Sacred Singing

After controversy and illness, Sinead O8217;Connor makes great music again

Sinead O8217;Connor still sports a close-cropped stubble of hair, now graying at the temples. At 40, her voice remains startlingly pure as she ventures out with a new album, a reborn faith in herself and a late-grasped handle on her troubled soul.

With her new CD, Theology, and a 16-city tour, O8217;Connor is reintroducing herself to audiences 17 years after Nothing Compares 2 U shot the Irish singer to the top of the charts in 17 other countries.

In July 2003, O8217;Connor had closed the book on a career often overshadowed by controversy. She silenced herself, selling all her instruments. 8220;I seek no longer to be a 8216;famous8217; person, and instead I wish to have a 8216;normal8217; life,8221; a statement read. 8220;Could people please afford me my privacy?8221;

Before the birth of her third child, Shane, profound depression had set in. She admitted herself to a mental hospital, where she received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. O8217;Connor says the disease is like having 8220;a gaping hole8221; in the centre of her being.

The belated diagnosis, she adds, was a 8220;great relief. All you have to do is pop these pills and you can finally have a life. Not necessarily any happier than the next person but certainly no sadder.8221;

The singer has never hidden a history of family turmoil that included an abusive, alcoholic mother and a scandalous divorce in a deeply Catholic country. When she was 13, her father became only the second man in Ireland to win custody of his children. Four years later, her mother died in a car crash.

Her album, Am I Not Your Girl?, a collection of vintage standards, slowed O8217;Connor8217;s commercial momentum. Her October 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live stopped it in its tracks. Amid an a cappella version of Bob Marley8217;s War, O8217;Connor changed the lyric 8220;racism8221; to 8220;child abuse8221;, shredded a photo of Pope John Paul II and threw the pieces at the camera after saying, 8220;Fight the real enemy.8221; The NBC switchboard was jammed with thousands of complaints, and O8217;Connor was booed offstage.

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Days after her diagnosis, O8217;Connor bought a piano and began reconnecting to music 8220;in a different way 8212; INSIDE me.8221;

8220;I8217;m more interested in God than in organized religions, and the risk is sometimes that has come out as being disrespectful to God,8221; says O8217;Connor. 8220;To be honest, I love performing, but everything around it is difficult while I8217;m also trying to manage bipolar disorder. It8217;s something I would actually do less rather than more of 8211; unless I can figure out a way to have the audiences come to me. Then I8217;d play EVERY night!8221;

Richard Harrington LAT-WP