SINEAD O'CONNOR – "Nothing Compares 2 U"

My favourite Tintin book, in common with many readers, is Tintin In Tibet; certainly it was the most heartfelt of all Hergé’s volumes. His friend Chang is flying to Europe to meet him, but he hears that there has been a terrible ‘plane crash in the Himalayas, with all crew and passengers presumed killed. He is inconsolable yet still resolute. He attempts to come to terms with his grievous loss – he acts as though his right arm has been severed – but finds that the only way he can do so is, firstly, through dreams, wherein he sees Chang lying in the wreckage, injured but alive, crying for help, and secondly, through action, as he prepares to travel to the mountains to find him.

Everybody thinks he is mad or deluded or as blinded by grief as the Himalayan snowstorms would blind the unwary traveller. But he will not be dissuaded from his task – despite the overpowering sense of loss he has refused to accept death and will make every conceivable effort, and many inconceivable ones, to find that there is still life at the other end, despite all appearances.

Captain Haddock goes with him, grumpily complaining as ever – but still he goes with him, will not let him travel alone despite Tintin’s howls that he will travel alone if necessary. The journey is hazardous and sometimes hopeless; even their sherpa and his crew eventually abandon them, afraid of the mythical yeti. This dread of the unseen “monster” – really a fear of the unknown, or of the future – gradually deepens throughout the story.

Eventually the yeti, huge and loud, emerges from behind a rock. It is an awesome and startling sight, but Tintin is keen enough to discern its true nature and knows that it too is afraid. He follows the yeti back to its cave – and there within the cave, wrapped in warm blankets with remnants of the small animals the yeti has brought back to keep him fed, is Chang, extremely weak but alive.

I don’t think I need to underline at least one of the many analogies of this story. But Sinead O’Connor has always struck me as a similar spirit; sometimes beaten, often abused and jeered at, but she continues to defy the onset of death, betrayal and loss even as she stares them in the face, as if to stare them down. She is noticeably less politic and far more prone to open bleeding than the fictional Belgian – but which other singers, male or female, were producing work in the order of The Lion And The Cobra in 1987/8, with its panting haemorrhages of passion thwarted (“Troy”) or ravenously desired (“I Want Your (Hands On Me)”), its torrents of naked rage (“Jackie”), its rejection of nothingness (“Never Grow Old”)? This was the flipside of Enya – everything enclosed in the Watermark world floods out into Sinead’s soul and onto the red page.

Ridiculed, threatened and boycotted for nothing more than believing things, expressing these beliefs and standing up for herself and those for whom she cares – for daring to be an Uppity Woman, even in the supposedly utopian and caring nineties – she shrugs some things off, screams away others. Her reading of Marley’s “War” at the Dylan tribute gig was closer to the bruised heart of Dylan than any of the other politesse offered up that evening – and Neil Young, for one, knew it (as, presumably, did the author of “The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll” himself). On 1994’s Universal Mother she includes home recordings of her infant son, a decade and more ahead of Aerial. Her 1992 covers album Am I Not Your Girl? – as with its bloody Celtic twin from the other end of the decade, Kevin Rowland’s My Beauty – uses the songs of her life to tell her apparently unpalatable story; the breaking down on the acappella “Scarlet Ribbons,” the Centipede-style free jazz eruption which climaxes “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home” – an outrageous and brilliant addition to that year’s Top 20 singles chart, and it should have been number one for 16 weeks – the reading of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” she remembered from her schooldays; it all makes her sense.

Because if you’re going to attempt somebody else’s song, and carry it off successfully, you have to insert yourself into it; you have to give the song something which only you could give to it, a route into its heart which no one else could hope to negotiate. So “Nothing Compares 2 U,” a song Prince gave away to The Family, one of his shortlived Paisley Park Nearly-Hit Factory sidelines, in 1985, becomes in Sinead’s eyes, mouth and heart a different song entirely.

And Sinead’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” as it struggles with its nearly inexpressible emptiness, also becomes the first real number one of the nineties, a Massive Attack production in all but name. Nellee Hooper’s production and Nick Ingman’s arrangement are more minimal than anyone else dared get away with at the time, yet the record’s depth is maximalist to its core; a simple but dense string line which does nothing much apart from stating the underlying basic chords of the song, with no embellishments or flourishes apart from a slow rise of the first violins in the instrumental break, drifting like admonitory clouds over Sinead’s grieving figure; a sparse piano; distant backing vocals like a Gregorian chain gang; and a 16 rpm hip hop beat with subtle embellishment from John Reynolds’ live drums. Just as The Lion And The Cobra, through the involvement of Marco Pirroni and Kevin Mooney, helped mutate Antmusic into unexpected shapes, there is something of an umbilical link between Sinead’s “Nothing” and the Associates’ “White Car In Germany” – the beats too deep and slow to seem real (is Paul Morley’s Nothing the missing link between the two? If only it were!).

