The Toronto Star May 11, 1990, Friday, FINAL EDITION Soul-searching Sinead smooths edges By Robert Hillburn Special To The Star MANCHESTER, England - Sinead O'Connor sits quietly in her hotel room and whispers about the dishonesty of her old image. "People shouldn't take into account anything I said or did before the last year because I was not being honest with myself," the 23-year-old Irish singer-songwriter says in a voice so soft that a tape recorder has to be placed on the arm of her chair to register the remarks. It's a softness that's surprising in light of O'Connor's vocal authority on record and her spunky image. "I wasn't saying the truth. Without realizing it, I was saying what I thought everyone wanted to hear, especially some of the people around me. Everything happened so fast. I disliked what I saw when I looked back on it." O'Connor burst on the pop scene three years ago with a maverick, shaved-head look that was hard for photographers to resist and for pop fans to forget. She backed her bold appearance with outspoken interviews, viciously attacking rock's reigning heroes - her fellow countrymen, U2 - and expressing sympathy for the Irish Republican Army. The tough, high-profile stance helped build enough interest for her 1987 debut album - The Lion and the Cobra - to sell 1 million copies worldwide and for her to win a Grammy nomination for best female rock vocal performance. O'Connor was emerging as possibly the most valuable young pop property of the early '90s and perhaps the most provocative pop strategist since Prince. But her new I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got album - the hottest and most widely acclaimed release so far this year and the reason she's back on the concert trail here in Manchester - gives evidence of a more sensitive and straightforward artist at work. The new album documents some of the intense soul-searching O'Connor has been doing lately - in songs about personal trials ("You Cause as Much Sorrow" and " The Last Day of Our Acquaintance") and spiritual awakening ("Three Babies" and the album's title tune). Reflecting an intimacy and intensity that recalls John Lennon's landmark first solo album, I Do Not Want . . . is an eloquent statement about personal exorcisms and spiritual transformation, summarized by its opening track, "Feel So Different." The whole time I'd never seen All you had spread before me The whole time I'd never seen That all I needed was inside me O'Connor opened her Manchester concert with the hymn-like "Feel So Different" - wearing a hooded white robe that underscored the religious symbolism. It was a powerful image in a deeply moving, introspective concert that was among the most compelling performances I've seen in recent years. O'Connor, who plays Massey Hall Wednesday, is aware of the seductiveness of her own struggle and salvation commentaries. She has seen the handful of girls who invariably show up at her concerts now with shaved heads of their own and an intense, almost obsessive attachment to her music. Despite the clear spiritual undercurrents in her songs, she doesn't want the role of pop missionary. "Religion isn't a very good word to use because it conjures up Catholicism or Judaism or Protestantism," she says. "I am talking about universal spirituality . . . the feeling that someone like Van Morrison leaves you with after seeing his concerts or listening to his records." But, if anything, O'Connor appears more worried that she will still be seen as a manipulative pop opportunist. "I'm not obsessed with fame and pop stardom," she says. "I'm glad there are fans out there and I'm pleased if they like the record, but I am very removed from the whole adulation thing. "I didn't make these records for other people. I made them to learn things about myself. "I'm not even sure interviews are a good idea. I don't think I'll be doing many more. It's probably best to just let the music speak for itself. "But I made some mistakes (in what I said after the first album) and I want to try to correct that. The one thing I'd hate someone to think is that everything I do is just some sort of gimmick." Confessional is too strong a term for O'Connor's mood, but she does seem unusually open as she talks softly about the sometimes turbulent events of her Dublin childhood and her brief tenure in pop. Obligation is a better word - she appears to feel a responsibility to clarify all the confusion stirred up in the last three years. The shaved head, for example. The widespread assumption is that cutting off her hair was a blatant attempt to forge a rebellious pop identity. "No," O'Connor says firmly. "It wasn't for those reasons. We are all so accustomed to having everyone do something to attract attention or build an image that it doesn't occur to people that it's possible to do something just because you feel like it. "I'm just a girl. I forget that I'm a singer or that I'm in the music business. "I have always been doing things with my hair, shaving it, bleaching it. I'm sure that practically every girl who has ever been born messed with her hair. "So I just decided to cut it one day - and I liked the way it looked. It's nothing more important than that." Tales of her troubled childhood is another aspect of O'Connor's image that she thinks is overplayed, though she admits there were traumatic moments, including the break-up of her parents' marriage and enough teenage rebellion, including shoplifting, to land her in a "corrective centre." "It was a hard time, but I don't want to appear as if I am going, 'Oh, I had such a terrible childhood.' "I can talk about it, but you should realize I am a very philosophical person. I believe people choose their lives before they are born . . . choose their parents and everything else. So I believe this is a life I chose." The most troubling time was when her mother died. O'Connor was 17 - and she was shaken by the suddenness of death and upset by the unhappiness she saw in her mother's life in a country where people are prohibited from remarrying because divorce is not allowed. "Luckily, the record contract gave me an excuse to leave Dublin because everywhere I went I could see things that reminded me of my mother and it was devastating." The first album took nearly two years and O'Connor - who was pregnant at the time - was pretty weary of the material by the time the collection was finally released and she went on tour. "I was more interested in my pregnancy, to tell you the truth," says the thin young woman with the doleful eyes. "I was waiting for Jake (now 2 1/2) to be born. By the time the album was finished, he's really all I cared about. I had lived with the songs for so long. "It wasn't that I didn't like the album, but it wasn't really that big a deal to me. I never thought anything would happen, anyway. I thought it would sell about 10 copies and that would be that." But The Lion And The Cobra was a critical and commercial success, although that didn't make the following months (including North American and British tours) a particularly comfortable time. "I was having a very, very hard time personally . . . in my private life . . . and the tour seemed to be very secondary to that. I wasn't really into it because I didn't understand what was going on in my life." It was during this period that she gave some of the interviews she now regrets and it wasn't until after the touring that she began to sort out her life. "When I got married (to her son's father, drummer John Reynolds), that helped. I settled down and stopped thinking about other things. "I found some new friends and I had to sever ties with people who had been close to me, but who had not been encouraging me to be myself. It was very painful, but I have never been happier." For one of the few times in the interview, O'Connor's voice moves beyond a whisper, suggesting the importance she attached to the comments. "This album is about finding yourself and finding a certain fulfillment, but I want to make it clear that I do not feel I am someone with all the answers, someone who is trying to convert others. "That's not the case at all. I have beliefs and opinions, but they are based on my own personal experience and I could change them tomorrow. It's up to everyone to find their own answers." Pausing, she adds, "Maybe the one lesson of the album is that you can find the answers if you look hard enough. Everything in the new album happened to me - and I learned from it."