Sinéad O’Connor’s fourth studio album came on the heels of her disappointing third effort and the firestorm of controversy surrounding her pope-bashing Saturday Night Live appearance. And while 1994’s Universal Mother didn’t do well enough commercially to make it a proper comeback, it was certainly an artistic triumph.
A subdued and intimate collection of mostly piano-based ballads, Universal Mother was O’Connor’s most personal album to date. As she told the music magazine Mojo, the album “was the first attempt to try to expose what was really underneath a lot of the anger of the other records.”
That meant songs about her son, her abusive mother, former lovers, and Irish politics. Today’s song, ‘John I Love You’, is about her friend and piano teacher, on whom she had an unrequited crush.
The album’s two covers are highlights. First up is a delicate version of Nirvana’s ‘All Apologies,’ followed by a sweeping take on Phil Coulter’s ‘Scorn Not His Simplicity,’ a song he wrote for his son, who has Down Syndrome. Beautiful work, all of it, and the album that hits hardest in light of O’Connor’s passing. From: https://meetinmontauk.com/2023/08/03/song-of-the-day-5507-john-i-love-you-sinad-oconnor/
The John in this song is John Stokes, who was Sinéad O'Connor's piano teacher. She sings his praises, letting him know she loves him and thinks the world of her.
Although Sinéad was madly in love with him, he resisted her advances. "He wasn't interested in me at all because he was quite sensible and knew that I was completely out of my mind," she wrote in her memoir Rememberings. "Still, we were friends and I was really fond of him, loved him very, very much."
Many fans thought this song was about O'Connor's brother John, or her first husband, John Reynolds, who played drums on the track.
The piano that lead the song is by Phil Coulter. There's also a cello in the mix, played by John O'Kane.
The song is part of O'Connor's Universal Mother album, released in 1994 four years after her breakthrough I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. She had a much lower profile by this time, especially in America where she accumulated some bad press for tearing up a photo of the Pope on live TV. From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/sinead-oconnor/john-i-love-you
