Sinéad O'Connor
How could I possibly know what I want?
[Sinead O’Connor died on July 26, 2023. She was 56 years old. It’s been difficult to process.]
When Sinead O’Connor’s first album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987, it blew the lid off of everything. O’Connor was 21, a year and a half younger than I was, and yet she seemed to have a depth of knowledge beyond her years (and mine). It was easy to forget how young she was. And she was clearly experienced in ways I couldn’t relate to. (I didn’t know it at the time, but she was pregnant with her first child while the album was being recorded—a situation that would have been unthinkable for me at that age).
But ‘87 was a pretty tough year for me, and I related to her raw intensity, and to the despair and the longing that wound their way through almost every song. It was for me, by far, the most important album that came out that year.
By the time I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got came out almost three years later, I had practically worn out the vinyl of The Lion and the Cobra.
“I am Stretched on Your Grave” was the first track that grabbed my attention. It came out of nowhere. On an album comprised of songs about relationships, racism, the poverty of conservatism, divorce, motherhood, and maybe even resilience, “I Am Stretched on Your Grave” stood alone—spare, hypnotic, and haunting.
As brilliant an artist as O’Connor is, there aren’t many of her songs I’ll listen to no matter what. Her work can be so heavy, intense, complex, and introspective it demands a level of engagement I don’t alway feel up for.
“No Man’s Woman,” the lead single on Faith and Courage (2000), is an exception. In it, O’Connor is reclaiming her self while setting the terms of her connection to others, particularly men.
It’s just a great tune.
BONUS TRACKS
As far as I’m concerned, this is the best song on The Lion and the Cobra, which is really saying something. It’s both ethereal and earthly, a keening, wailing, emphatic, cri de coeur. Even when O’Connor’s tone is hushed, there’s an urgency that suggests no matter how much she wants what she wants, she knows on some level that there’s no guarantee she’s going to get it.
Every time I hear this song it unsettles me (which is one of the reasons I may not always be in the mood to listen to it).
Sung by Irish singer Dana at the 1970 Eurovision contest, “All Kinds of Everything” (by Derry Lindsay and Jackie Smith), was covered by O’Connor and Terry Hall 28 years later. The recording appeared on O’Connor’s 2005 album Collaborations, which I didn’t know existed until her death less than a month ago. And I’d never heard this song or seen the video, either.
Speaking truth to power all those years ago—after her a cappella performance of Bob Marley’s “War” on Saturday Night Live in 1992, when she ripped a picture of John Paul II in half saying, “Fight the real enemy”—didn’t just derail her career, it effectively destroyed it. And not because she was wrong, but because people with more power and fame condemned her without bothering to consider whether or not she was telling the truth.
After that, It seemed the only time we heard about her was if she said something controversial or was struggling publicly with her mental health.
But O’Connor knew of what she spoke. After years of physical abuse at the hands of her mother, she was sent at the age of 14 to one of the Magdalene laundries, a network of infamous work houses run by the Catholic Church. The nuns who oversaw the laundries promised to “reform” the girls and women in their care—almost every one a victim of rape, domestic abuse, incest, and misogyny. But, instead, they were effectively incarcerated, only to be abused more, in sometimes unspeakable ways, by the Church.
This backstory makes it all the more extraordinary that O’Connor was capable of summoning this performance. There’s a thrilling purity to her voice, an innocence to her that defies the terrible knowledge that was forced upon her from the time she was a child.
About the song itself, Hall said, “There are lines here that if it had ‘copyright Leonard Cohen’ people’d say it’s a work of genius.” And he was right—it is.
“Dances
Romances
Things of the night
Sunshine and holidays
Postcards to write
Budding trees
Autumn leaves
A snowflake or two
All kinds of everything remind me of you.”
When I see O’Connor in this video, I think of what might have been if she’d been free of her traumatic past and unburdened by other people’s expectations—if, in other words, she had been allowed to be herself without being punished for it.
If Sinead O’Connor were still alive, this beautiful, unexpected, uplifting, and perfectly rendered song, would be one I could listen to on a loop. But her absence makes it too heartbreaking.
Mary, thank you so very much. It is so very fitting that Sinead O'Connor has such a beautiful tribute. I suffered four years at the hands of the Magdalenes as well. What a thing it would have been to experience life without the echoes of incarceration. I am sending you a hug with so many thanks for honoring this beautiful soul in this manner.
Dear Mary,
Although Irish and liberal I am sad to say I was shocked when Sinead tore up the photo and never followed her career Until now At 85 I see the errors of my ways and have to wonder how Sinead knew who JOHN PAUL11 really was at that young age. It is only in the last few years I've learned about the man under those robes. Sinead must have been an advanced soul, one who lived many lifetimes and had an inner knowing I certainly lacked.
I listened to the song with Terry Hall you included and got glimpses of a momentary happiness pass on Sineads beautiful face. I had no idea she was in one of the Magdalene houses in Ireland. My heart hurts for what she must have endured in that Hell Hole.
Thank you Mary for introducing me to Sinead. I wish I had her wisdom.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we told those who mean a lot to us, not only family, how much we value their lives while they are here to hear it instead of after they've gone. Perhaps I need to practice what I preach!