Sinéad O'Connor was well known for her deeply emotional voice, her outspoken stance on political issues – especially her critique of the Catholic Church – and her explorations of spiritualism and religion, but what I want to talk about, mostly, was her extraordinary songwriting.
O'Connor’s first two albums The Lion and the Cobra (1987) and I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got (1990) made a huge impression on me when I was just starting to get into music and songwriting in my last year of high school.
I cottoned onto these records a bit late (I was in Year 12 in 1993) but sometimes quality things take a while to filter through to suburban teenage Australian minds. Those records cut right through the other stuff I was listening to: guitar bands with men mostly.
