Sinéad O'Connor: producer reveals new details about her final unreleased album "No Veteran Dies Alone"

Three years after the death of Sinéad O’Connor, who passed away in July 2023, new details are emerging about “No Veteran Dies Alone”, the album the Irish singer-songwriter was working on in the final years of her life and which, according to producer David Holmes, was already largely completed by early 2022.
To mark the anniversary of the artist’s passing, Holmes shared on social media a series of private messages he received from O’Connor during the making of the record. The exchanges reveal the singer’s excitement for the project. Speaking about the title track, she wrote: “I’m going crazy because it sounds so good”, adding shortly after: “I’m so proud of us!!” and joking: “Let’s make records together until one of us croaks”.

Another message, dated December 2022, reveals just how important the album's narrative structure was to O’Connor. The singer asked for the record to open with an a cappella introduction, followed by the tracks “Milestones”, “No Veteran Dies Alone”, “I Lay Down”, “Horse”, “Be Free” and “Magdalen’s Song”. “I’m old school and albums tell a story through the sequencing of the songs”, she explained, stressing how crucial the running order was.
Holmes makes no secret of his admiration for the recorded material. On Instagram he called “No Veteran Dies Alone” “an absolute classic” and “a love letter to her children and to the world”. He also recalled an episode from the recording of the title track, when O’Connor told him: “There's a technically better take to be done here, but I’ll never be able to give you a more beautiful performance”. For the producer, that line sums up the very essence of making music: “That’s exactly what an artist or a producer should always be looking for: the truth”.

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Despite his enthusiasm, Holmes admits he doesn’t know whether the record will ever see the light of day: “Only God knows if it’ll ever come out”. His words have nonetheless sparked numerous reactions across the music world. Imelda May, who has had the chance to hear the album, called it “really incredible”, adding that “the world needs to hear it”. Lauren Laverne, Jarvis Cocker, Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai and Garbage have also publicly voiced their wish to see the project released.

The existence of “No Veteran Dies Alone” was first announced by O’Connor herself back in 2021. In an interview with Rolling Stone while promoting her powerful reinterpretation of Mahalia Jackson’s “Trouble of the World”, released in 2020 together with Holmes with proceeds going to the Black Lives Matter movement, the singer had already hinted at the direction of her new work: “I’m writing about more personal things, about being a mother. The record is like a collection of letters to my children. The songs are very unconscious. I don’t yet know what the overall tone of the album will be, but that’s how it stands so far”.
Should it ever be released, “No Veteran Dies Alone” would thus stand as the Irish singer-songwriter’s first album of new material since 2014’s “I’m Not Bossy, I’m The Boss”, and the final artistic testament of one of the most intense and fearless voices in contemporary music: a work that, according to those who have heard it, retains all the honesty, vulnerability and expressive power that made Sinéad O’Connor so unique.

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