Sinead O'Connor Throws Down Arms

On October 4th, Sinead O'Connor will release Throw Down Your Arms. The twelve-track record is a tribute to reggae music and features covers of songs penned by the likes of Bob Marley, Lee Perry and Peter Tosh.

Throw Down Your Arms is the Irish native's eighth album and continues her pledge to break down barriers between genres. This past spring, O'Connor entered Tuff Gong studios in Kingston, Jamaica, to record inspirational Seventies reggae classics -- including Winston Rodney's "Door Peep" and Perry's "Curly Locks" -- with veteran producers Sly and Robbie.

Fulfilling her promise, made earlier this year, to "aim my records at a more spiritualized market," O'Connor said of the Throw Down sessions, "The originals of these songs could never be bettered, and so all I can hope in recording them is to honor the composers and pass on their teachings in the hope that doing so will carry the message of Rastafarai to some who might otherwise not know that God and religion are two very different things."

O'Connor's last CD release was the 2003 live set She Who Dwells in the Secret Place of the Most High Shall Abide Under the Shadow of the . . ., and her 2000 best-of compilation has sold more than 2 million copies since hitting stores.

O'Connor will launch a tour of the United States in support of her new album in November, including two dates at New York's Webster Hall.

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Song Stories

“Youth Knows No Pain”

Lykke Li | 2011

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”

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