Happy 35th Anniversary to Sinéad O'Connor’s debut album The Lion And The Cobra, originally released November 4, 1987.
“I think in the first place hearing the music inside of you is very soothing, very comforting. For me there always been, if you like, a spiritual connection between myself and music.” - Sinéad O’Connor, State of Mind 2012
I was working at Tower Records Lincoln Center when Sinéad O’Connor’s debut albumThe Lion And The Cobra was released. Upon hearing the first three tracks (“Jackie,” “Mandinka,” and “Jerusalem”), I immediately picked up a copy of the album and placed it behind the bank of cash registers so that I could buy it after my shift ended. Of course, I knew we were not going to sell out, but I needed the security of knowing that it was guaranteed that I’d be able to listen to the LP when I got home.
Later that evening, I sat in my room and played the entire album in one sitting. I marveled at how O’Connor could be soft and tender one minute, then shift to intense and passionate the next. There is a beauty to the fierceness with which she delivers a song. You’re captivated by each track and before you know it, she has a vice-like grip on your attention. You have no option but to attempt to pull a Nigel Tufnel and crank the speakers up to eleven.
O’Connor’s style differed from what we were listening to in 1987. She quickly established herself as a unique entity, not a one-trick pony. The vibe she gave me was like a mashup of Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush, and a woman who has gone through way too much shit for any twenty-year-old.
As a child, O’Connor suffered physical and psychological abuse from her mother. “My mother was a very unhappy woman, who was very, very violent and found it very difficult to cope with life, because of obviously her own experiences as a child,” O’Connor told SPIN Magazine in 1991. “I was beaten up very severely with every kind of implement you can imagine yourself being beaten with. And I was starved, I was locked in my room for days at a time without being fed, with no clothes. I was made to sleep in the garden of my house overnight. I lived for a summer in the garden of my house.” Music eventually became a refuge and a source of peace for O’Connor. The haunting ballad “Troy” references that turbulent period in her life, in lines like “Every look that you threw told me so / But you should’ve left the light on / You should’ve left the light on.”
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“Just Like U Said It Would B” illustrates O’Connor’s versatility as a songwriter. It starts off like an Irish folk song with only her voice and a guitar and the other instruments enter this conversation one by one. As the track goes further, you hear O’Connor’s voice grow more intense and when the third verse arrives, she’s belting out the lyrics (“When I lay down my head / At the end of my day / Nothing would / Nothing would please me better / Than I find that you’re there when I wake / Just like you said it would be”).
As she has proven over the years, O’Connor knows how to make an entrance and leave her mark. The Lion And The Cobra is a fantastic debut album from one of the most talented and misunderstood artists of our time. Too much attention has been devoted to the controversial moments of her life outside of her music, and not the work itself. O’Connor’s entire catalog deserves a listen.
“I don’t believe in any kind of artistic snobbery or musical snobbery. You know, to me, the sexiest and the most spiritual words ever uttered in rock and roll are ‘wop babaloo balop bam boom.’” - Sinéad O’Connor, Making Black America
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