The arrangement has to be minimal because Sinead has to be in the foreground. Her vocal, though automatically double-tracked, is unobtrusive but unavoidable. Avoiding the tiresome melismatics of the likes of the soon-to-be-massive Mariah Carey, but forceful when she needs to be (“GUESS WHAT HE TOLD ME?”), Sinead’s vocal asks nothing more than you listen and empathise.

And she grieves; the minutiae of ghastly bereavement (“It’s been seven hours and fifteen days”), the initiation of wilful self-destruction (“I go out every night and sleep all day”), the forced gasp of suppressed liberation (“Since you’ve been gone I can do whatever I want”), but knowing throughout that all these transitory pleasures, or drugs (“I can eat my dinner in my fancy restaurant,” “I could put my arms around every boy I see”), cannot begin to fill the unthinkable void, and neither can well-meaning but bland advice (“He said girl you better try to have fun no matter what you do…but he’s a fool”).

But for whom is she grieving?

The line “all the flowers that you planted, mama” is the song’s true core of grief. Note that:
a) she doesn’t change the gender;
b) she whimpers the word “mama” like an infant;
c) this is the precise point on the video when her tears become visible (the similarly minimalist video, the face and nothing but the face on a background of unfathomable blackness).

And this was where she started to think about her own mother, the mother who abused her beyond any rational endurance, and yet when her car crashed it was still like having an arm amputated without anaesthetic. “I know that living with you baby was sometimes hard/But I’m willing to give it another try” – is she putting words in her mother’s mouth, paraphrasing her afterlife regret and hoped-for penance?

But she, Sinead, is still willing to give it another try, declines to die, will not be dissuaded no matter how much shit is rained down upon her head or jammed into her heart; and so her “Nothing Compares 2 U” cut through all the jive bunnies, jovial teenpop cutouts and bogus AoR compassion which had preceded and still encircled it – its appearance at number one was a defiant and shocking bolt of thunder thrown into an arena of bland acceptance of business-as-usual, since business, the WORLD, just STOPS when you’ve lost someone, I mean, how DARE it CONTINUE…there is something about the record which gets as close as pop has ever dared to “the truth”…and no, if you know what that is, it doesn’t require definition. Think of Sinead struggling through the snow and cold, sometimes seemingly on the point of death, but refusing to stop until she finds the candle of life which she knows is glowing at the other side, at the entrance, after confronting apparent demons which are only bigger guides…back to life, however we do want it.

Absolutely a 10. This hit #1 a bit later in the US (late spring ’90, I think) and its success felt like the weather was changing, at last.

Yeah, it’s the sheer number of strategies she employs all in the space of like 3 minutes – sometimes in the space of one line! – to deal with this pain that’s so tremendous.

She’s like an actor who won’t give up – if this doesn’t work, maybe this other thing will. Like in every great drama, she never actually achieves her goal. But that doesn’t stop her from trying.

The other day I saw “The Human Voice”, a one-woman play written in 1932 by Jean Cocteau and done for television in the 60s with Ingrid Bergman. It’s like an hour-long version of “Nothing Compares 2 U”. Without the singing or the music.

Ah well, another decade and another cheapening of the process marks my own further alienation from pop as the years pass. A humdrum track that would hardly have attracted attention in 1966.

If this had come out in 1966 it would have blown everyone’s minds, Marty McFly style!

By the way punctum, that’s a booming post.

#13 “has Sinead made it uncoverable?”

Yes and no. How could you forget The Stereophonics tackling it, De Jong style, for Warchild a few years back?

Number 2 Watch: Two weeks for Technotronic featuring Ya Kid K – Get Up (Before The Night Is Over). Which is enjoyable enough, but pretty insignificant when placed alongside ‘Nothing Compares’.

I’m surprised Sinead frequented MVE. Surely she did not want what she did not already got?

The video was definitely a “time stands still” moment. Emotionally raw, to the point where you either have to look away or rush to hug her somehow. It’s that perception of vulnerability that sucked me in, and the sheer craft of NC2U that kept me enthralled. Marvellously minimal. A ballad that conveys such power, it crumbles the collected works of 80’s soft rock power balladry to powdered pumice.

And the simplicity of the video itself, with her face-front fixed stare defying you to remain emotionally detatched, interspersed with statues and italianate landscaped gardens, like a Peter Saville album cover come to life. The frozen tears of stone angels against the saltwater stream navigating the curve of her pale cheek. Gorgeous.

