Sinead O'Connor: have time off and a dose of Jamaican spirit chilled out the Irish spitfire? Not bloody likely

Retirement isn't for everyone, and it certainly doesn't seem to be in the cards for Sinead O'Connor. Three years ago, the Irish singer announced her desire to retreat from popular music and public life. But after what wound up as only a brief hiatus, O'Connor is back with Throw Down Your Arms (That's Why There's Chocolate and Vanilla), a roots music-inspired album produced by slick Jamaican twosome Sly and Robbie, featuring covers of songs by reggae legends like Bob Marley and her interviewer, Burning Spear.

BURNING SPEAR: So, what was dragging you into roots music to the point where you ended up making this album?

SINEAD O'CONNOR: Well, I guess it's kind of a religious thing. I grew up in a very religious Catholic culture--Ireland's experience with Catholicism has been very different from that of other countries. I grew up in what you would call a theocracy in some ways, and as I got older I felt a lot of the teachings about God that I was given as a child were false. I particularly felt that music was one of the ways in which people really lied the most about God. A lot of religious songs were made almost deliberately without feelings or emotions--apart from the Christmas songs, which always make you cry because they're about babies being born and that whole thing. I was longing for hymns and religious songs that weren't so boring and that also didn't perpetuate this kind of false idea of God, which I felt Catholicism did at the time. So I was always interested in the idea of rescuing God from religion and the idea of singing as prayer--Rasta music is the only kind of music that I think really gets that across. You feel the spirit of God alive in that music.

BS: So, in a sense you were feeling something behind the roots and the history and the culture of reggae music.

SO: Absolutely. I identified with it as an Irish person, too. There's this beautiful calling and longing in Rasta music, and that same thing exists in Irish music. There's a yearning that seems to be for the same thing: that relationship with God and the truth. You look around the world, and you see people fucking each other over, for want of a better word. A lot of healing could be done if people realized that you can't fix a spiritual problem with politics. There's an awful lot of work to be done in the world when it comes to how people believe in God and what they think God might or might not be. I feel the Rastas are the people who have the hugest faith in God and believe that the living God is in and around all of us. I don't think religion teaches that. I don't even like the word "God"--I prefer to call it the Holy Spirit. To me, the Holy Spirit is in Rasta music, and it does the job that I would like to be involved with--contributing one drop towards helping humanity rescue God from religion, because religion and God are two very different things.

BS: So, did you ever think you would end up singing reggae music?

SO: Yeah, I always knew I wanted to sing religious music and such, and I want to continue doing that with all different types of religious music. But the reason I want to do that is because of Rasta music. So, for about 15 years I've known that I was going to make this record. The first proper Rasta song I ever heard, as I perceived it, was Half Pint's song "Greetings."

BS: And why did you choose all those songs on the record?

SO: All the songs on there, or yours?

BS: Well, what about the Burning Spear songs? Why did you choose those songs?

SO: Those are the songs of yours I love the most. They are the ones I would put on in the car and scream along with. I first heard your music when I moved to Los Angeles around 1990. I used to drive around listening to your records. Those were the songs that'd make you want to fucking live. They're the songs of yours that really inspired me to want to work at this. They got me interested in life.

BS: For the cover of your record, you're using one of the most beautiful shots of you from when you were younger. Why did you choose that image?

SO: I suppose because I look really old and ugly now. [both laugh] I look much better in that picture.

BS: I don't think you look old and ugly. You look the way you're supposed to; that's your look.

SO: I know. I'm joking. [Spear laughs] I guess there are a couple of reasons I chose that picture. Making this record was about my own relationship with the Holy Spirit, which is, to me, the most important thing in my life apart from my relationship with my children. And the photograph is also of a particular day in a Catholic girl's childhood called First Holy Communion. That's the day when you promise to try to serve the Holy Spirit to the best of your ability. And so that would've been a day that meant an awful lot to me, but it also represents why I'd be making this record or future records or why I've stepped out of the mainstream and want to stick to making God records, for want of a better word.

BS: It's a unique image and very unusual, but chiefly you don't see things like that very often.