(July 27, 2023). News of Sinéad O’Connor’s death at age 56 spread quickly on Wednesday, July 26. The Irish singer’s passing came, sadly, only 18 months after her 17-year-old son, Shane, took his own life in January 2022, a tragedy that O’Connor grieved very publicly via a series of haunting tweets indicating that she could not go on without him.
She would later check herself into a hospital, apparently recognizing that she needed help, offering hope that she was maybe someone who didn’t want to die but didn’t know how to live.
The cause of O’Connor’s death on Wednesday in London after being found unresponsive at a home there was unknown as of this typing (this piece will be updated as more details become available).
Of course, there are two images that newsfeeds immediately conjured up to reflect on O’Connor’s short, troubled life: the iconic video for her lone top-40 single in America, the No. 1 smash “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and the October 1992 SNL appearance in which she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II in protest of the Catholic Church’s cover-up of its sexual abuse of children (years before the pope himself issued an apology for a string of injustices, including sexual abuse, at the hands of Roman Catholic clergy).
The former item made her an international star seemingly overnight. The latter removed her from the pop spotlight and made her a media pariah just as quickly.
It’s the enormous success she achieved with “Nothing Compares 2 U” in 1990 that is the focus of this remembrance.
In early 1990, when O’Connor debuted the single and its haunting video featuring a closeup headshot of the nearly bald singer emoting (with authentic tears) about unrequited love and abandonment, no song written by Prince and sung by someone else had ever topped the Billboard pop chart.
Several tunes had come close.
There was The Bangles’ “Manic Monday” (No. 2 in 1986), and Chaka Khan’s “I Feel For You” (No. 3 in ‘84). Sheila E.’s “The Glamorous Life” reached No. 7 (also in ‘84), just months before Sheena Easton’s “Sugar Walls” peaked at No. 9 (early 1985).
Even a song that Prince didn’t write but inspired (and contributed keyboard rifts to), Stevie Nicks’ “Stand Back,” climbed to No. 5 in summer 1983.
Until 1990, the only Prince-penned songs that reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 were those he sang himself.
Six weeks after its February 1990 release, “Nothing Compares 2 U” was the No. 1 song in America (equaling its ranking in at least ten other countries). Not only did it top the Billboard Hot 100, but it remained in the lead for four weeks making it the biggest version of any Prince song covered by other people.
In The Purple One’s case, those other people almost exclusively were women, including many more than those already mentioned. He had made stars out of unknowns like Vanity and Apollonia (who fronted the short-lived girl groups bearing each woman’s name during the early ‘80s).
Practically all of his various backing bands featuring at least one prominent female (Lisa Coleman, Wendy Melvoin, Rosie Gaines, 3RDEYEGIRL).
Prince’s championing of female artists was legendary. And it was through his partnering with them that it became clear that women were equally indispensable to Prince, who aside from embracing his feminine side in appearance, didn’t mind blurring the lines in his lyrics as well (“I wanna be your lover…I wanna be your mother and your sister, too”).
But what really made Prince’s ability to represent (through his art) the opposite sex so well was the fact that practically every popular cover of a Prince song was done by a woman (including those originally sung by him).
Beyond the above-mentioned, there were Meli’sa Morgan’s “Do Me Baby,” Martika’s “Love…Thy Will Be Done,” Cyndi Lauper’s “When You Were Mine,” and Prince’s collaborations with women like Sheena Easton (“U Got The Look” and “The Arms of Orion”), Madonna (“Love Song”), and Kate Bush (“Why Should I Love You”).
Indeed, Prince was considered somewhat of a pop music Svengali, an androgynous, post-gender entity himself who respected women but also controlled them. He dictated how they looked and dressed, what they sang and how they sang it. He created and disbanded girl groups like they were last year’s fads.
Known to don eyeliner, ruffles and high heels himself while (at times) belting out sexually charged machismo with the best of his male contemporaries, Prince was the embodiment of every gender.
So when the closely-cropped Sinéad O’Connor delivered her stirring take on his “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and took it all the way to No. 1, one would have thought that this strikingly masculine-looking Irish woman would be embraced as the latest addition to Prince’s odd harem of hitmakers, another post-gender (at least by appearance) female who seemingly fit Prince’s non-conforming mold perfectly.
Nothing could’ve been further from the truth.
According to a 2014 interview with the Dublin newspaper The Irish Independent, O’Connor recalled that she’d only met her most famous song’s composer years after its release.
The encounter apparently wasn’t pleasant.
Recalling that she’d recorded “Nothing Compares 2 U” on her own (without any input from Prince but I’m sure not without his permission…he was nothing if he wasn’t shrewd), O’Connor said of their later meeting that Prince had “summoned” her to his house—a no-no for an Irish woman—and then admonished her for saying bad words in public, to which she responded “fuck off!”
She alleged that their meeting then became violent with Prince “packing a bigger punch” than hers and that she had to “escape” out of his mansion (presumably the one in Chanhassen, MN) “at 5 in the morning.”
In her later memoir Rememberings, O’Connor provided more details about their encounter, which included a “pillow fight” that involved Prince hitting her with a hard object placed in the pillowcase and him stalking her with his car after she left his mansion.
Whether or not all of that’s true, it’s clear O’Connor wasn’t as compliant to His Purple Majesty’s reputed controlling ways as other women in his lair had been.
In fact, O’Connor was never really in his lair, despite taking one of his most obscure compositions and turning it into the second-biggest chart hit of any song Prince wrote (after his own recording of “When Doves Cry”).
For his part, Prince embraced—or at least leveraged—the song’s newfound iconic status after O’Connor’s recording by issuing his own versions, including a live rendition featuring Rosie Gaines on his 1993 compilation album The Hits/The B-Sides.
But even Prince would probably have admitted—if he were alive today—that nothing compared to the haunting version that made Sinéad O’Connor a household name in 1990, the one for which she’ll be remembered most—even more so perhaps than the SNL incident that ended a career she apparently didn’t want, and perhaps more than the illnesses she reportedly battled throughout her adult life.
Here is a list of the top songs recorded by women and either penned, produced or inspired by Prince, a list which Sinéad O’Connor easily tops:
- “Nothing Compares 2 U” – Sinead O’Connor
- “U Got The Look” – Prince & Sheena Easton
- “Manic Monday” – The Bangles
- “I Feel For You” – Chaka Khan
- “Stand Back” – Stevie Nicks
- “The Glamorous Life” – Sheila E.
- “Love…Thy Will Be Done” – Martika
- “Sugar Walls” – Sheena Easton
- “A Love Bizarre” – Sheila E.
- “The Belle of St. Mark” – Sheila E.
- “Do Me Baby” – Meli’sa Morgan
- “Nasty Girl” – Vanity 6
- “How Come You Don’t Call Me” – Alicia Keys
- “When You Were Mine” – Cyndi Lauper
- “Sex Shooter” – Apollonia 6
R.I.P. Sinéad O’Connor (December 8, 1966 – July 26, 2023).
If anyone reading this is struggling with suicidal thoughts, help is available 24/7 at the suicide prevention hotline (contact 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline).
DJRob
DJRob (he/him/his), who visited that same Prince mansion (Paisley Park Studios) in 2017, is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, pop, rock and (sometimes) country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Twitter at @djrobblog and on Meta’s Threads.
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