Sinéad O’Connor was both a courageous person and controversial figure. Her struggles with mental illness (especially her awful childhood with her mother) was well documented as was her bravery and fight against institutions like the Catholic Church. Her 1992 performance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live is still talked about decades later, where in an act of protest against sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, O’Connor tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II, saying “fight the real enemy.” This rebellious act earned the Irish singer unprecedented hate. She was subsequently attacked, booed and ostracised by many in the media, musicians and actors alike (Joe Pesci famously threatened her by saying he would have given her “such a smack” for her insolence) and scores of Christians worldwide. She was of course proven absolutely right over the ensuing years. And while a personal apology never came, she could take solace (but she didn’t) in the fact that her actions brought about a public statement and apology from Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 about decades of abuse by the Church in Ireland. (In 2018, O’Connor famously converted to Islam adopting the name Shuhada Sadaqat.)
While her courage and integrity can never be questioned, neither can her legacy as a musician. The sudden death of the iconic Irish singer-songwriter at 56 this week has her supporters in mourning, while also singing her praises. She first achieved fame with her 1987 debut album The Lion and the Cobra. She was only twenty years old. A lifetime later (and ten albums) her music would help change the landscape for a generation of women and victims of abuse. But just maybe one song above all others made us fall in love with her.
I will never ever forget the impact Nothing Compares 2 U had on the world in 1990. Taken from O’Connor’s second studio album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, it spent four weeks at No.1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and enjoyed incredible success worldwide. In my native Australia, not only did it reach No.1 on the weekly chart, it beat out Vogue by Madonna’s as the top single of the year. To this day it is still one of the most sorrowful and cathartic songs I have ever listened to.
Nothing Compares 2 U was originally written by Prince in 1984 for The Family, a R&B/Soul band he signed to his label. It was never released as a single and subsequently didn’t get much attention. Then following the success of O’Connor’s cover version, Prince decided to release his own version of it with The Family’s Rosie Gaines on back vocals in 1993. As for the original 1984 demo version of the song, it remained unreleased until the Originals compilation came out after the death of Prince in 2019.
Anyway, publicly, Prince praised O’Connor’s cover versions of his song claiming she took it to another level, but privately according to O’Connor, he was seething she catapulted the song up the charts. Allegedly, some time after its initial success, O’Connor was summoned to Prince’s Hollywood home where she met Prince for the first time. During her visit he became violent with O’Connor and their contempt for each other would only grow over the years. Even in death, the “Purple One” would have his final say about the matter, when in late 2022, Prince estate denied O’Connor permission to use the song in her Showtime documentary called Nothing Compares.
In a statement to Billboard, Prince’s sister Sharon Nelson said, “Nothing compares to Prince’s live version with Rosie Gaines that is featured on the Hits 1 album…I didn’t feel [Sinéad] deserved to use the song my brother wrote in her documentary so we declined. His version is the best.”
Stemming it would appear from sour grapes of how O’Connor’s popularised the song, in my opinion I believe Sharon Nelson’s statement is laughable. I’m sure Prince fans will disagree with me arguing that O’Connor didn’t deserve the song. But there is no doubt in my mind, and don’t get me wrong I’m a big fan of Prince’s music, that O’Connor recorded the superior version.
Prince’s inspiration for the song arrived shortly after he learned the news his personal assistant Sandy Scipioni had quit her job. It is said Prince was devastated and inconsolable and wrote the song about her in 1984. Now while O’Connor may have not known that at the time when she first came across the song, something about the lyrics matched her own personal loss and heartbreak she was feeling. With that in mind she managed to make Prince’s song her own. Importantly, her interpretation of Prince’s song is set against a largely orchestral composition with an emotive vocal performance that ebbs and flows with gut-wrenching devastation.
It’s almost an understatement to say Nothing Compares 2 U is one of the all-time great vocal performances. In my mind’s eye I imagine O’Connor being shaken to her core every time she sang this song live. A quick search online and you’ll find it’s largely true. As for the iconic music video, it too, gives us a glimpse into the soul of a woman who has been to hell and back.
There is only one other music video in close-up that works visually and artistically as good as Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2 U and that is Alanis Morrisette’s Head Over Feet. Both women look entirely uncomfortable in front of the camera. Both are also fearless in their conviction but it is only O’Connor who is genuinely upset. For the shoot O’Connor was channelling raw emotions of a traumatic event. Those tears that roll down her cheeks is as real as it gets. In truth, O’Connor had no idea she would cry when she sang the song. O’Connor once said, “I think it’s funny that the whole world fell in love with me because of that crying in the video. I then went and did lots of crying and everyone said ‘you crazy bitch’ but they fell in love with that tear because it was a mirror on themselves.”
Rearview Mirror 
That’s a cover to remember. Too bad she makes the others disappear. I’m not really familiar with the work of O’Connor, but I only ask to go further now.
Excellent write-up on Sinead and her place in her world in the limelight. I do like Prince music, but his family was wrong to deny the use of the song in the doc. I really wonder what was said between Sinead and Prince when they met. Have you ever heard Chris Cornell sing the song? I loved it before, but it means so much more after his unfortunate death. I know the same is true of watching and listening to Sinead sing it 😦
Chris Cornell’s cover of Prince’s song is sublime for two reasons. Firstly, how good does it sound as an acoustic arrangement! There is no fanfare, he plays it to his strengths. Secondly, Cornell has one of those rock voices that is both warm and emotional. He wails perfectly and holds back when he has to. Nothing compares though to O’Connor’s version and that’s where I believe Prince’s alleged jealously possibly comes from. Of course, we will never really know the truth about what was said between O’Connor and Prince. By the way, thanks for reading. I appreciate the positive feedback.
I just finished watching PJ20 again (the 20 year anniversary of Pearl Jam) and it tore me up to watch it. First with Andy and his passing and how it affected the Seattle musicians and the music scene back then. More because Chris was interviewed on and off through the doc. WHAT A WASTE. I’m still angry about it, not only because of the drugs but because his bodyguard was told never to leave his side and he did.
About Sinead’s cover, she owned it from the moment she sang it, and Prince may have had the ego to be jealous about it, but as you say, we’ll never know from either of them at this point.
You are welcome, Robert.
This is one of my favorite songs of all-time, and my #2 song of the 1990s (after R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion”), and I’m terribly saddened that O’Connor has died at such a relatively young age. I never knew the back story of the acrimony that existed between her and Prince over this song, and it’s really disappointing to hear that he, despite already having had so many chart-topping hits, would be such an asshole about the success of her cover.
I think we have to take O’Connor’s comments with a grain of salt about her Prince meeting. But it’s interesting how Prince had tried to reclaim his song over the years with his own version. He had played Nothing Compares 2 U live often (beginning in the 90s) and it always sounds interesting and quirky a lot like his original 1984 demo. I think he knew it didn’t have that special ingredient back in 1984 that makes many of his radio hits so special. Otherwise he would have released it under his name. I wonder what he thought of the success of Manic Monday which he gave to The Bangles?
Well, I would hope that he would have taken some solace from the tremendous royalties he earned from both “Manic Monday” and “Nothing Compares 2 U”.