I saw Sinead O’Connor being interviewed on a chat show here on Friday night. I’ve always liked Sinead. She is an extraordinary singer (see clip below) but a maverick who would not play the celebrity game; hence she has had far less commercial success than she could have had.
She has always been painfully honest, intense and vulnerable. When she speaks out on something it is because she feels it and she cares, and she knows whereof she speaks … she is the antithesis of the vacuous rock star dabbling in ‘causes’. She is loved by many in Ireland; I don’t doubt that many despise her too.
Sinead has always been very attracted to religion, and an outspoken critic of the Catholic Church. Her critique is more telling, in my view, as it doesn’t come from an atheistic or sectarian perspective but from someone who would love to see the Catholic Church be what it could be if it lost all the garbage.
Her recent article in the Washington Post is worth a read, in my opinion.
Boadicea's Chariot 
I read the article. I also read a book about John Paul II, and I sympathise with Sinead’s tearing up of his photo… she was right.
I wonder whether the RC community will tackle its crisis with due conviction. So far there’s a lot of scurring for cover.
Boadicea hello. I don’t know much about JPII apart from the fact that he was very conservative.
I went to see him in Galway in 1979, but that was more a drunken escapade than an act of obeisance.
Janus, the church will do the bare minimum and hope that all will blow over. Apparent loss of power is the only thing that will make it move, sadly. I hope the RC community worldwide will withdraw at least part of its engagement.
I remember it, back in 1987, sitting in front of my speaker, listening to this song that blew me away
I have been a fan ever since and forgive Sinnead her occasional “of the rails” behaviour.
Happy Easter Brendano.
i like a lot of her stuff but always considered her a singer of limited ability. tearing up pictures of popes and comedians on live tv always struck me as a lazy and convenient gesture guaranteed to maximize attention. But as you say, not everyone can admire her!
Brendano
I’ll see if I can dig up the title and author – it had my hair standing on end. If only half of it were true then the cover-up under his regime was horrendous.
If it was as bad as the book portrayed then I can understand why the present Pontiff does not want to make it public. John Paul (and the present Pope) was /is a symbol of the Catholic Church breaking free from being seen an Italian sinecure. Their elevations to the Papacy gave it a far more ‘Universal’ image than it has had for many years. To have that newly-acquired image damaged by scandal is the last thing the Church wants.
What they don’t seem to realise is that their ‘flock’ are far more educated and worldly wise than they were half a century ago and will not buy into platitudes and cover-ups.
And after reading the article, may I suggest that all the Choir boys at today’s mess will break out into a hearty rendition of Troy. 🙂
Hello Rainer … Happy Easter to you too. It’s a long time since I heard that track … it’s so good it gives me the shivers. She was just a kid of 20 or so then.
There has been plenty of ‘off the rails’ behaviour, but I agree with you. Her heart has always been in the right place, and she hasn’t been afraid to express it, though she’s actually a very shy person.
Thanks for that, Rainer. 🙂
Thanks, Boadicea. I hope your last sentence is correct. The rest of your comment doesn’t surprise me. In many ways it is a rotten organization which needs a complete overhaul. It would be better that it collapse completely than continue in its present form, in my opinion.
cb, I can’t think of a rock singer for whom the phrase ‘limited ability’ would be less appropriate. How many rock singers can sing and hold an audience unaccompanied?
There is some minimal accompaniment on this one …
Now the above sent shivers through my spine. 😥
I watched an interview of her on CNN just last week, they showed the clip of her tearing up the Popes photo.
I was first introduced to her music in the early ’90s, Sacrifice.
Thanks, Soutie … I enjoyed that.
Yes, there was a big fuss about the Pope thing at the time. I didn’t understand the fuss.
Brend,
as i said, i kind of like a lot of her stuff – can’t see the clips everyone has posted because of the firewall thing, but i remember hearing Stretched on your Grave for the first time and thought it was quite striking, but even on that track you can hear the limited range of her voice. There was another CD that came our aroudn the same time – Red, Hot and Blue – that had artists singing covers of Cole Porter; the difference between her voice and K.D.Lang’s who gave a similar intepretation of her chosen song was marked. She’s a good performer though. I like the rest of that “I do not want..” CD too, but cringed at some of the lyrics even then. I don’t know about now, but back then she seemed to pick up on controversial topics and make outrageous comments and then move on to the next one. Good music though.
Hello cb .. I remember buying that CD in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1990. As it happens, on Friday night she said she listens to some of her old stuff and finds it embarrassing (‘Jesus, did I really write that?’) (she may have meant ‘Black Boys on Mopeds’) but that other songs still are emotional … she said she could never tire of ‘Nothing Compares 2U’ (not one of her own, I know).
Disagree about ‘Stretched on Your Grave’ etc. … she is very strong in the high register and can go low, so I don’t see the limitations. She can also switch instantaneously from soft to very strong. I think she’s technically very good as well as having a great expressive quality in her voice.
I bought a KD Lang CD once … there was such a solecism somewhere in the lyrics that I listened to it just once. I can see that she’s very good, but she doesn’t particularly grab me.
Hello Brendano; I do remember her being on the radio for what seemed like weeks, months, when I was at school. Along with Bryan Adams and ROxette – or Roxanne, was it…? She seemed totally alien and weird to us all at the time – not at all Belinda Carlislish, or Bangles-ish, who were the ones we all wanted to be, along with Julia Roberts, of course. But even then, we could see that she did have a certain je ne sais quoi, a magical, haunting voice, a presence. I remember hearing later on that she had become a nun or something…? And it still beats me why such a beautiful girl wanted to look all GI Jane…
But I think you’re right about her – she was and still is, utterly captivating.
Hello Claire .. how are you? Yes, Sinead is a strange cookie. For 20 years people here have been greeting her escapades in an ‘Oh God, what’s Sinead up to now?’ kind of way. I think she was going around dressed as a Catholic priest, and claiming to be one, for a while. But it’s not done for attention. The musicians she works with, such as The Chieftains and Sly & Robbie, speak of her with great warmth and affection.
I sometimes think that if a Martian tried to decipher human life from rock music, they wouldn’t know that women get pregnant except from Sinead’s songs … it would all be sex without consequence. Sinead herself has children aged from six to 23, I think.
Hello Brendano! Hope you had a nice Easter weekend. Sinead O’Connor is one of those mad singers who fits the original definituion of the beautiful artist who went mad for her art, I reckon. I alsoI think it’s very true that she probably could have a lot more commercil success if she had wanted to though.
Right must go. The DVD collection is being transformed into scratched frisbees as I write.