Sex & The Single Girl
With a date at the Olympia Theatre looming in December, and a much anticipated album on the way in the new year, these are crucial times for Sinéad O’Connor. In a remarkable interview, she also discusses her search for a man, the lovers she has known, sex, sex – and more sex. Plus: Ireland of the squinting windows and the Catholic Church...
Olaf Tyaransen, 05 Dec 2011
“It’s a very personal album, as most of my stuff tends to be,” she explains. “The album was written between 2007-2009, when I was going out with Frank, actually. So really any kind of love songs that are on there are about him. Probably most of the songs are inspired by him.”
Are you still friendly with Frank?
“Oh yeah, we’re like best mates. Frank asked me to mention, by the way, that he is available. And that he has a very enormous penis. He asked me to mention that whenever I possibly could, so that the girls are to call out to Bray, Number two, Martello Terrace, and he will service them all.”
Er… are you being serious?
She laughs and nods sincerely. “Yeah. He did ask me to say that. And I promised
I would.”
One of the album tracks, ‘Queen Of Denmark’, is among the angriest songs she’s ever recorded, with a screamed refrain of, “Why don’t you take it out on somebody else? Why don’t you bore the shit out of somebody else?”
“That was written by [American singer] John Grant,” she explains. “He just won the prize for ’Best Live Act in the World’, and he’s a fantastic songwriter. His album came out just this year and that’s the title track. My manager [Fachtna O’Ceallaigh] said to me, ‘You should do that song’. So I only got to know John, then, through having to email him because I couldn’t understand all the lyrics. And me and him now are like best fuckin’ mates. He’s the most amazing artist, incredible songwriter, incredible story and amazing character. You have to look him up. He wrote that song about a break-up of a relationship he was in. But I don’t see it as about a break-up – I can identify with it for all kinds of other reasons.”
Another song, ‘Old Lady’, seems to be about you pining for an unavailable man
[“When I’m an old lady/ I’m gonna be his baby… But that’s a way down the line/ I see for now he
isn’t mine”].
“Yeah, that one’s about having a crush on your boyfriend’s best friend – or rather your boyfriend’s married best friend. Which was Neil Jordan. I actually knew him before I knew Frank. They all knew I had a crush on him, so no-one will mind you writing that the song is about Neil.”
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Olaf Tyaransen
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2012-02-08 - Interview
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2012-02-01 - News
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2011-12-27 - News
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2011-12-21 - REVIEW
The newlywed has inked a new record deal....
2011-12-12 - News
She announced this morning that the big day is tomorrow.
2011-12-07 - News
Eleanor McEvoy and Gavin Friday get the thumbs up in the new issue of Hot Press.
2011-12-01 - News
It'll be a full band performance in the Olympia on December 18.
2011-10-25 - News
The follow-up to Theology will surface next year.
2011-07-04 - News
Sinead O’Connor has called on the Pope to stand down, and the Irish Government to expel the Papal Nuncio.
2009-12-08 - News
Mary J. Blige and Santigold are also supporting the project.
2009-11-11 - News
Jack L and Mary Coughlan are also appearing in Vince Power's supper club.
2009-02-11 - News
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2008-10-31 - News
Sinead O’Connor has collaborated with former Hot Press scribe John Waters on a charity song that will be released in March.
2008-02-15 - News
Having had a whale of a time readying it for the Meteors, Sinéad O’Connor and Republic Of Loose have decided to release their cover of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘We People Who Are Darker Than Blue’.
2008-02-06 - News
Sinead’s voice and the band, honed from months on the road, are at the absolute peak of their powers. Lots of fans I spoke to afterwards felt they’d never heard her sound better.
2007-11-30 - REVIEW
Sinéad O’Connor was back in the American media spotlight last week when she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
2007-10-11 - News
The optimistic title of this track almost sets itself up for failure, but in this case ‘Something Beautiful’ is a fitting tribute. This is vintage Sinéad, her distinctive voice still soaring although it sounds more world-weary than before. ‘Something Beautiful’ has a sacred air and the lyrics are laced with religious imagery (befitting of an album named Theology) but it is not so overtly religious that it suffocates the magic.
