music

This may be hard to believe, but Sinéad O'Connor says she is trying to live a normal life.

That's the same O'Connor who tore up the pope's photo on "Saturday Night Live," bore four children with four different fathers, declared her lesbianism and then denied it, was ordained a priest, made a record of reggae tunes and now one of songs about God.

To prove she's trying to be normal, the Irish pop star promises to sing some oldies, including her classic, "Nothing Compares 2 U," when she performs Monday at the Pantages Theatre.

"It would be criminal if I weren't to do it," she said of her 1990 No. 1 hit that she refused to play on her 2005 reggae-oriented tour.

The concert also will draw material from her new CD, "Theology," a collection of mostly original songs with lyrics based on the Old Testament.

Having been raised Catholic in Dublin, O'Connor, 40, said her interest in music about God started with an unlikely source -- seeing "Fiddler on the Roof" as a child.

"I was in a country with black-and-white thinking, a very passionless type of expression of spirituality," she explained last week before going onstage in Los Angeles. "The whole experience of 'Fiddler on the Roof' was so colorful and passionate. The Teyve character appealed to me because he conducted his relationship with God through singing. It was all very funny and sensual and alive. I liked that. I was completely in love with him because he was always going on about the good book this and the good book that. That made me want to read the good book, which in his case was the Old Testament."Theology" openly acknowledges another musical, with a cover of "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from "Jesus Christ Superstar," a childhood favorite and "Theology's" lone nod to the New Testament.

The opening song on the new CD, "Something Beautiful," finds O'Connor confessing to stealing a Bible on Christmas Eve.

"I was pregnant with my third child, who is now 3, and I was going through some stressful circumstances; the father of the child had buggered off and has not been seen since," she explained. "I was doing my Christmas shopping, and I wanted to buy a Bible I could put in my pocket. I was miserable. I looked around and there was about 250 people in the queue, so I had a chat with God that perhaps I could steal the Bible and do something useful with it."

She did -- she recorded "Theology."

Doesn't like Prince

When religion and O'Connor are mentioned, one immediately thinks of her ripping a photo of Pope John Paul in 1992 on "Saturday Night Live" while doing an a cappella reading of Bob Marley's "War." It may be what she's best remembered for. It's certainly the No. 1 reason she recently made Blender magazine's list of the 50 craziest people in pop history.

She has no regrets.

"I'm very proud of it," she said. "It's something I stand by. At the time I took the action I took, in Ireland, everyone knew about the church, which leaned toward silence and coverup, and the issue of sexual abuse among priests. That was before anyone knew this in America. It became apparent 10 years later in America that perhaps I wasn't so stupid after all."

O'Connor's biggest musical claim to fame is "Nothing Compares 2 U," a song Prince wrote for a side project called the Family. She recorded it at the recommendation of her former manager, but it was Prince's former manager, the late Steve Fargnoli, who steered her to stardom with that song.

"Steve is kind of irreplaceable," the singer said. "In the entire 12 years that he managed me, we only had one row. He was very protective of me and a father figure."

She and Prince met, but they never did collaborate on anything musical. "Me and Prince would be like oil and water," she said. "We met each other enough to know we don't like each other."

Nowadays, family is the priority for O'Connor, who has left her kids, including 9-month-old Yeshua and 20-year-old Jake, home in Ireland. "It's tough to be without all my children," she said. But she finds it impossible to mix touring and parenting. She has enough problems to cope with.