, and Sinéad repaid the favour, adding spellbinding backing vocals to his Visions Of You. A song which charts a no longer numbed out Jah’s journey from drink and drugs to a new found sobriety, and his search for an enlightened path. Adrian Sherwood – Mr. Wobble’s previous “pints and powders” pal “phases the parameters of sound”, applying shape-shifting filters to the percussion and rebuilding the b-line as a fuzzboxed buzz, but it’s Andrew Weatherall and Hugo Nicolson’s The Secret Love Child Of Hank & Johnny remix that steals the show. Their title refers to the loose raga tunings of guitarist Justin Adams**, which they stretch into an epic drone. Throwing in funky organ flashes, and rolling military snares, the result is part the Tennessee River, Fame Studios, Muscle Shoals, and part a float down The Ganges. Sinéad is a siren, weaving in and out. Her vamps and ad-libs riffing on Will The Circle Be Unbroken. Her sustained notes, and sheer power, seemingly impossible from such a tiny frame. It’s Sinéad’s tones, of course, that caused the track to crossover, become and big hit, and got them all the TV. 

**I saw The Invaders Of The Heart, and Sinéad, perform “Visions…” at London’s Astoria, and after the gig I walked up to Justin, whose playing was amazing, and shook his hand. He was later kicked out of the band. 

Peace Together – Be Still – 1993

An all-star cast of celebrated English and Irish singers and players collaborated on an album to raise money to create opportunities for Northern Ireland’s youth. Be Still was the single. The Robin Guthrie mix puts his Cocteau Twins compadre, Liz Frazer, to the fore, but he also focusses on Sinéad’s contributions. The combination of these two angels is, predictably, just heavenly. The song is beautiful, bouncy, buoyant – Jah Wobble’s on bass – and uncharacteristically summery, soaring, for The Cocteaus. Weatherall and his Sabres Of Paradise also deliver a spiralling, sprawling, flute and bagpipe featuring, epic Gaelic / Celtic dub.

Sinéad O’Connor – Thank You For Hearing Me – 1992

I’m a big boy now. Full of bluff and braggadocio. Bring on your blows. I’ve a strong, strong heart.

Sinéad O’Connor – Fire On Babylon (Remix) – 1995

Coproduced by John Reynolds and Bomb The Bass’s Tim Simenon, this track from Sinéad’s album, Universal Mother, gets a huge 13 and half minute long remix. Chunky and chugging, she’s now in duet with Rai singer, Abdel Ali Slimani, a core member of Jah Wobble’s Invaders Of The Heart. Most definitely a Balearic beat it’s a mix of Massive Attack’s take on Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s Mustt Mustt, Factory Records’ classic, N’Sel Fik, and Sinéad’s former lover, Peter Gabriel’s music for Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation Of Christ. A song of revenge, rebellion, revolution, an uprising against Babylon, where Babylon is all oppressive state systems, horns are borrowed from Miles Davis and Sinéad practically screams the word “Fire”. Like a war cry. A Joan Of Arc leading the charge. 

Bomb The Bass – Empire – 1995

From the album Clear, a melting pot of “trip hop” and dub reggae, this is another team-up with Neneh Cherry’s mate, Timmy Simenon. Partnered with poet, actor, activist, Benjamin Zephaniah, Sinéad rhymes British Empire with “vampire” and equates the beast to a parasite preying on the pure of heart. Tackhead’s Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald rock bass and guitar. 

Sinéad O’Connor – The Healing Room – 2000

Skip McDonald also assists here, along with On-U Sound El Supremo, Adrian Sherwood. The pair worked on most of the tracks included on Sinéad’s Faith And Courage. The Healing Room finds our heroine searching for true self, and peace, within, backed by bubbling, bucolic electronics, birdsong, and her own reassuring whispers. The song’s further sugared with samples of sweet children’s laughter, giggles, which are truly touching. 

Massive Attack – A Prayer For England – 2003

Hooking up with Massive Attack Sinéad provided the highlight of their album, 100th Window. While 3D and Neil Davidge grind out a dystopian dread soundscape, of sinister synths, a buzzing, distorted loop of grungey, grimy beat and bass, Sinéad prays for protection from the countless crimes committed against children. 

“Jah forgive us for forgetting. Jah help us, we need more loving.” 

Sinéad O’Connor – Throw Down Your Arms – 2005

Hinted at by the gentle Nyabinghi, Grounation rattle of Kyrie Eleison, an attempt to chant down Babylon, from Faith And Courage, Throw Down Your Arms is a set of sympathetic, and restrained readings of reggae classics. Sly & Robbie manned the production desk, profits were donated to Rasta elders, and Sinéad covers the songs of Buju Banton, Burning Spear, Lee Perry, Peter Tosh, and, of course, Bob Marley’s War. 

Sinéad O’Connor – Trouble Of The World – 2020

Released to raise funds for Black Lives Matter charities, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of the Minneapolis police, this David Holmes-produced single was the first fruit of a proposed album, titled No Veteran Dies Alone. Even at the time of its issue, given Sinéad’s history, it was worryingly heavy. Her reading, where heartfelt is a serious understatement, turning the traditional ballad into something totally personal.

“Soon I will be done with all the trouble of the world… no more weeping and wailing….”

Sinéad, in the press one-sheet, suggested that it was a song of hope, but it sounds like a hope in the hereafter. Wanting to see her mother. Listening to it now, following Sinéad’s tragic passing, especially the echoed acapella, it’s hard not to hear it as a final “fuck you”, after a lifetime of railing against wrongs. Fearlessly facing and calling out corrupt individuals and institutions, frequently hounded and vilified by the media and press, Sinéad lived, and created, on her own terms. Without compromise.