Songfacts®:

• The lyrics come from an Irish poem of unknown provenance dating back to the 1600s. It's about death, telling the story of a person who will not leave the gravesite of their dead lover.
  
  O'Connor connected the song to her mother, who died in 1985. Another track on the album, "Feel So Different," is also about her mom.
• The track is built on a drum loop sampled from James Brown's 1969 track "Funky Drummer," played by Clyde Stubblefield. That sample shows up in hundreds of hip-hop tracks, but hearing it in a Sinéad O'Connor song is unexpected. An Irish singer, O'Connor had little interest in the traditional music of her homeland and instead listened to more adventurous fare, like David Bowie and Bob Dylan. She was also drawn to techno and hip-hop beats, and it was her idea to use the "Funky Drummer" sample. She says it cost $50,000, which stretched the budget but paid off when the I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got album went to #1 in many territories, including the US, UK, and of course, Ireland.
• The poem "I Am Stretched On Your Grave" has been put to music by many artists over the years (mostly Irish), but O'Connor's version is distinguished by her dynamic vocal and the hip-hop-inflected backing track. Later in 1990, Suzanne Vega got a similar sound when her song "Tom's Diner" was remixed with a modern beat.
• This is one of the songs O'Connor almost always includes in her setlists. She will sometimes dedicate it to someone in the public eye who has recently passed away.
  
  I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got is Sinéad O'Connor's second album, released in 1990 when she was 23. Her debut, The Lion And The Cobra, was released about two-and-a-half years earlier and drew some attention thanks to her striking vocals and shaved head. It even earned a Grammy nomination, and in 1989 she performed at the ceremony. It was a level of acclaim she was comfortable with, allowing her some musical freedom and financial security - her first child was born in 1987. But thanks to the runaway hit "Nothing Compares 2 U," I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got exploded, and not long after, O'Connor bucked off her celebrity, boycotting the Grammy Awards and speaking out vociferously against the industry and other oppressors. Her next album was a collection of standards and other cover songs called Am I Not Your Girl? that was intentionally uncommercial.
• Steve Wickham of The Waterboys played fiddle on this song. Wickham co-wrote The Lion And The Cobra track "Just Like U Said It Would B" with O'Connor.