Sinéad O'Connor passed away suddenly on Wednesday, according to a press release from her family and confirmed by RTE. She was 56 years old. O'Connor was known for being provocative in her lyrics, but also backing up her lyrics with acts that helped some and dismayed others.
Perhaps best known for a song she didn't write, Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U," she was worthy of listening to far beyond that one song. O'Connor had 10 studio albums in all, and she never stopped creating songs that were raw emotionally. Her lyrics very much matched the way she would perform the track as well. With O'Connor's music, she hid nothing.
Outside of her music, though, she was very private. In fact, the cause of her death is unknown at the time of this writing. She was open about struggling with mental health concerns and mentioned thoughts of suicide more than once. She said on a 2007 appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Whatever the reason for her death, I am sure the world will find out soon enough. But she will always be remembered for her music.
Three essential Sinéad O'Connor tracks
"Black Boys on Mopeds" (1990)
This song from her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, is achingly sad. As you might imply from the title, the track involves two English teenagers who are riding mopeds that the police assume are stolen and are killed for that reason. But the track is really one that is anti-England. O'Connor is an Irish singer, so her distrust of the English makes sense.
But her use of words in the lyrics are what always separated her from other's who made the same kind of music. The first verse, "Margaret Thatcher on TV/Shocked by the deaths that took place in Beijing/It seems strange that she should be offended/The same orders are given by her," is simply brilliant.
But the way that O'Connor delivers the words with just the right amount of angst and empathy while an acoustic guitar backs her is beautiful. Listen to song without words and it's still outstanding, but the lyrics are what hits home.
"The Last Day of Our Acquaintance" (1990)
O'Connor wrote honestly. She wasn't one to come up with characters she drew from people she watched; She was inspired by what she lived. This is another song from I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, and it is this album that made O'Connor into a global star that maybe she didn't want and certainly didn't seem ready for. But tracks such as "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance" are so personal and insular, that maybe she didn't the world's acceptance and just wanted to be heard.
The song was written at a time when O'Connor's first marriage - she was married four times and had four children, one of whom passed away in 2021 from suicide - was falling apart. In fact, best stay away from this track if you are going through a divorce and emotionally it would be difficult to listen to.
The chorus is simple and direct, "But this is the last day of our acquaintance/I will meet you later in somebody's office/I'll talk, but you won't listen to me/I know your answer already." I'm sure we have all felt this about a relationship of some kind, so the song endures because of its honesty.
Musically, it begins like "Black Boys on Mopeds" but near the end there is a sonic release of all the frustration of the dying relationship. Somehow that lets you know that O'Connor is ready to move on from the relationship as well so while the melancholy lingers, hope and freedom are just on the horizon.
"Thank You for Hearing Me" (1994)
Seems fitting to end with this song. Another breakup song, but this relationship ended a lot more amicably. This track is also reportedly about musician Peter Gabriel as O'Connor and Gabriel reportedly have a short affair in the early 1990s. The music even sounds a bit like Gabriel.
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Musically this song sounds very little like the other two mentioned here. There is no acoustic guitar adding to the lament. There is even a touch of another Irish artist, Enya, at the beginning but evolves from there. O'Connor is still in excellent voice, but she is backed by electronic music and there is a definite joy to how it all meshes.
The lyrics are extremely simple with each line repeating in the four-line verse. If the listener didn't wait until the end of the track, one might want to play the tune at a wedding, but that would be a mistake. This isn't a song about finding happiness. It's a song about once being happy and then finding a way through all the crap when the happiness ends.
The lines "Thank you for helping me" and "Thanks for not hurting me" are followed by the final verse, "Thank you for breaking my heart/Thank you for tearing me apart/Now I'm a strong, strong heart/Thank you for breaking my heart." This likely sums up Sinéad O'Connor perfectly. She wasn't always an easy follow, and at times she did break hearts, but maybe we were all a little stronger for it.