Songfacts®:

• "Thank You For Hearing Me" is about Sinéad O'Connor's split from Peter Gabriel; she sang on his 1992 album Us, appearing on the tracks "Blood Of Eden" and "Come Talk To Me." O'Connor describes their relationship as "an on-and-off fling in which I was basically weekend pu--y."
  
  In her book Rememberings, she wrote: "Once I got fed up with being weekend pu--y, I wrote this sort of split-up song. But it became, over the years, my favorite song to perform live because it just could take you, like a mantra, to these stratospheres of almost hypnosis."
  
  She added: "I'm very, very proud of it as a breakup song, considering the fact that one is entitled to smash plates when one realizes one is being treated as weekend pu--y."
• Without knowing the backstory, this song sounds like a sincere ode to a committed lover, with O'Connor repeating the lines:
  
  Thank you for hearing me
  Thank you for loving me
  Thank you for seeing me
  And for not leaving me
  
  But at the end, we find out why she's really thankful:
  
  Thank you for breaking my heart
  Thank you for tearing me apart
  Now I've a strong, strong heart
  
  It's a positive spin on a painful breakup, and a good way to move forward. Ariana Grande explored a similar theme in her 2018 hit "Thank U, Next."
• O'Connor wrote the song with John Reynolds, her first husband and father to her first child, Jake. Long after their divorce, they continued working together. He also played drums on the track.
• The official music video has a rebirth theme, with O'Connor floating into a capsule and emerging from the void. It's not clear who directed this video but Richard Heslop shot a different one with O'Connor in Ireland that's much more down-to-earth. It wasn't released, but he posted it online in 2012.
• "Thank You For Hearing Me" was released as a single from Sinéad O'Connor's fourth album, Universal Mother. It did well in the UK, reaching #13.
  
  O'Connor was considered toxic in America at this point, so the song got little attention there. She took a lot of heat in the media when she boycotted the Grammy Awards, tore up a photo of the Pope on live TV, and refused to let a venue play the national anthem before she performed. She never wanted to be famous, so the smaller fanbase suited her.