During a live, musical performance on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” O’Connor sang Bob Marley’s song “War” a cappella then changed the words and inserted “child abuse,” before ending the act by holding up a photo of Pope John Paul II, saying, “fight the real enemy” and ripping the photo in two.
NBC logged more than 4,000 calls following the performance, and the following week, Joe Pesci apologetically held a taped photo of the Pope and ripped a photo of O’Connor on the show. On October 3, 2012, “The Atlantic” published a feature titled “The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor” that addressed the Catholic church’s sexual abuse scandal and O’Connor’s actions 20-years prior.
O’Connor’s performance enraged the Catholic church and faithful congregants alike. Two weeks later, when O’Connor appeared at the “30th Anniversary Bob Dylan” tribute, O’Connor was met with boos. The response left her visibly shaken, upset and angry. She walked off stage, broke into tears and Kris Kristofferson comforted her. Twenty-years later and O’Connor is still the subject of tabloid speculation and at times, media frenzy. Much has changed over the years, including what O’Connor has revealed about herself, her mental health and her often-public struggles.
One thing that hasn’t changed in O’Connor’s life is her love for music. Since challenging the Vatican in 1992, O’Connor has continued to record album after album. Though she has yet to reclaim the top spot in U.S. popular music charts, her fan base has remained constant as well as demand for her live performances.
The site “Thank You for Hearing Me” lists O’Connor’s full discography from her first single (recorded when she was 14-years-old) to her Grammy award winning debut album “The Lion and the Cobra,” and the 1990 chart topping album “I do not Want What I Haven’t Got.” O’Connor is planning a new album for 2013 and will re-release the 2012 “How about I be Me (and You be You)? After mental health issues caused her to cancel her promotional tour early.
While music has been steadfast in O’Connor’s life, she has battled depression, post-traumatic-stress-disorder, several suicide attempts and is currently living with a bi-polar disorder diagnosis. O’Connor commits her time to charitable events that promote mental-health awareness as well.
O’Connor has lived a tumultuous life. It doesn’t take one long to read her biography or her interviews to come to an understanding of the woman behind the music. In fact, it isn’t that hard to understand the enigma that is Sinead O’Connor at all. O’Connor presents a deep concern for the well-being of children.
As someone who experienced abuse in the home, her vocal care for the safety and needs of children is understandable. O’Connor’s latest concern has been for the children of imprisoned Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. Interestingly, it’s easy to see how O’Connor may in some ways identify with the public rebuke Pussy Riot has received from the church as O’Connor continues to encounter her own Vatican-driven backlash. O’Connor went as far as to write an open letter to Vladimir Putin, requesting he have mercy on the children and sentence their mothers to house arrest. Any offense against children is enough to get O’Connor fired up.
Another area where people may wish to tread cautiously around O’Connor is referencing mental health in a derogatory manner. O’Connor readily accepts her battles and diagnoses, but she will fight tooth and nail to prevent others from treating her and others as “less than” because of them. Words such as mad and crazy may be more offensive to O’Connor than a string of profanity violently hurled in her direction.
She points out that mad is not the equivalent of bad. O’Connor has inner demons she wrestles with, the remnants of a childhood more painful than many others would dare to imagine. O’Connor doesn’t run or hide from her past. She wears it in her public persona as in-your-face as her signature-shaved head.
But once you understand that, and allow O’Connor to simply “be me” as her album implies, you can readily look beyond the exterior and see O’Connor as she truly is: A wounded child who wants to help and heal others who are hurting as well.
And O’Connor does that.
The one area of O’Connor’s life that remains untarnished is the quality and depth of her music. Whether singing classic Irish folk songs, reggae renditions, ballads or pouring out her wrath and fury against stale and oppressive religions, O’Connor’s power is her music.
So, it really comes as no surprise, that 20 years ago, O’Connor introduced America to her intolerance for intolerant religions and regimes and that one of her newest songs “Take off your Shoes,” continues the decades-long tirade.
O’Connor has never shied away from letting the world know what she believes is right and wrong- and regardless of whether you agree with her views-, she is one of the music industry’s most outspoken performers.
The danger for O’Connor, however, is that due to the stigma associated with mental illness, much of O’Connor’s protests have been written off, ignored or has become the subject for tabloid fodder. Just as her voice is powerful when belting out “Nothing Compares 2 U,” the 90s hit song Prince penned that catapulted O’Connor to fame, her voice is commanding wherever she chooses to apply it.
Whether childhood sexual abuse, suicide, depression, mental illness or the oppressive practices of the Catholic church, those who are listening to O’Connor readily understand.
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