Sinéad
Got the Sinéad O'Connor news yesterday the same way you did. It’s strange the way we learn of death these days. A Facebook post or a tweet. And then we rush to Google to confirm. And by that time it’s everywhere. Such things make their way ‘round this increasingly smallish world in seconds. It gives us the illusion of feeling connected.
Sinéad had just lost her 17 year old son last year. A suicide. No cause of her death was given, so that thought hung in the air. And still does as I write this. She may have just wanted to see her boy again. If that’s the case, I hope they are locked in an eternal embrace. A cruel world is only embraced by cruel people. This place may have finally overwhelmed her.
She was my age. I was struck by that. I don’t know why. She always seemed younger. And she was Irish, of course. Defiantly, splendidly Irish. The kind of Irish my yankee heart still dreams of. As Irish as the Irish sea. She was the kind of Irish that you read about in Irish novels. She was the kind of Irish that makes un-Irish people nervous. Fierce and funny and salty and beautiful in ways nobody was used to.
And she was forever a warrior, sacrificing what could have been a mammoth career by standing up for things she fiercely believed in. She was abused as a child by her relentlessly Catholic Mother. She despised the hypocrisy of the Church, and was later vindicated when various popes and their minions were outed all over the world for being a gang of sexual deviants preying on children. But nobody who gleefully tore her down ever apologized. She was simply discarded……and spent the rest of her days relentlessly pursuing a peace that always seemed to elude her.
She was destined to be lionized only in death. It’s so easy to call her brave after the fact. Easier still to call her crazy while she was still here. Mere hours after she’s gone, everybody suddenly understands her? Everybody was with her all along? Bullshit. You laughed when Frank Sinatra and Joe Pesci threatened to kill her. You hooted her off the stage at that Dylan tribute concert. You mocked the way she looked and what she believed and were furious when she informed you that Prince, who wrote her biggest song after all, was an abusive and even rapey weirdo she had to physically flee from.
Hell, even Madonna hooted at her.
We all failed her. And still do. This from yesterday’s Rolling Stone magazine obit…
…..the fiery Irish singer-songwriter whose striking voice briefly made her an unlikely pop superstar while her bold public stances on child abuse, war, and organized religion made her a controversial figure, has died at the age of 56.
Her “bold public stances” were being AGINST child abuse, war, and organized religion! What the fuck is so bold about that? What it left out is that such stances are only “bold” and “controversial” when they come from a woman.
She is two images. That video. Her extraordinary face filling the screen. That solitary, unscripted tear at the end. And later, her pulling out that picture of the pope, ripping it, and flipping the pieces into the camera lens. On live television. Every obit focuses on both events. A life boiled down to 2 songs (she sang Bob Marley’s “War” on Saturday Night Live) she didn’t even write. The rise….and then the fall. The beatific saint….and then the incorrigible sinner.
She didn’t sing the blues, but she did have hellhounds on her trail. Her voice was manic and unhinged and never met a note it didn’t think it could hit. It practically keened at times….like a banshee. The men in suits grew nervous and wanted her to tart up her image, grow out her hair and wear skirts and high heels. She responded by shaving her head and settling into hoodies and scuffed Doc Martens. If she was going to make it, it wasn’t going to be as a piece of ass.
In her island isolation, she created her own style. Once told she sounded like Grace Slick, she replied “Grace who?” She was once asked how much Aretha Franklin music she had devoured and she answered “I don’t know. Who’s Aretha Franklin?”
She became, for a brief moment, the biggest pop star in the world. On her own terms. I'm not sure that had ever happened before. Or since.
And then she was gone.
Godspeed Sinéad. I wish you peace and love and no more war.
In a bit…
—tf
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