If my thoughts-my dreams could be seen, they,d probably put my head in a guillotine

SinÉad Lohan is a spacer. She arrives for this interview, explaining that, having just flown in from the States, she's "jet-lagged." However, it soon becomes apparent that our Sinéad is time-lagged. As in, blessed - or cursed - with the kind of mind that seems determined to operate on two, or more, levels at the same time. And ne'er the twain shall meet.

Sinéad clearly ain't joking when she says she would have called her new album Time Out Of Mind if Bob Dylan hadn't gotten there first. In fact, it's called No Mermaid, which could be seen as much the same thing. If you're totally stoned. Or if you're Sinéad, on one of her more surrealistic flights of fancy. But, before we can even begin to try to traverse her slippery psyche Sinéad Lohan is off and running, talking about how important this album is to her career.

"I started doing gigs eight, nine years ago and I was only playing a few weeks, when Declan Sinnott came to me and said 'I want to record your songs'. So, before I knew it, I was in the studio," she recalls, sitting in a pub in Rathmines, drinking mineral water.

"Yet I had no experience of singing into a studio microphone, wearing headphones, any of that. And because Declan was doing the recording in his time off and just learning, himself, the recording and engineering process, it took us two years to do that first album. Then we got a deal, with Dara here and Grapevine abroad. And what all this means is that without even really knowing what I was doing I had an album out, Who Do You Think I Am?. It did well, sold about 35,000 here in Ireland and maybe 45,000 in total. But, in the end I was promoting it and I realised it didn't represent what I was doing.

"By this stage I was more experienced at singing, writing new songs, so, to tell you the truth, I got a bit sick of doing the songs from the first album. So I decided to get myself together to do this one and Grapevine were great, they just said 'what music are you listening to?', 'what producer do you want?' And I met some, but Malcolm Burn got a demo of me playing the new songs and when we met, I knew within a half hour, I could spend time with this man, so that's how the whole thing came into being."

Malcolm Burn produced Patti Smith's last album, Gone Again, "and a lot of hip-hop and trip-hop stuff but mostly works with Daniel Lanois," Sinéad informs me. The latter is probably the single most unnecessary piece of information she will ever pass on in her life, since a pretty close approximation of Lanois's trademark "moody atmospherics," - as evident in his work with the likes of Dylan (on two albums, Time Out Of Mind and Oh Mercy), U2, The Neville Brothers and on his own solo albums - seeps through every note on No Mermaid.

"Well, if you look at all the albums Daniel has done, Malcolm is there, credited with production ideas," Sinéad explains. "And, in fact, yeah, the studio I recorded in, in New Orleans, Malcolm's studio, did contribute a great deal to what you hear on the record. It was hot outside, but inside everything was so laid-back. And as I am so laid-back anyway, it was like when Malcolm'd say, 'okay, will we do another track?' I'd say, 'Why not?'. No pressure at all. And I really was going to call thisTime Out of Mind because that is a line in one of the songs, 'Out of The Woods'. But then I opened a paper and said 'My God! Bob Dylan has stolen my line. The cheeky git!' So I had to change it!"

So, does Sinéad like Dylan's much-acclaimed "comeback" album?

"It's so heavy," she says, emphasising the last word in a way that suggests it is more negative than positive. "I think people just got excited because it was Bob Dylan, making that album. So after all the hype, I was disappointed. I wanted songs that get to me. And that long one at the end ('Highlands') just made me go, 'Bob, what are you doing?" It just goes on and on! So, a lot of it is just too much. I prefer to listen to his older albums, like Another Side of Bob Dylan, which is where I got 'To Ramona', that was a single here for me a while ago."

'To Ramona', of course, is one of Dylan's more sympathetic early love songs. But, hey, with a title like that, it should come as no surprise that it is addressed to a woman. So, come clean, Sinéad, why were you singing a love song to a person of your own sex?

"Why not!" she grins.

So who is the lucky woman?

"I'm not saying. She doesn't want to be mentioned in public!"

Why? Is she pregnant?

"No. I'm not taking Viagra! But, seriously, I'm singing the song because it is a beautiful love song, very poetic. It could be a song to my daughter, if I had one! Or maybe a man who becomes 'Ramona' at weekends! What does it matter? It felt right for me to sing it. Dylan got a copy of the single, from Mark Spector, my new manager in the States who knows Jeff, his manager. And Dylan apparently heard it and said he wanted his 'sentiments expressed to the singer' that he 'liked' the version I did. That's a nice compliment, I guess. If it's true!"

A more tangible compliment is that Joan Baez recorded two of Sinéad's songs on her last album, and she reports that in America "there is great interest in my songs with substantial offers coming in from people who want to record them."

Sinéad Lohan, it transpires, does not like writing songs that are too specific, which leads us back into that subject of how her brain always seems to be operating on many levels, seeing the world in a multi-layered, allusive, elliptical sense.

"As a songwriter I feel it is my job not to be specific so I disguise things, make the lyrics more universal, so anyone can relate as opposed to it being all 'me, me, me' which is not something I like in music," she explains. "Working that way also is creativity in its purest sense. As in inventing things, such as characters, situations, other worlds, other places, imaginary scenarios, all that."

