Like a lot of people, my first exposure to Sinead O’Connor was through her breakthrough single ‘Nothing Compares 2 U,’ and following that through the album that contained it, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.
The woman performing that batch of songs was defiant, to a degree, but mostly delicate. She had an angelic voice and the face of an angel to match.
It’s not every songwriter who can write matter-of-factly about their personal problems and spin it into addictive pop music. Sinead O’Connor pulled that off in spades on her breakthrough album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, with no better example than her hit ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.’
The first line is a beauty: “It seems years since you held the baby while I wrecked the bedroom.” Such an evocative image, and it feels so real. And these lines, from the chorus, feel less like lyrics and more like something from an apology letter: “If I treated you mean, I really didn’t mean to. But you know how it is and how a pregnancy can change you.”
My first exposure to Sinead O’Connor came from her huge hit I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, which had its heavier moments but was mostly a collection of ballads.
She was clearly a songwriter and singer to be reckoned with based on that album alone, but it wasn’t until I got her debut album The Lion and the Cobra that I realized exactly how special a talent she was.
I was really into Sinead O’Connor when she first hit it big back in 1990. ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ was on constant MTV rotation — that mesmerizing video where O’Connor stared right at you with those big beautiful eyes and sang her heart out until she teared up — and this bald, lanky Irish woman had put out the best album of the year, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.
I remember my Dad dismising her as a flake and once when I was going on about what a talent she was, he said something like “Just wait, in ten years I bet nobody will even know who she is.” And I said, yeah… I’ll take that bet.
Meet Me In Montauk 