On the bonus disc of this deluxe 2xCD reissue of Sinéad O'Connor's 1990 sophomore album, there's a live version of "Troy", the epic and visceral psychodrama from her debut three years earlier. Where the version of "Troy" on The Lion and the Cobra is lushly orchestrated, painting the story of desire and betrayal on a wall-sized canvas, O'Connor performed the song in concert alone on acoustic guitar. Despite the spare setting, every twist and turn the song takes is rendered even more dynamically on the strength of her singing, which gradually modulates from a soft whisper recalling better times to a hair-raising accusatory howl. At the song's climax, she screams into the microphone, her voice breaking into a million pieces: "You're still a fucking liar!". "Harrowing" is the only word that comes close to describing it.
Was it just theater? It's possible. Sure doesn't sound like it, though. The way O'Connor was singing "Troy" as the 1980s ended, you get the feeling that something had to change, and soon. Exposing yourself to people like that repeatedly, especially for someone carrying around cartloads of emotional baggage, someone with questionable judgment and a knack for doing ill-advised things in public, is a good way to end up deep trouble. Which she did. She had some tough years in the 90s, getting in hot water for refusing to allow the "Star Spangled Banner" to be played prior to a show in New Jersey, tearing up the Pope's picture on "Saturday Night Live", and having an onstage meltdown after being booed at a Bob Dylan tribute. Early O'Connor can now seem a model for a certain kind of feminine intensity in rock music, one that moves effortlessly between ethereality and fire-spitting. But for a while, all you wondered about was what controversy was going to dog her next.
Ironically, the album that thrust her into the spotlight, that place where all mistakes are amplified, hinted that she was destined for something else. There's just as much pain on display on I Do Not Want as there was on her debut, but O'Connor was growing up fast. She was starting to understand the concept of artistic distance, ways to transform the hurt into something more people could grasp. She was still writing from the gut, casting aside lyrical devices to say what's on her mind even if it didn't fit the meter of the song. But she started singing with restraint and nuance, allowing for an easier way in. So "It seems like years since you held the baby/ While I wrecked the bedroom," from "Emperor's New Clothes", is delivered with a muted lilt, O'Connor's voice bright and possibly a little hopeful, confident in her strength despite the weight of the past. While "Black Boys on Mopeds", an anti-Thatcher (and anti-England) song, is ghostly and downcast, the voice and guitar expressing a sort of nurturing sadness instead of just rage.
For many, of course, the album will always be about "Nothing Compares 2 U", a cover of a song Prince had written years before for the Time offshoot the Family. Both the song and the simple and heartbreaking video are what O'Connor will always be remembered for, and with good reason: you have to look pretty hard to find a better expression in pop music of the void that exists when a relationship ends. And if nothing else on I Do Not Want rises to that level, almost nothing else on any other albums does either. Instead, the record is mostly quiet and folky, the voice-and-guitar ballads alternating with tracks like "I'm Stretched on Your Grave", which combines a traditional melody with the then-ubiquitous "funky drummer" beat, and "Jump in the River", which shows that O'Connor wasn't necessarily suited for writing upbeat songs you might hear on the radio.
And soon, she'd stop trying. The so-so bonus disc is fleshed out with songs that hint at where she'd go next. She'd try standards (Cole Porter's "You Do Something to Me", from the 1990 Red Hot & Blue comp), imaginative covers of kindred spirits (here it's a decent take on John Lennon's "Mind Games", later it would be Nirvana's "All Apologies"), and genre experiments (Gregory Isaacs' "Night Nurse" hinted at her reggae obsession). She became more of a quirky cult artist still capable of a brilliant song from time to time, which seemed to suit her much better. She also stopped performing "Troy" for almost 20 years, finally dusting it off in 2008 for a festival in Antwerp. There's a good YouTube out there. This time she was fronting a full orchestra, a middle-aged woman in bare feet and graying hair whose voice still had power. Last year's "Troy" is not nearly as raw as what was she was doing in her 20s, but it's reassuring, somehow, as it makes you glad for longevity. It seems like she's finally in control, having figured out how to perform the song instead of just channeling it.