But is Sinéad's tendency towards self-projection also rooted in a fear of self-disclosure? She has, after all, a reputation for being less than loquacious and revealing during interviews.

"'Afraid' isn't a word that enters my vocabulary," she says. "Of course I don't want everyone knowing everything about me or seeing my songs as just confessional. In music you see that all the time. Songwriters saying 'this happened to me, so I had to write about it'. What they forget is that people don't really care. Not about what happened to them. Everybody is caught up in their own world, own concerns. And songs are supposed to make people think and feel maybe a little clearer about their own lives. What we're listening for is the sentence that maybe reminds us of something we went through.

Mightn't such comments lead some to suspect that Sinéad's songs aren't "authentic" in an emotional sense?

"The sentiments in my songs are sincere, the emotion, when I sing, the way I play guitar, is," she asserts. "That's why it doesn't matter if I only play a few chords or if I'm not the world's greatest singer. Despite what I just said about my songs not being specifically about my life they are real and there is, to me, a lack of that kind of reality or, authenticity in the music business. There are too many people out there who just sing what they think an audience wants them to sing. That's not how I do things. Like, I don't think what Alanis Morissete sings is real. I think its manufactured. If I really felt as cut up as she claims to be I wouldn't be a professional singer-songwriter touring constantly. I would be more of a recluse."

Isn't Sinéad being a little insensitive? Not so much in relation to Morisette as, for example, a singer-songwriter like Tori Amos who claims that singing even about a rape experence is therapeutic? Does Sinéad believe this to be true?

"I don't care what she thinks or does, to tell you the truth," she replies, matter-of-factly. "I don't care about what anybody else is doing in this area, or their reasons. But whereas Tori Amos may sing about rape because it helps her, other songwriters I know, suddenly decide to write about such things because they see it as potential material for a hit. These are the people who work full-time at this, go into an office every day and write from nine-to-five. I've no time for any of that. And, yes, I can hear the difference between, say, a song that comes from that kind of setting and something that may be totally truthful, like Tori Amos. But these days I hear too many lies in music."

Reflecting back on those days when she was a teenager watching Top Of The Pops, Sinéad admits to being "disillusioned" as a result of learning that "the music business is, more than anything else, just that, a business." More than this, she believes it is full of what she regards as too many pedestrian talents, too few true artists.

"I used to listen to The Police and The Jam and all that, then you get older and you discover a work like, say, Joni Mitchell's Hejira album or Bob Dylan and you go 'Oh my God! This is amazing stuff, this is what music really is all about'," she muses. "And when I heard someone like Joni Mitchell being so close-to-the-bone, getting is so right, that set the ultimate standard for me.

"Then again, bands like Police were great in their own right, but, say someone like The Nolans, obviously were nothing but tripe. Back when I saw them as a kid I'd say 'oh, they're onTop of The Pops so they must be the best there is' but then you find out that the music business is all about sales figures and hype and how well a record is backed by your record company, whatever. That's what gets you in the charts, not necessarily quality. And now I also realise that some of the best songwriters never get recording deals, while, at the same time packaged boy bands and girl bands rule the charts."

So, apart from Joni and Dylan, who, to Sinéad are the greatest songwriters, and which albums contain truly great songs?

"Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and No Guru, No Method, No Teacher," she answers without hesitation. "They seem real to me, I can relate to them in a way I can't relate to other music. And, even as a songwriter, I listen to the way someone like Joni sings, structures verses, lines, sounds some times like a jazz instrumentalist. Same with Van, of course. That, to me is where pop music is at its best, what I aspire towards all the time, even if I never, y'know, get there! I'm not like that. It's like I, eh . . ."

At this point Sinéad Lohan suddenly slips into one of her more ill-focused moments (most of which have been edited from this interview) and she has to be hauled back with the question: "like what, Sinéad"?

"What? Not particularly like that. What are we doing here? Oh yeah 'stay-on-the-track, Sinéad'," she responds, laughing. "The truth is I do have a very short attention span."

Obviously. But why? Does Sinéad smoke too much dope? Did she go on a "trip" some years ago, from which she has yet to return?

"No!" she says, smiling. "I don't need to get stoned. I feel stoned all the time! But, seriously, it is awful, I do have a very fragmented span of attention. But I was always like this. So, what other business would I survive in? Other than art? Nobody else would put up with this! Can you imagine me arriving for work in the morning, saying, 'wait a while now, I'll be in-focus, get it together any minute now!" Then I'd wander off. So, in music, I do get away with murder in that sense! Because I do wander off, even when I'm talking to people and they just say 'oh, she's an artist, let her go!' But you're not having any of that, so, back on-the track, will we start the interview all over again?"

Eh, no. But would Sinéad please, at least, try to explain why the models of excellence in music she mentioned all seem to come from an era roughly around the time she was born, in 1971.?

"Well, you tell me what 'great albums' have come out in the '90s? Who will be remembered in 20, 30 years as having released albums that match those I mention?"

Run by her names like Tricky, Radiohead, Massive Attack, Portishead and U2, and she pauses before answering.

