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I don't know if this is Sinead O'Connor's best album, but it is her most passionate. It conveys a remarkable impression of crystal-clear, unbending purity. Sure, she strains her voice, she yelps and howls and sounds off-key fairly often (the outro in "Never Get Old"). Other times, her voice sounds beautiful, clear and strong. Either way, it is always an intense experience.
The centerpiece of the album is "Troy," a long monologue from the point of view of a woman who was wronged by her irresponsible lover. The lyrics are in free verse, with no meter. The music gives them some rhythm, but really, the words just uncontrollably spill out of her, an overwhelming stream of imagery and emotion. She reminisces about "sitting in a long dress in summer, keeping warm," she faintly pleads, "do you want me? should I leave?" with a fragile self-abnegation that resembles religious fervour more than romantic love. Abandoned, she hurls curses and accusations with apocalyptic fury. Recalling the scene of her seduction (in which, apparently, the fellow baited her into seducing him -- what a touch!), she suddenly loses it halfway through the line, "I wouldn't have screamed 'no, I can't let you go!'" and that "no" becomes a frightening shriek. The final tirade viciously describes her lover's passivity and selfishness and ends with the haunting wail, "makes no difference what you say, you're still a liar."
In "Jackie," she becomes the faithful wife who loses her husband to a storm upon the sea. Her detached, disembodied grief in the opening verses builds up to a portentous, menacing intonation, a vow to "walk the seas forevermore, 'till I find my Jackie-O." Damn straight! None of this "moving on" business for us, we will bend nature itself to our will! Even the dance song "Put Your Hands On Me," with percussion and keyboards straight out of
New Order's
"The Perfect Kiss," a song that should have been a generic pop single, is fanatically intense and has a dark bass undercurrent.
No one was like Sinead on her first album. Many other women singers were inspired by her image of strength and confidence. But in O'Connor's songs, that strength comes out of intense, unequivocal devotion and self-effacement. "Mandinka" seems to be about a dancing harem girl, who somehow turns the dance into a celebration of her erotic power ("I don't know shame, I feel no pain"). On her
second album
, O'Connor sounded more "worldly," in the sense of belonging in the 20th century, but on The Lion And The Cobra, the characters in the songs would feel right at home in
medieval
legends,
Byronic
poetry, or
Greek
tragedy. That's actually why I always thought she sounded better with more classical instrumentation, instead of electric guitars.
Despite their maximalism, the songs reveal unexpected layers. The first verse of "Drink Before The War" is the most naked militant sentiment to ever be expressed in a Western pop song: "you tell us not to sing our song / nothing we ever say can make you see / you've got a heart of stone, you can't feel / you say, 'oh, I'm not afraid, it can't happen to me' / 'cause I've lived my life as a good man' / 'oh no, put it out of your mind, it won't happen to me' / 'cause I've carried my weight and I've been a strong man.'" You can just see those radical young people accusing their complacent elders. But then, the second verse goes, "your parents paid you through / you got a nice big car, nothing bothers you...you live in the past and talk about war." Later there are the lines, "stop talking of war, 'cause you know we've heard it all before / why don't you go out there and do something useful?" It's almost as if this is the parents' rebuttal...or maybe, it's the other way around, and the elders were the ones urging the young people to radicalism? The refrain only offers the uneasy, prophetic image, "listen to the man in the liquor store / yelling 'anybody want a drink before the war?'" Even the music rises to the occasion: calm, deliberately slow synths and no percussion, highlighting the unnatural calm, putting all the spotlight on Sinead.
There is, in fact, some interesting music, though albums like this typically focus on the singer. "Jackie" comes up with an arty backdrop of low, droning synths, swelling up very slowly. "Troy," once the final tempest gets going, drives it forward with a violin lead and cello counterpoint. Bet you haven't heard too many great pop hooks on violin before. And, although I still think the guitars in "Mandinka" and "Jerusalem" sound kind of generic, the hook in "Mandinka" did eventually get me, and I would now rate it as being catchier than "The Emperor's New Clothes" from O'Connor's next album.
The rest is filler, or maybe it just feels that way compared to "Jackie" and "Troy." There were probably commercial considerations too -- a pop album by a new singer has to cover all the bases, with a rock song, a dance song, a love song, and so forth. But the high points haven't dated at all. They can't, because they're timeless, starkly centering on the highest emotions one might ever feel in one's life.
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Reviewed in Australia on December 1, 2020
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Reviewed in Australia on December 1, 2020
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