Classic Tracks

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Article Preview :: Sinéad O’Connor ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’

Published in SOS February 2012

Technique : Classic Tracks


Recording Sinéad O’Connor’s breakthrough hit was easy in some ways, but difficult in others — for example, all compression was forbidden...
Richard Buskin
Photo: Michel Linssen/Redferns
Towards the end of the award‑winning video that was shot to promote her 1990 international hit single ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, tears run down each of Sinéad O’Connor’s cheeks as she sings, “All the flowers that you planted, Mama, in the back yard, all died when you went away.” These, she’d later explain on VH1’s 100 Greatest Songs of the ’90s, were prompted by thoughts of the complicated relationship that she had shared with her late mother.
Not that O’Connor had written this number about longing for a lost love. Instead, Prince had composed it for the Family, a band signed to his Paisley Park label, inspired by a member who had recently split up with his girlfriend and recorded by the funk outfit for their eponymous 1985 album. Identifying with the lyrics, O’Connor imbued the song with a strikingly authentic, heartfelt intensity that, aided by the equally stark and powerful video, transported it to the top of the charts in no less than 15 countries, including Britain and America, where it was certified platinum after four weeks as the number one single on the Billboard Hot 100.
“I actually think the intensity of Sinéad’s performance came from the breakup of her latest relationship,” opines Chris Birkett, who co-produced and engineered the track as well as the accompanying, Grammy Award-winning album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, which topped the Billboard 200 for six weeks and sold seven million copies worldwide. “She had been dating her manager, Fachtna O’Ceallaigh, who’s a really good guy and had been instrumental in getting her deal with Ensign Records. However, their relationship had gone pear-shaped and they were in the process of breaking up when we recorded ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, so that’s probably why she did such a good vocal. She came into the studio, did it in one take, double-tracked it straight away and it was perfect because she was totally into the song. It mirrored her situation.”
At the time, there were rumours that O’Connor was dating Prince. That was, when another possible suitor wasn’t paying her daily visits.
“Every day, this guy in sunglasses used to come into the studio and sit at the back of the control room,” Birkett recalls. “He never introduced himself and I wondered who the hell he was, until I finally asked his name and he responded, ‘Peter Gabriel’. He and Sinéad appeared to be spending a lot of time together, so who knows? I still think she was crying about Fachtna O’Ceallaigh, but maybe she was crying about Peter Gabriel or she could even have been crying about Prince. Whoever it was, she was upset about someone and that’s why she put everything into the song as well as into the video. It was the video that really broke the song, because the BBC dropped it and it was on its way out of the charts when the video came out and everything went ballistic.”
Chris Birkett
Chris Birkett looking thoughtful at the desk in Eden Studios.
Chris Birkett looking thoughtful at the desk in Eden Studios.
Virtually an orphan after his mother walked out on the family home when he was just four years old, Birkett himself was no stranger to feelings of loneliness. Music was his escape from a troubled childhood and, harbouring a burning desire to play the guitar, he built one from old pieces of wood and banjo strings when he was eight. “It sounded like a Japanese koto, but at least it worked and enabled me to make music,” he recalls.

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Published in SOS February 2012

 

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In this article:
Chris Birkett
The Background
Hands-on Vocal Mixing
I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
Separate Ways
A Bit On The Side

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Thumbnail for article: CLASSIC TRACKS: Tricky 'Black Steel'

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