"U2? I wouldn't be playing their music too much but I like what they did with Lanois! But, to tell you the truth, I prefer Gavin Friday because his approach is that he creates characters, a whole different world, as in his Shag Tobacco album, which I love! I also like Sinéad, I think she's great. Tori Amos, her latest album has amazing songs on it. And Massive Attack and Portishead. But of everyone you mention I'd still rather listen to Marvin Gaye. Maybe I'm just missing something."

Suddenly, Sinéad is free-associating again, tripping lightly through the years.

"Remember I said, earlier that I was bored still singing the songs from the first album?" she asks, rhetorically. "Well, there still are one or two I would sing, like 'Come Take Me Out'. I wrote that while I was sitting under the keyboard section of a piano at home late one might, when the family had gone to bed and I was hearing all these melodies in my head. I wanted to sing them out loud, but couldn't, so I wrote that song, saying 'come let me out' which is something I still can relate to."

In what sense? Is Sinéad tortured by music?

"I'm 'tortured' full stop!"

But is she the kind of composer who feels she might actually go nuts if the songs don't find some release?

"Probably," she muses. "But not just in relation to music. I am thinking all the time. Like, minutes ago, you called me a spacer which is okay, but really, it's just that I never seem to be able to stop thinking, even when I am focusing on what I'm saying to someone! I used to think everyone was like this and then I realised that's not true so I tend to shut up about my thoughts, tell myself 'don't say anything, keep it to yourself'. Maybe that's why the thoughts do come bursting out when I'm writing. But, also, I never relax, take time off, play tennis, or whatever. I'm always on, like this, all the time, always intense.

"Sometimes I get a song out of that, sometimes not. Then I get an album recorded and a big US record deal with Interscope and I just go 'that's nice' but it's not what it's all about. I never set out to be a 'star' or be famous. I never really set my sights on any of that, still don't."

Does Sinéad Lohan ever crack up?

"No, because I am centred. I still have the people who were close to me when I was young, as in my family. And, I've a very strong relationship with (boyfriend) John, who knows me for years and years and knows how to deal with all this. But we did decide he should give up the job he was in and work full-time for me. He's an accountant and is well-up on publishing and things like that, so it works at all levels. In other words, I'm not that "scatty"! Or, if I am, he balances things out. So, no, I don't think there is any danger of me cracking up

"That's why, earlier, when I was trying to say I see through a lot of the shit in this business, I should have said it probably is because of John," she continues. "He has always kept me centred. That's why what matters most to me is my relationship with him. I'm realistic about all this. If No Mermaids doesn't sell and I get dropped by the record company, it's not as if I'm going to lose my mind! I have what I need to survive in this life and it has nothing to do with records."

"I honestly can't understand anybody who places that much importance on getting to number one, or having a 'hit' album, it really isn't that important to me," she expands. "Of course I want my songs to get to people but if they don't, so be it, I'll just go back to the house in West Cork, I have with John. I'm not saying I'm always happy or that I have everything I want, but fame, to me never was the goal. I've always known we're all going to be dead in a few years, so what do things like that really matter, in the end? The thing I value is people. Records come and go."

Nevertheless, before we take a few more steps towards the grave shouldn't Sinéad and I get back to discussing her new record, and songs like 'Loose Ends'?

"I like 'Loose Ends' a lot because I'm happy with the way I sang it," she says. "It was New Orleans, hot, I'd just walked over from where I was staying and got this vocal in no more than two takes. It was recorded real close to the microphone, with a slight sample underneath, going round-and-round. What I like to achieve in songs is a hypnotic effect, so that, really, you don't know what I'm saying, you just slide into a particular frame-of-mind and forget about everything else.

"A writer who has been a huge influence on me is Lewis Carroll. I love the whole Alice In Wonderland thing. It always fascinated me. As in using your imagination to get out of this world, completely. That's why I don't like being dragged back into it, being asked 'What happened you? What do you really feel?' 'Who are you seeing?' You're right. I am a 'spacer'. I'm away, half the time, off somewhere else. The whole idea of imagination is constantly twinkling in my head, constantly drawing me in another direction. And that is where I like to spend most of my time. It's the most rewarding place, for me."

As in wafting her way through another of her album's slow, moodier set-pieces, 'Hot On Your Trail'?

"Actually, I think I may be better at them than the up-tempo things!" Sinéad laughs. "But you have to throw in a few of the others, as well! Even so, 'Loose Ends' and 'Hot On Your Trail' are probably the two tracks on this album where, yeah, you do see more of who I am, in the sense of me being a sort of magician, illusionist, whatever, trying to pull people into that web. The same applies to 'Believe It If You Like' which also probably sums up my attitude to life. Not in an aggressive way. It may seem like I'm saying 'believe what I'm saying or fuck off' but, to me, it's more 'maybe you're picking me up the wrong way.' Yet, I really do get weary trying to explain why I do things, where I come from, who I am.

"The fact is that I am here and I am making music and I am going to continue to make music even, as I said, if no one buys this album! But my overall philosophy really is that I don't have to justify anything to anybody. Besides, there are millions of other things for people to listen to, if they don't like me!" n

•Sinéad Lohan is currently on tour. See National Rhythm Guide.