2007-08-08 - REVIEW
Sinéad O’Connor drums up trade for her Theology album with a November 18 soiree at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre.
2007-07-06 - News
Shane MacGowan interviews Sinead O’Connor for hotpress, with Olaf Tyaransen acting as referee. On the day, Victoria Clark also sat in. What followed turned into a wide-ranging and often hilarious exchange of almost Beckettian dimensions.
2007-06-28 - Interview
With Theology, Sinéad re-invigorates the ancient genre of the hymn in her own inimitable way, and brings it back to a contemporary public.
2007-06-21 - REVIEW
Sinead O'Connor is to play a special concert in Limerick
2007-05-23 - News
Sinéad O’Connor's voice is still capable of enchanting you with its fragility and blowing you away with its power, but maybe we all expected that, because at first it’s the bravely mixed set-list that grabs your attention.
2007-05-21 - REVIEW
From her forthcoming Theology album, this version of the Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber classic from the Jesus Christ Superstar rock opera almost seems tailor-made for the controversial chanteuse. Originally sung in the musical/movie by Mary Magdalene (expressing her confused feelings for Jesus just before the crucifixion) it was seen as blasphemous in some quarters in its day and even now the lyrics would raise an eyebrow or two. Of course Sinéad sings it beautifully with no little passion while stylistically and sonically it’s the nearest thing she’s done to ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ in ages and could well prove a winner.
2007-05-15 - REVIEW
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2007-04-26 - News
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2007-04-02 - News
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2007-03-21 - News
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2006-12-07 - News
The prospect of an intimate evening with Sinead O’Connor, at which she would unveil songs from her new album, was an intrigung one.
2006-11-09 - REVIEW
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2006-08-17 - News
Sinead O'Connor isn't exactly one to take things lying down, and some US websites are about to find this out for themselves. In an exclusive chat with Hot Press she puts the story straight and talks about her next album. Only here folks!
2006-05-26 - News
The acts for this year's festival plan to attract audiences from all over Ireland.
2006-03-28 - News
Having covered two of his songs on her Throw Down Your Arms album, Sinéad O’Connor duets with Lee “Scratch” Perry on the American version of his Panic In Babylon set.
2006-02-16 - News
Who’d have bet money on Sinéad O’Connor making such an acclaimed return to music with any album, let alone one made up of old reggae tunes? Still, that’s about the size of it and Untold Stories is one of that particular record’s stand out moments and ironically one of its least dub influenced. Instead, O’Connor focuses on the folk element of Jamaican music to stirring effect and ends up sounding more resonant than we might have reasonably expected. Mighty stuff.
2006-01-25 - REVIEW
Tonight, from Bob Marley’s ‘War’ to Burning Spear’s ‘Jah Nuh Dead’, Sinéad O’Connor and her sidekicks deliver in spades. On a musical level, the reggae-fuelled set is funky, moving and, above all, inspiring.
2005-11-22 - REVIEW
Always a spiritual performer, in her new role as preacher of all things Rasta, Sinéad seems to the manor born. The lesson here is that less is more.
2005-11-18 - REVIEW
Sinéad O’Connor is among the guests on Friday October 21 as Later With Jools Holland returns to BBC 2 for what is remarkably its 26th series.
2005-10-12 - News
With characteristic unpredictability, Sinéad has re-emerged after a period in retirement with a Rasta album, in which she covers a collection of her own personal reggae classics.
2005-09-30 - REVIEW
Proffering a delicious taste of her forthcoming album, Throw Down Your Arms, due for release this autumn, Sinead O’Connor thrilled punters at the Prime Minister’s 2005 Independence Gala in Jamaica with her impassioned version of Bob Marley’s ‘War’, accompanied on drum and bass by famous riddim twins, Sly and Robbie.
2005-08-26 - REVIEW
As predicted in the last issue of Hotpress, Sinéad O’Connor is touring in support of her new reggae covers album, Throw Down Your Arms.
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Sinéad O’Connor has confirmed details of her eagerly awaited reggae covers album, Throw Down Your Arms.
2005-08-10 - News
Sinéad O’Connor has confirmed details of her eagerly awaited reggae covers album, Throw Down Your Arms.
