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Another extra song added to the EP
Sinead on Italian TV (RAI-DUE)
Article in todays Irish Times
Video clip for "This Is To Mother You"
Sinead on British TV
Japanese only bonus-track on Gospel Oak EP !!!
Sinead on David Letterman
Sinead On David Letterman
(handed by <YehoshuaJF@aol.com>)
Sinead will be on the David Letterman Show on June 13 she will be performing "This is to Mother you"
Japanese only bonus-track on Gospel Oak EP !!!
(handed by Masahiro Isaka)
Japanese edition will be released today(21st of May). Catalogue number
is TOCP-40035. The Price is 1529yen. In Japan, Sinead is distributed by Toshiba-EMI. The
content is below.......
1. This Is To Mother You
2. I Am Enough For Myself
3. Petit Poulet
4. 4 My Love
5. Fire On Babylon(Eternal Recurrence Mix)
The last track is only available on this release !!!
According to Eduard Verheyen the Dutch release of the Gospel Oak EP will also be a 6 track item, at the moment I can't say for sure wether it will be the same as the US release !
Sinead on British TV
(handed by Mandy Green)
Friday (May 16th 1997) Sinead performed in a TV-program of UK-BBC called "Top Of The Pops" she sang "This Is To Mother You" because she reached nr. 28 in the UK top 40. She also performed on UK Channel 4 program "Thanx F*cking It's Friday" with the same song and a interview. May 6th Sinead was on a talk-show in the UK (Richard & Judy) - she talked about the new EP and sang "This is to mother you"
Video clip for "This Is To Mother You"
Today MTV-Europe's "Hit List UK" aired the new video-clip for Sinéad's song "This Is To Mother You", it's a very short clip taken in one shot, in total it lasts about 2 minutes. It starts with a very-close-up of Sinead's face, after which the camera turns slowly circles around her and moves up and gives a total shot of Sinead lying on a bed with Kris Kristofferson touching eachother..... The only reason I can think of why she asked him to do this is probably because he was the only one who backed her up (Mothered her) during the Bob Dylan Tribute Concert where she was "booohed" away because of her famous "Pope-photo tearing act" a few days before the concert. In this new clip Sinéad wears a long-haired wig and make up. In an interview (with The Big Issue) Sinead said about the long-hair; "I definitely want big hair, but I want it to be my own. Full-on big hair. I'm ready for it. I deserve it!"
ANOTHER EXTRA SONG ADDED TO EP
Surprisingly Sinead decided to add another bonustrack to the EP, In my personal opinion the EP is more and more starting to be a full album....
Chrysalis/EMI Records will release a new six track EP from Sinéad O'Connor entitled Gospel Oak on June 3rd. Produced by John Reynolds, Gospel Oak features five songs written by Sinéad. It will be available on cd and cassette formats, both of which include the following tracks: "This Is To Mother You", "I Am Enough For Myself", "Petit Poulet", "4 My Love", "This IS a Rebel Song" and a live cover of the traditional Irish song, "He Moved Through The Fair." Gospel Oak is Sinéad's first release since her album Universal Mother in 1994.
SINEAD ON ITALIAN TV (RAI-DUE)
Sinead will be doing a TV this weekend in Rome, she will be performing with the four backing singers, I don't know if it will go out at the weekend or later. It's actually either 1st or 2nd May ( probably 1st). It's the Italian Labour Day Festival held in Rome, and it will be a live show in the Piazza San Giovanni which will be televised by Rai Due. Sinead will be performing two songs, and will be on stage at 9.45.
ARTICLE IN TODAYS IRISH TIMES
A kinder, gentler Sinéad?
The stuff that surrounds her is usually louder than the music: but can you have Sinéad O'Connor without all that other stuff? Definitely not, says Brian Boyd, as he anticipates her forthcoming tour
With her last album out two years ago and the next one not out for possibly another two, Sinéad O'Connor describes her new EP as a "mini-album". It was recorded with the intention of getting her back doing live shows, and she has just confirmed a series of gigs in Europe - including one in Ireland - and the US for this summer. Once described as the only woman alive who could generate such massive publicity without having to take her clothes off, she now says she is "on the other side of recovery" and very much "in her prime". The EP, called Gospel Oak (which is also the name of a train station near her London home) features four new, self-composed songs led off by This Is To Mother You - a hymn-like ode to her baby daughter, Róisín. The songs are dedicated on the sleeve notes to "the people of Israel, Rwanda and Northern Ireland" and reveal a sense of gentleness and reconciliation in her lyric writing (she is now a Buddhist). All slow to midpaced, her understated vocals on the songs lend a lullaby feel to the EP and see her continuing to experiment with the sort of Celtic rhythms she used on her last album, Universal Mother (1995).
