Album: How About I Be Me (and You Be You)?
Year: 2012
. . .
After the turn of the century, Sinéad O’Connor went in a bunch of different directions: there was the Irish folk album, the rarities album, the reggae album, the collaborations album, the double half-acoustic half-electric album, none of which had any kind of impact on me, though I did like “Big Bunch of Junkie Lies” from the rarities album and her cover of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” from the half-electric (though if she was going to do a JC Superstar cover, I would have loved for it to be “Everything’s Alright.”)
That all happened between 2003-2007, and then the music just stopped for awhile, until 2012’s relatively normal How About I Be Me (and You Be You?), which was my favorite Sinéad O’Connor album since 2000s Faith and Courage.
The highlight was “The Wolf is Getting Married,” which she picked up from a London cabdriver, who told her it was an expression referring a patch of blue sky on a cloudy day.
I used to have no wolves around me
I was too free, if that’s possible to be
No safety, is what I mean
No solid foundation to keep meBut the sun’s peeping out of the sky
Where there used to be only grey
The wolf is getting married
And he’ll never cry again
The cool thing that if you didn’t know the expression — and I most certainly didn’t — you’d hear Sinéad sing “the wolf is getting married” and automatically assume she’s talking about an ex-boyfriend or something. And you can be excused for not totally focusing on the words, as the music — especially the guitar by (I’m assuming) co-writer and long-time contributor Marco Perroni which weaves in and around the rest of the song — is stately and gorgeous.
But its not: it’s quite literally a manifestation of that phrase, with upbeat, dare I say even happy lyrics, especially at the end when she sings “Even if something terrible is happening / You laugh and that’s the thing I love about you most, yeah” as counterpoint backing vocals to the chorus:
Your smile makes me smile
Your laugh makes me laugh
Your joy gives me joy
Your hope gives me hope
It’s all incredibly lovely, and was the lead single from the album, though it didn’t chart anywhere but Ireland, and even there only made it to #40.
“The Wolf is Getting Married”
“The Wolf Is Getting Married” live on Graham Norton, 2012
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