Light Entertainment Watch: There are more Sinead UK TV appearances on the list than I was expecting;

ASPEL & COMPANY: with Lynda La Plante, Ian McShane, Jack Dee, Sinéad O’Connor, Hothouse Flowers (1993)

BANG BANG IT’S REEVES AND MORTIMER: with Morwenna Banks, Charlie Higson, Matt Lucas, Sinéad O’Connor (1999)

THE DANNY BAKER SHOW: with Leslie Nielsen, Jackie Collins, Sinéad O’Connor (1994)

THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW: with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Matt Lucas, Sinéad O’Connor (2007)

THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW: with Gillian Anderson, Chris Addison, Sinéad O’Connor (2009)

LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND: with Sinéad O’Connor, The Beautiful South (1994)

LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND: with Sinéad O’Connor, Dusty Springfield, Brownstone (1995)

LONDON UNDERGROUND: with Frank Skinner, Sinéad O’Connor, Ellen Cleghorne, Stephanie Hodge (1992)

PARAMOUNT CITY: with Curtis & Ishmael, Boy George, Sinéad O’Connor, Frank Skinner (1991)

THE ROXY: with Jack ‘N’ Chill, T’Pau, Sharp & Numan, Sinéad O’Connor, Bros (1988)

T•F•I• FRIDAY: with Will Macdonald, Andrew the Barman, Courteney Cox, Mansun, My Life Story, Jimmy Tarbuck, Sinéad O’Connor (1997)

T•F•I• FRIDAY: with Will Macdonald, Andrew the Barman, John Barnes, Billy Bragg, Cake, Faith No More, Sinéad O’Connor, Super Furry Animals (1997)

TERRY WOGAN’S FRIDAY NIGHT: with Arthur Smith, Leslie Nielsen, Sinéad O’Connor (1992)

THE WHITE ROOM: with Sinéad O’Connor, Björk, Dave Stewart, Lou Reed, Shane McGowan, Roachford, Gene (1995)

WIRED: with The Proclaimers, Sinéad O’Connor, Michael Bolton, Michelle Shocked (1988)

WOGAN: with Maureen Lipman, Rutger Hauer, Sinéad O’Connor (1990)

THE WORD: with Boy George, Sinéad O’Connor, Ride, Jagdeed, Jah Wobble (1992)

Hmm – I wasn’t looking forward to this one. I liked it at the time and bought the album but became so alienated by the antics of the artist that it’s become the Mrs Rochester of my record collection. It’s worth remembering, MC, that we only have Sinead’s side of the story as far as her childhood abuse goes.

#17 The majority of purchasers would have very little insight into Sinead’s background. Before this she was a one hit wonder from two years back.

# 25 I remember that Word appearance very well. She just wouldn’t engage with Boy George when he criticised the homophobia in her beloved rap artists’ lyrics and kept trying to divert the discussion to sexism in heavy metal instead.

TIT is Herge working through his very personal demons through the character of Tintin; TCE is him working through his everyday (equally personal) irritations through the character of Haddock – so they’re kind of a pair! And TIT is very powerful, I’m certainly not saying I dislike it.

(As a young child I found both baffling, but TIT had the Yeti at least)

@rosie. I too am surprised to hear you don’t have a soft spot/’well, that’s more like it’ reaction to this one! I agree with you that Tom’s grades (and broader assessments) for some ’60s and ’70s classics and standards seem harsh and that they’ve in turn made some of his later grades and assessments seem inflated. Tom gave Bridge over troubled Water and Je t’aime.. 5s, when surely those are exactly the sort of ‘What the hell is that sound?’/stop you in your tracks while walking down the street records that Wuthering Heights was and, I reckon Tom’s right, NCTY was. (Although like Tom, NCTY didn’t quite do it for me at the time for various reasons – possibly a bit close, going through a hell break-up at the time! And some people’s reaction to the video at the time struck me as a bit creepy IIRC).

At any rate, I’m pretty sure NCTY would have been massive/instantly recognized as pretty extarordinary anytime for anyone (and in a counterfactual situation where it’s novel you could release it tomorrow and (I’d bet) watch it take off). Nico or Streisand or Patti Labelle or Marvin or Al Green or Curtis Mayfield…anyone great really, would all have killed for this record.

May post another comment later – still processing punctum/marcello’s essay and the record and vid. itself again.

Furthermore, it’s the kind of record that keeps you anticipating the next great line-reading, as contrasted with many a contemporary record that give you all you’re going to hear in the first 40 seconds or so.

