'Mandinka' to 'I Am Stretched On Your Grave': Sinéad O'Connor in five songs
Sinéad O'Connor performing in the 1980s. Picture: Mandel/NGAN/AFP
Her first international hit, and the tune that helped push Sinéad O’Connor’s debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, up the charts in late 1987.
It remains a catchy pop song, but scratch the surface on the lyrics, and you’ll already glimpse the deeper concerns that would become familiar in subsequent years.
The 21-year-old’s interest in black history, and a reading of Alex Haley’s book, Roots, had her referencing the Mandinka people of West Africa, along with her own struggles.
“I have refused to take part / I told them drink something new.”
The magnificent cover of a relatively obscure Prince tune topped the charts worldwide in 1990. A version created with the help of Massive Attack associate Nellee Hooper, it remains among the most powerful breakup songs in the pop music canon.
One that grabs you from the opening line: “It's been seven hours and 15 days...” And yes, the tears in the video were real.
Written by Bob Marley from a speech given at the UN by Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, the song is still widely remembered for its association with the late Irish woman.
This was the song O’Connor sang on in 1992, immediately afterwards ripping up a picture of Pope John Paul II as a statement against clerical child abuse. Outrage rained down on the 26-year-old.
She defiantly repeated the lyrics of the song two weeks later at a Bob Dylan tribute event, reacting to a jeering crowd at Madison Square Garden.
Kris Kristofferson offered her words of encouragement on the night but, among the American stars who didn’t cover themselves in glory around that time were an unsupportive Madonna, and a belligerent Joe Pesci (“If it was my show, I woulda gave her such a smack”).
The moving lines from the original Irish poem were translated into English by 20th century writer Frank O’Connor, and brought into the music world by another Cork man, Philip King, on his band Scullion’s debut album in 1979.
King was also involved 11 years later for Sinéad O’Connor’s version on , with the haunting vocal laid over a widely-used sample of Clyde Stubblefield’s famous drumbeat on James Brown’s ‘Funky Drummer’.
Steve Wickham of The Waterboys provided the fiddle.
O’Connor’s version of the Irish folk song was part of a repertoire of music from her homeland that also included the album of 2002.
Perhaps most memorably, it featured in the final scenes of the film, , its sad lament providing the soundtrack as the focus shifted between a wedding-ready Kitty Kiernan (Julia Roberts) and the doomed hero (Liam Neeson).
