Album: I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
Year: 1990
. . .
Out of all of the emotionally devastating songs on I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got — “Feel So Different,” “Three Babies,” “Nothing Compares 2U,” “Black Boys on Mopeds” — perhaps the most emotionally devastatingist was the penultimate song, “Last Day of Our Acquaintance,” which unlike most of the other songs, splits the difference between quiet acoustic dirge and big rock song.
And so, the opening was just Sinéad and an acoustic guitar so faint that you wonder if your hearing has suddenly gone bad. These days, they would never get away with mastering something so quiet and fragile, where you really have to listen to hear what she’s singing, as she starts off with the chorus.
This is the last day of our acquaintance
I will meet you later in somebody’s office
I’ll talk but you won’t listen to me
I know what your answer will be
It’s such a frank break-up song that that I’ll even excuse the awkward “acquaintance” and “office,” especially after hearing the utterly gutting first verse.
I know you don’t love me anymore
You used to hold my hand when the plane took off
Two years ago there just seemed so much more
And I don’t know what happened to our love
Holy shit! “You used to hold my hand when the plane took off” is quite literally one of the greatest telling details anybody has ever written. Simple, direct, dark and deep.
Days and days
Our friendship has been stale
And we will meet later to finalise the details
Two years ago the seed was planted
And since then you have taken me for granted
I would assume — and I could be wrong, of course — that this song is about John Reynolds, who was the father of her first child, and whom, about halfway through the song, comes in with a drum roll that is nearly the equivalent of Phil Collins’s roll in “In The Air Tonight” as Sinéad finally hits her acoustic — and her vocals — with anger and drive as she sings the final chorus:
But this is the last day of our acquaintance — oh, whoa, whoa!
I will meet you later in somebody’s office — oh, whoa, whoa!
I’ll talk but you won’t listen to me — oh, whoa, whoa!
I know your answer already — oh, whoa, whoa!
I know your answer already — oh, whoa, whoa!
I know your answer already
With Sinéad’s “oh, whoa, whoa” punctuating each and every line, bassist Jah Wobble’s slinky bassline and Reynolds’s strategically-placed drum rolls, the coda of “Last Day of Our Acquaintance” utterly kills. BTW, in her funnier-than-you-might-think memoir, O’Connor had nothing but nice things to say about John Reynolds, who has contributed to nearly record she has ever made.
“The Last Day of Our Acquaintance”
“The Last Day of Our Acquaintance” live in 1990
“The Last Day of Our Acquaintance” live at Pinkpop, 1995
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