I bet you’re all pretty familiar with Sinead O Connor’s I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. That second album by the Irish controversial singer was nominated for four Grammy Awards in 1991 and ended up winning the award for Best Alternative Music Performance (however, O’Connor refused to accept the nominations and award).
The 1990’s album contains O’Connor most famous single, “Nothing Compares 2 U”, which was one of the best selling singles in the world in 1990. If you really dig deeper, there are lots of hidden gems, so many great compositions there. The opening track, “Feel so Different”; the second single “The Emperor’s New Clothes”; the anti-racism ballad “Black Boys on Moped”; and the sad separation, simmering slow-burning “The Last Day of Our Acquaintance”.
But I think we should start giving a special attention to “I Am Stretched on Your Grave” as well. It’s eerily gorgeous. It’s a translation of an anonymous 17th-century Irish poem titled “Táim sínte ar do thuama”. It was translated into English several times, most notably by Frank O’Connor. It was put to music by musician Philip King in 1979.
Numerous musicians have covered “I Am Stretched on Your Grave” in various versions of melody and lyric (Dead Can Dance, Kate Rusby, Eden, Netflix’s series Peaky Blinders, etc), but the popular and current versions are influenced and rely heavily on the adapted version by King, which was recorded on the group Scullion’s self-titled album, 1979.
The video here from O’Connor concert in October 1990 in Brussels. During the end part of the song she does a little Irish step dancing. Not bad at all, Ms. O’Connor.
Happy Monday!
• Read also BLONDIE: BRISBANE RIOTS.
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Featured image via Salon.