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Bob Geldof says: “Yes”
2005-06-30 - News
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Having recently announced her return to music, Sinead O'Connor will be performing at the New York awards ceremony next week
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Jim Fitzpatrick's nude painting of Sinead O'Connor has sold at auction for €15,000
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It's almost two years since Sinead O'Connor announced her retirement from music. However, it was always on the cards that she would find her voice again. The good news is that she has. She explains all in an exclusive interview with Niall Stokes...
2005-02-10 - News
"Sinéad was pretty relaxed. She didn’t tap into the ‘making a record for the label’ thing. She made music for her own reasons, which were deeper than that. That’s why the songs ring so true..."
2004-11-18 - Interview
Sick of being the "the whipping post of Ireland's media", Sinead O'Connor has expressed her own sentiments in a recent newspaper advertisement
2004-09-28 - News
A worthy buy, indeed, if only for the odd-ball reggae version on the B side.
2003-11-05 - REVIEW
You've bought her new album, now you can purchase the new DVD - The Value Of Ignorance/The Year Of The Horse is now available in stores
2003-10-21 - News
This is a fitting memorial to Sinéad’s relentless struggle to transcend the mundane, the vacuous and the predictable. As a farewell album it’ll do fine until the next one.
2003-10-06 - REVIEW
The High Priestess of Irish music announces details of a double CD and DVD release prior to her retirement from the music industry
2003-07-16 - News
More on why Sinead O'Connor's quitting the music biz, plus her guest appearance with Damien Dempsey
2003-05-16 - News
Other Voices: Songs From A Room director Philip King reacts to news of Sinead O'Connor's retirement from public life - and praises "one of the world's very best singers"
2003-04-25 - News
In one of the most dramatic developments in Irish music in decades, Sinead O'Connor has said that she will retire from the music business in three months time
2003-04-24 - News
Sinead O'Connor and Damien Dempsey re-live the fairytale on Irish all-star Christmas album It's All Bells
2002-11-27 - News
Get set for a v. special V Graham Norton tonight - featuring no less than Sinead O'Connor
2002-10-30 - News
Following the runaway success of her nationwide tour, Sinead O'Connor announces a Point Theatre date in January
2002-10-25 - News
The most important female Irish artist of the last decade-and-a-half shuffles self-consciously onto the stage to a truly warm Mayo welcome. She looks healthy, rested and fighting fit.
2002-10-24 - REVIEW
Sean-Nós Nua, we are told, is the album that she has wanted to make for years
2002-10-10 - REVIEW
The making of Sean Nos Nua has been captured on film by Bringing It All Back Home Director, Philip King.
2002-10-08 - News
Details released about Sinead O'Connor's upcoming Donal Lunny-produced trad album, Sean-nos Nua
2002-08-21 - News
One of Ireland's most revered singers looks back at a turbulent decade during which she was never far from the headlines [pic Myles Claffey]
2002-06-26 - Interview
STEVE FARGNOLI, the artist manager who numbered SINÉAD O'CONNOR among his clients, lost his battle with cancer earlier this month. STEPHEN ROBINSON reports
2001-09-27 - News
Sinéad O’Connor has recorded four tracks with Massive Attack
2001-09-13 - News
It s been four years since the last Siniad O Connor album. By any standards, even for a major artist, that s a long time, inevitably heightening speculation about where Siniad s muse was likely to take her.
2000-06-08 - REVIEW
Sinead O’Connor: “You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart” (Island)
1994-02-09 - REVIEW
Sinéad O'Connor's records don't necessarily reveal themselves speedily. I know that, on the first hearing, 'The Lion and the Cobra' seemed to me an ill-fitting match of various discordant styles. I didn't really crack it 'till its sixth time round my turntable.
1990-03-25 - REVIEW
At the tender age of seventeen, Dubliner Sinéad O'Connor packed up Ton Ton Macoute, packed her bags and headed for London. Two years on she's had a few close shaves, recorded with the Edge and is on the verge of seriously launching her career with an album in January. Interview: Molly McAnailly Burke.
1986-11-20 - Interview
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