It became Sinéad O’Connor’s signature song and a video that broke the mould and inspired other artists.
But behind the scenes, legendary stories dovetailed from her recording of Nothing Compares 2 U – and rows have continued to simmer up to recent years.
This weekend, Katherine Ferguson’s acclaimed documentary on Sinéad was released to Sky Documentaries and Now TV. But even she had issues with Prince’s estate over the use of the recording.
While Sinéad made the song her own, propelling her to levels of fame she never imagined in the process, the song was written by Prince in July 1984.
Publicly he insisted he was supportive of her rendition, but the reality was more complex.
As Ferguson began putting together the documentary, first released last year, old wounds emerged Stateside.
Sharon Nelson, Prince’s half-sister, said in a statement to Billboard in September last: ‘Nothing compares to Prince’s live version with Rosie Gaines [released in 1993] that is featured on the Hits 1 album and we are re-releasing that album on vinyl on November 4.
‘I didn’t feel [Sinéad] deserved to use the song my brother wrote in her documentary so we declined. His version is the best.'
Millions would disagree, but Ferguson said the refusal ‘as the rights holders, was their prerogative,’ and it forced the team to get creative.
Instead, in the documentary, the music video plays with commentary from the director and Sinéad without sound, alongside a disclaimer saying: ‘The Prince estate denied use of Sinéad’s recording of Nothing Compares 2 U in this film.’
‘In the end we were very happy with that section of the film,’ she said. ‘It meant the focus remained on Sinéad’s words, and on her own songwriting.’
Prince recorded the song in a matter of hours with his engineer Susan Rogers by his side.
‘I was amazed at how beautiful it was... He took his notebook and he went off to the bedroom, wrote the lyrics very quickly, came back out and sang it. I was very impressed with it,’ Rogers later said.
But it could have been destined for obscurity under it original creator. It was never released as a single by Prince, and according to one account it was Sinéad’s former manager and lover Fachtna Ó Ceallaigh who remembered it and suggested she cover it for her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.
Other accounts suggest she was introduced to the song by Steve Fargnoli, who had looked after Prince in the Purple Rain era, and took over as O’Connor’s manager around the time of the recording.
Fast forward to 1990, when the video recorded with Sinéad’s haunting, mesmerizing performance was filmed in Paris. It would go on to be viewed more than 400 million times on YouTube alone.
It wasn’t just the vocal performance that stunned. With the enigmatic black backdrop, a tear streams down her face as she sings: ‘All the flowers that you planted, mama / In the back yard / All died when you went away.’
No doubt those same lyrics will forever weigh heavily on her three children as they struggle to cope with the loss of their mother who died in London on Wednesday last, aged just 56.
But at the time of recording, Sinéad was thinking of her own mother. ‘I didn’t know I was going to cry when I sang in the video because I didn’t cry when I sang in the video because I didn’t cry in the studio recording it,’ she said years later.
Sinéad lost her mother in 1986 in a car crash, and they had a complicated relationship, with Sinéad accusing her of abusing her both physically and mentally.
‘Every time I sing that song I think of my mother. I never stop crying for my mother. I couldn’t face being in Ireland for 13 years because of it,’ she said.
Much later, Sinéad claimed that Prince was furious at her success, and had summoned her to his property in Hollywood for a dressing down.
In a 2004 interview, she rowed back on the claims, calling Prince a ‘sweet guy’ and saying the story had been exaggerated in the press.
But after Prince died of a fentanyl overdose in 2016, she seemed to step up her verbal attacks against him, telling police investigators Prince was ‘into devil worship’ and a woman-beater.
Belfast-born director Ferguson said the documentary – titled Nothing Compares and which was released last year – allows people to ‘hear her tell her side of the story’. She said the plan to air the programme, which had been scheduled to be released yesterday for some time, was going forward after ‘lots of thought’ following the songwriter’s death.
Ms Ferguson said: ‘The reaction to the film and love for Sinéad has been palpable and we feel screening it this weekend is the right thing to do, so that people can see her in all her glory and hear her tell her side of the story.
‘Nothing Compares is a love letter to Sinéad. She meant the absolute world to me and I know she did to many of you.
‘Watch the film, feel the rage, have a good cry and let’s remember the woman for her radical, magical ways and all she has done for us. I’ve never been prouder to be an Irish woman.’
