There are two images that define the career of Sinead O’Connor in the United States. The first is from the 1990 music video for “Nothing Compares 2 U.” The video was stripped bare of effects and consists almost entirely of a close-up shot of a young O’Connor standing in front the camera, bald against a black backdrop, singing. When you can sing like Sinead O’Connor, what else do you need?

The song and video are so earnest in their conception and performance that one cannot help but feel the loss of the lover for whom she sings. “Nothing Compares 2 U” was a massive international hit, reaching #1 on the charts in the US, Ireland, UK. The album (I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got) won her a Grammy, and made the then 24-year-old O’Connor very, very famous.

The second and more controversial image is from O’Connor’s 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live, when O’Connor sang Bob Marley’s “War,” before saying “Fight the real enemy” and ripping a picture of Pope John Paul II in half. Unknown at the time was that O’Connor was protesting the Catholic Church’s child abuse scandal, which would not arrive in the US for several more years.

The moment made O’Connor something of a pariah in the US. But her music career continued, and for the next 15 years she released a number of studio albums and EPs that had a fascinating and complex relationship to these images of “Sinead O’Connor” which were cemented in the public by the time she was 26.

At least until 2007, and her album Theology, when O’Connor finally seemed to move beyond whatever musical and historical hiccups she may have had regarding writing music for the public. After Theology came How About I Be Me (and you be you), her best since 1990’s I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got.

Which brings us to today. Next month O’Connor’s 10th studio album, I’m Not Bossy, I’m The Boss, will be released. The first single, “Take me to Church,” has been out for some time. It’s a lovely song, featuring that pulsing electric guitar sound she loves so much. Like many other O’Connor songs, this one has highly emotional lyrics appealing directly to the listener. “I’ve done so many bad things that it hurts,” she sings in a bold and personal refrain, “Take me to the church.”

And elsewhere: “I don’t want to be that girl no more.”

In case we did not know which girl she means, today O’Connor has released a video for “Take me to Church” to ensure we understand. Here, then, is the 47-year-old Sinead O’Connor, literally haunted by the images of her youth, pained by her past it seems, but not remorseful. And ready.

Take us to church, Sinead.

Here, too, is the 1990 video for “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which is used in the opening of “Take Me To Church.” If you haven’t seen it because you are a youngster or hid in a cave in the 1990s, it’s amazing.

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