Sinead O’Connor delivered an emotional version of signature track “Nothing Compares 2 U” on Irish TV during the weekend – and explained why she’d “parked” the Prince-penned song for a while.

Appearing under her new name Shuhada Sadaqat, which she took after her conversion to the Muslim faith, she was accompanied on the Late Late Show by the Irish Chamber Orchestra for the performance, which she dedicated to Prince.

You can watch the performance below:

She explained she employed methods of singing that involved using “emotions to get you to the notes,” adding: “[N]ever sing a song that’s not in your nature, that you can’t identify with the character.” She continued: “I parked it for a couple of years because I am a Stanislavski singer, and I couldn’t find anything, I’d run out of things. Then, thanks be to God, I had a tricky few years and that gave me back some stuff.

“For me, it’s a song that used to remind me of someone I loved who passed on, and I thought it would be very nice to dedicate it to Prince, actually. When I close my eyes, I’m talking to him.”

Prince is reputed not to have liked O’Connor’s 1990 take on his song, simply because he didn’t enjoy artists performing his music when it hadn’t been his suggestion. Although he commissioned several recordings of the 1984 composition, his own version remained unheard until last year. His engineer Susan Rogers told the Guardian that there was a reason he’d been comfortable with others covering the track, saying: “It's not a pained 'Help me, baby' track. It's: 'You're gone and I miss you,' … He released his material based on what he wanted us to know about him and, wonderful as it is, he didn't want it to represent him.”

 

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