Saying that all the songs are written, primarily, to herself, This Is To Mother You has her comforting herself with the lines: "All the pain that you have known/ all the violence in your soul/ all the `wrong' things you have done/ I will take them from you when I come", which pretty much sums up the dominant mood and mode of expression on the whole EP. I Am Enough For Myself has her proclaiming that she "doesn't need anything else" in a keening voice while Petit Poulet is written, obliquely, about the Rwandan crisis. "They speak French there, so I guess I wanted to write something which would be comforting to the children that went through the evil that happened there," she says of the song. The final track, 4 My Love, is about the situation in the North and of the line "So no longer be violent", she says; "what all the violence has done is shut a lot of people up who would be speaking out more if they could be sure it couldn't be misconstrued. People like me, for instance, who wouldn't be afraid to say we have a right to govern our own country as long as it's not taken to mean we believe in murder." Her return to the public fray, however overdue, will be limited by the amount of time she chooses to spend with her two children.
She was never one to bend to record company pressure or to overly exploit herself commercially - and despite her long absences from the music scene, she remains a figure of fascination for many in the public eye, far beyond that enjoyed/endured by other women of similar musical worth such as Björk, P.J. Harvey or Beth Gibbons of Portishead. If at times the media attention has made her life seem like a soap opera, it has to be remembered that she, almost uniquely, combines the qualities of intelligence, good looks and talent (she remains one of the voices of popular music) and while many latter-day icons may score higher marks in two out of three of those categories, none comes close in the headline-generating stakes. The stories are old and tired and barely worth repeating: from the supposed support of the IRA in her early days, her love/hate relationship with U2; her refusal to have the American anthem played before her gigs during the Gulf War; tearing up the Pope's photo on television; being booed at a Bob Dylan concert; pulling out of a much-vaunted appearance at the Peace Together concert; her poem to The Irish Times; her relationships; her views on the Catholic Church, religion, etc, etc. Whatever one's feelings about her actions/attitudes throughout the years, the question that has gone begging throughout her career is how did she then - and how does she now - measure up as a singer/songwriter if somehow her musical activities could be separated from everything else? The constant strand running through the criticism thrown at her over the years is that she should "shut up and concentrate on the music" - the implication being that people want nice melodies and harmonies out of her without any of the lyrical baggage. It's a non-starter, as she explains herself. "People are always saying `she should shut up and sing'. This amazes me. How can people shut up and sing?" For her, the emotional delivery and impact of her voice is intimately linked to the subject matter she is singing about. In this regard, it's perhaps no coincidence that her album of cover versions, Am I Not Your Girl (1992), has been her most poorly received work to date, while self-composed numbers like Fire On Babylon, Famine and Thank You For Hearing Me off Universal Mother have received the most critical acclaim. It's the old conundrum of trying to tell the dancer from the dance.
IN sheer musical terms, though, she has distinguished herself as being a prime force in progressing Irish rock music. This is the person who was using hip-hop rhythms and rap vocal inflections while U2 were still jamming with B.B. King. Her first release, The Lion And The Cobra (1987), signalled her out as a tough but sweetly-voiced singer - but it wasn't until her cover version of an obscure Prince song, Nothing Compares 2 U, reached number one in every available chart around the world in 1990 that she began to have the sort of high profile that at one stage threatened to destroy her. The accompanying album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, saw the characteristic mix of personal/political/spiritual themes in her lyrics over a swirling Celtic rap backing. It wasn't until her fourth album, Universal Mother, that she began to relate her experience of abuse - "for me, that's where my career begins," she says. And her collaborations over the years, with acts as diverse as World Party (Karl Wallinger), Donal Lunny, Willie Nelson, MC Lyte, Karen Finlay, The The and Shane McGowan - she also used The Smiths' rhythm section as her backing band - have marked her down as an adventurous and enlightened musical spirit. Future plans include talk of a duet with Bono on the soundtrack to a Wim Wenders film called The End Of Violence and an appearance in Neil Jordan's film of Patrick McCabe's book, The Butcher Boy, where she plays the Virgin Mary. Her upcoming gigs should give some indication of her future musical direction, but if the new EP is anything to go by, redemption and regeneration seem to figure in her plans. But can we tell the singer from the songs?
The Gospel Oak EP is released next Monday by Chrysalis Records. Sinéad O'Connor, along with The Beautiful South, Ocean Colour Scene and Teenage Fanclub performs at The Castlegar Sports Ground, Galway on July 19th.