Sinead O’Connor has collaborated with former Hot Press scribe John Waters on a charity song that will be released in March.

Waters’ – who wrote last year’s Irish entry in Eurovision – said he penned it especially with Sinead in mind. The song is to appear on a compilation album and will be released on World Water Day in March.

Speaking to Hot Press, Waters said: “I’ve done this song with Sinead. It is pretty amazing, I can tell you. Steve Cooney is producing. It sounds amazing. It’s called 'Baby, Let Me Buy You A Drink', and it’s an attempt to catch the idea of Ireland and the Irish being both hound and hare in history, specifically in relation to Africa, and that we owe both friendship and reparation.”

Waters’ describes the singers voice as being “an absolute, total intuition for emotion”. He adds: “She can look at a song that has been sung a thousand times by other people and find what it’s really about. With the song I did, she just changed the phrasing – in ways that I hadn’t dreamt of – to make it live in a different way. What other people think in terms of technicality, she thinks in terms of emotions. So what you hear is not someone else singing, but your own heart being sung. She is not trained to be a great singer, she is trained to find the emotion of it – and that’s the key to it.”

Waters acknowledges that eyebrows might be raised by his collaboration with Sinead, particularly considering their much publicised break-up following the birth of their daughter.

“This is life. Time changes everything. We get on wonderfully these days. We had a very full-on relationship, while it lasted. Nothing that happens is separate from who you are. We were very full-on people and, inevitably, when a feeling turns, it goes radically in the other direction for a while,” he said.

“I have a great time for Sinead, quite separately from our relationship as parents. I think Sinead is a genius – a musical genius. So we get on very well now and we have the most amazing child, who fills us with wonder every day. How could you be looking at that – the creation you’ve been involved in - and not be reconciled in some profound way, you know? I have a much better relationship with Sinead than with pretty much any other ex of mine. I often wonder about people who say they have very good platonic relationships with their exes. I think that’s a terrible contradiction because it suggests that the relationship was not very passionate to begin with, if you can just stop short and say, Oh, let’s be friends. I always say, Actually, I have lots of friends, but if one of them dies I’ll let you know!”

(c) 2008 hotpress.com