A Softer Sinead Picks Up Themes Of Peach And Love
Sinead O’Connor “Gospel Oak” (EMI)
No longer the angry young woman of rock ‘n’ roll, Sinead O’Connor has moved on to motherhood and Buddhism.
She has gone from attack mode - remember her ripping up a photo of the pope on “Saturday Night Live” five years ago? - to a peace-and-love stance that suffuses her bewitching six-song CD, “Gospel Oak.” There are several lullabies inspired by her two children, but also dedicated to children in Israel, Rwanda, and Northern Ireland.
O’Connor, now 30 and the survivor of a suicide attempt in 1993 (from an overdose of sleeping pills), has been living in self-imposed exile in West London, where she is a single mother taking care of her son Jake, 9, and daughter Roisin, 1. She has been out of the spotlight since her “Universal Mother” album in 1994.
That album hinted at the emotional content of “Gospel Oak” (whose title suggests God as the mother, which was symbolized in ancient times as the oak). It’s a long way from the combative streak seen in her first two albums, “Lion and the Cobra” (1987) and “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” (1989).
The tone of the new disc - a prelude to a national tour - is set by the lead-off track, “This Is to Mother You,” written to her daughter. The song expresses unconditional love (“I’m here to mother you and get you through when your nights are lonely and your dreams are only blue”) via O’Connor’s clear, shimmering voice, and softly plucked acoustic guitar.
A hypnotic mood continues on “I Am Enough for Myself,” in which O’Connor proudly declares her single-mom status. “I don’t need anything else,” she sings over a piano/acoustic weave climaxed by a faraway, Celtic sound of a penny whistle.
O’Connor, whose new look features hair instead of the shaved head of her pope-ripping days, dips into accordion-limned parlor music in “Petit Poulet” (translated: Little Chicken). It is specifically for children in war-torn Rwanda. “I am around you like love in the night, kissing your plight,” O’Connor sings with a quiet passion, all the more touching given O’Connor’s history of child abuse by her parents in Ireland.
A light, marching beat gives way to a welcome flourish of folk-rock on “4 My Love.” It has the confessional verse: “For my love, this night I have your baby in my belly/All my life I love you for the life you’ve given me.”
It’s unclear to whom it is addressed. O’Connor’s child, Jake, is the son of former husband John Reynolds, a drummer who remains a good friend and co-produced this “mini-album,” as O’Connor calls it. Roisin’s father is a journalist, John Waters of the Irish Times, who interviewed her two years ago, before a romance blossomed.
The compelling “This IS a Rebel Song” follows. The music is minimalist, but the passion is pronounced as O’Connor sings, “I’m your woman and I desire you, my hardy Englishman … Don’t be cold … How come you’ve never said you’ve loved me in all the time you’ve known me?” It’s hard to know whether she’s addressing a lover or the English government (or both).
She concludes with the traditional Irish folk tune, “He Moved through the Fair,” the only song she didn’t write.
It’s a transfixing, grace-note-filled performance, as is most of this bewitching mini-album. O’Connor, who has converted to Buddhism, obviously has a heightened spiritual awareness.