Songfacts®:

• This intensely personal song is about the three miscarriages Sinéad O'Connor endured. It was also informed by her son Jake, who was born in 1987.
  
  "The song is perhaps a prophecy of not being the perfect mother," she wrote in her memoir Rememberings. "You have dreams of being a perfect mother to your kids, but maybe you don't always turn out to be one (though you get better as you get older)."
• O'Connor was just 23 when she released this song on her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. She was married at the time to her drummer, John Reynolds, the father of her child, but they divorced a year later. O'Connor ended up having three more children, each with different fathers. Tragically, her third child, son Shane, was afflicted with many of the mental health issues that plagued Sinéad and he died by suicide in 2022 when he was 17.
• "Three Babies" was released as a single in Europe and made the charts in many countries. In America, O'Connor had become a political lightning rod, so it wasn't released there.
  
  O'Connor's first album, The Lion And The Cobra, was released in 1987 (after her son was boen) when she was 20 years old. It did business in Europe and got enough buzz in America to earn her a Grammy Nomination (Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female) and a slot performing at the 1989 ceremony, where she sang "Mandinka." She was a fresh and exciting voice who had the wind at her back when she released the I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got album in 1990. The single "Nothing Compares 2 U" went to #1 in America and many other countries, but it quickly became clear that O'Connor was an unwitting celebrity. She made news for refusing to perform at a concert unless they didn't play the National Anthem before her set, per custom at the venue. This led to scathing media coverage and a patchwork of protests for the rest of her tour. Her next album was a set of old-timey cover songs, which ensured she wouldn't have to deal with another hit single.