Say it isn't so! Sinead O'Connor announced via Facebook this week that she plans to stop performing her most famous and beloved song, the '90s classic "Nothing Compares 2 U," in any and all future concerts.
"OK, the time has come for me to cease singing Nothing Compares 2 U," the Irish-born chanteuse wrote on Monday, March 16. "The first principle of the manner in which I'm trained as a singer (Bel Canto) is we never sing a song we don't emotionally identify with. After twenty-five years of singing it, nine months or so ago I finally ran out of anything I could use in order to bring some emotion to it."
Because of that, she feels she'd be doing a disservice by continuing to perform the tune. She understands, though, that it's a very big part of her history — and of her fans' history with her music.
"I don't want audiences to be disappointed coming along to a show and then not hearing it, so am letting you know here that you won't," she wrote. "If I were to sing it just to please people, I wouldn't be doing my job right, because my job is to be emotionally available. I'd be lying. You'd be getting a lie."
She continued: "My job is to give you honesty. I'm trained in honesty. I can't act. It just isn't in my training. I have ceased singing other songs over the years for the same reason."
O'Connor released "Nothing Compares 2 U" in 1990, as a single from her second studio album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. The music video for the song — which memorably featured close-ups of O'Connor's face — won three MTV Video Music Awards for Best Female Video, Best Post-Modern Video, and Video of the Year.