Much as I would love to be contrarian, or reveal some severe but mysteriously overlooked flaw in this record, or change the subject slightly by going on obsessively (and truthfully) about how annoyingly misguided some of Sinead O’Connor’s public utterances can be….at the end of the day this is a heartfelt and moving interpretation of a rare quality; and really Tom and DJ Punctum have summed all this up better than I am likely to.

A classic. No more, no less.

@wichita. I’d say that the ‘if this isn’t a 10 nothing is’ line of reasoning fits Good Vibrations perfectly, Grapevine too. Tom was a toughie back in the day, no doubt about it! 🙂

Some great writing upthread but this song has always left me cold. The instrumentation sounds cheap; her vocal warblings on “restauraaaaant” etc sound like someone struggling to find a tune; and that tear in the video – well, frankly I don’t believe it.

And Prince’s proto-text spelling still grates.

Elsa @ 34: It’s funny you know, I kind of think of Sinéad as a kind of Nina Simone without the talent. Nina chewed up and spat out many a male interviewer but she did it with panache and as a super-intelligent black woman growing up in pre-Civil Rights America one with many reasons to be angry — Sinéad for all her snarling and spitting at the world just seemed to me a self-publicising “Poor Me!” narcissist. I know which of the two I’d rather have held up as a role model for my daughter (who, approaching her tenth birthday when this was number one, had been exposed to an awful lot of Nina Simone!)

swanstep @ 32: Yes, there’s an element of contrarianism in my comments and indeed NCTY really does stand out from the material around it but that, to my ears anyway, ain’t saying much. Plonk it down in 1966, as I suggest, and it looks rather less of a prominent landmark. Hello Aretha! Great to see you Grace! How you doin’ Levi? What fettle Brian? I know the greatest era of pop is one’s own era and the 1960s was mine, but I think there was more too it than that. Tom made a remark early on in Popular about pop getting better with each succeeding decade and that was a provocation to me not least because I don’t believe things would be better if only the technology was more sophisticated. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been able to learn from Tom about my own era — I wasn’t alone in raising an eyebrow at the 10 for ‘Boots’ but since Tom made me listen to the genius of Lee Hazlewood’s arrangement more closely I see the logic of that 10 as impeccable. I don’t think many of us would begrudge 10 for Eleanor Rigby (and Tom was harsh, oh! so harsh, on the Beatles generally) and there’s at least two others from 1966 – Reach Out and Good Vibrations, back to back even – that have the undeniable stop-you-in-your-tracks power to have been shoo-in 10s for me and, since we’re on the subject of dealing-with-loss-realistically songs, I’m becoming convinced that Paint It Black (no comma from me) should have one too. Had River Deep hit the top that would have been 10 from me too. I really can’t think of another year that even comes close to such a depth of top-notch pop performance, and with such a variety too because there’s no one form that dominates. Sinéad would really have to work hard for attention amongst that lot.

I think you can be forgiven for the M|A|R|R|S thing – while I agree that in comparison to eg “Beat Dis” or “Theme…” it’s not as good, the fact of its importance probably spurred you to make it a 10.

(I realise you don’t mark on importance & I’m not saying you should – saying in that instance you may have let it sway you. You weren’t too generous by much though!)

“Nothing Compares” then – unforch I have the opposite problem to Rosie in that it is I never experienced a proper hearing-it-for-the-first-time – it’s always been there as far as I’m concerned and so it’s very difficult to get worked up about it.

I get the impression that some 10’s aren’t absolutely nailed on 10’s Especially the M/A/R/R/S #1 which I said was a 10 at the time, but on another day would possibly have been marked 9, purely because of the presence of borrowed content. But then I gave Sinead a 10 and PSB’s AOMM a 10, because I love those songs. And there must be a case for a 9.5 mark for “landmark” #1’s which are exceptionally good, but their importance sets them apart from 9’s, which could have been a 10 on any given day if the conditions for marking are slightly ambiguous (West End Girls), and even important but exceptionally good records that get 9’s (Billie Jean), which have been widely accepted as nailed on “classics”. I know we have to trust Tom that his marking very much depends on how he feels about THAT record on THAT day, but if he admits he’s wavered on some records, then why not have a .5 differential if only to suggest that given the right conditions it could possibly marked higher or even lower?

Good grief…it’s a thorny little dilemma, isn’t it?

Blimey, listening to it again I really wish I could have heard it new first time around – I can see so much stately power in it. As it is it’s like someone awarding 100% to beds.

I have to say I preferred Technotronic at #2. Humpus Dumpus JAM TRIP on this! 60bpm was faaaaaaar too slow for me.