Who Sings The New ‘Outlander’ Theme Song During the Opening Credits?

Outlander Season 7 premieres on Starz tonight at 8 PM ET/PT, but cord cutters can already stream the season premiere on the Starz app. And if you’re one of the legions of Heughligans or Galbaldon stans who has already tore through Outlander Season 7 Episode 1 “A Life Well Lost,” you might be wondering why the show’s iconic theme song, “Skye Boat Song” sounds different this year. After six seasons of hearing Raya Yarbrough sing Bear McCreary‘s version of the classic Scottish bagpipe ballad, Starz has mixed it up with a new vocalist… Sinéad O’Connor.

Way back on Valentine’s Day 2023, Starz unveiled a sneak peek at the new opening credits for Outlander Season 7. The gesture was a love letter to fans and came with a preview of O’Connor’s gritty version of the show’s theme song. While Yarbrough’s vocals carried us away to a dreamy, fantasy land where 1940s nurses can travel back in time to 17th century Scotland just to fall in love with the hottest highlander who has ever lived, O’Connor’s rendition is loaded with a tortured lifetime of emotions. You can feel the pain, joy, loss, and ecstasy that Jamie (Sam Heughan), Claire (Caitriona Balfe), and their loved ones have experienced over the last six seasons of the show. Moreover, you get a sense that the adventure is far from over yet.

Still curious about the new version of the Outlander Season 7 theme song? Here’s everything you need to know about Sinéad O’Connor’s “Skye Boat Song.”

Who Sings the New Version of the Outlander Theme Song?

Does the Outlander theme song, “Skye Boat Song,” sound a wee bit different in Season 7? That’s because Irish singer-songwriter Sinéad O’Connor has covered the version of the song made famous by composer Bear McCreary and singer Raya Yarbrough.

Sinéad O’Connor is probably most famous for singing another romantic cover. In 1990, O’Connor released her version of Prince’s 1985 song, “Nothing Compares 2 U.” A music video featuring the young O’Connor singing the song staring straight at the camera helped rocket the song to become a number one smash hit. Later, O’Connor would become infamous for tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II during a performance on Saturday Night Live.

A documentary about O’Connor’s life during this tumultuous time, Nothing Compares, premiered on Showtime last year.

What Are the Outlander Theme Song Lyrics?

The Outlander theme song lyrics are based on a version of “The Skye Boat Song” written by Robert Louis Stevenson around 1885. There have been many versions of the lyrics, going all the way back to the Gaelic version “Cuachag nan Craobh,” which was about a guy sobbing to a cuckoo bird that his crush hated him. However 21st century folks probably know the Outlander lyrics best:

Sing me a song of a lass that is gone,
Say, could that lass be I?
Merry of soul she sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.

Billow and breeze, islands and seas,
Mountains of rain and sun,
All that was good, all that was fair,
All that was me is gone.

Sing me a song of a lass that is gone,
Say, could that lass be I?
Merry of soul she sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.

A bagpipe-only version of the classic song was played during Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. It is unclear if she liked the song because of its sonic composition, its history of being associated with the doomed Jacobite cause, or because she was a hardcore Heughligan.