Sinéad O’Connor wanted to tackle the impact of George Floyd’s murder on what turned out to be her final album.
The ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ singer, who died in London on 26 July aged 56, spent months before her shock passing working with Northern Irish producer David Holmes, 54, on the record ‘No Veteran Dies Alone’.
He has now revealed how his and the singer’s recording sessions were heavily influenced by the death of 46-year-old George – the African American murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 25 May, 2020.
David says in a new RTÉ documentary ‘Sinéad’, which will air on Monday (08.01.24) night: “Sinéad rang me and said, ‘I want to cover Mahalia Jackson’s song ‘Trouble of the World’.
“Sinéad rang the doorbell at 9am on the button and said, ‘I’ve been sitting in your driveway since 5am, I was so excited about recording this vocal.’
“I set up the microphone, put the headphones on, hit record and she just did it in one take, and it was like, ‘Wow!’”
Gospel singer Mahalia’s sang was about wanting to see her mother, which echoed George’s last words “I can’t breathe”.
David and Sinéad held recording sessions at his home studio in Belfast.
The singer had originally intended for the Mahalia Jackson cover to be included on the album they were working on.
But she decided to release the song as a tribute to George and donated all proceeds from the track to charities linked to the Black Lives Matter movement that exploded in the wake of his death.
