Sinead O'Connor has died

[Kevbad the Bad]

Just watched and listened to her singing Nothing Compares 2U, followed by Foggy Dew with The Chieftains. Got all emotional.

I was reminded of seeing a tv programme of her recording Foggy Dew with the Chieftains in the studio. They'd never met before and you could see the uncertainty in the body language of the Chieftains confronted with this controversial figure. But once she started singing all the uncertainty was swept away. Brilliant.

 

[Karl Masks]

Nothing Compares is not my taste at all, but she was a phenomenal singer and, it seems, a decent human being.

 

[what]

Very sad. RIP
Remember being in the Lock Tavern in Camden the first time I heard her voice. I think it was the first time I went and asked the bar staff who was playing. It was so original and captivating

 

[RoyReed]

Poor troubled soul - rest in peace Sinéad.

 

[editor]

I don;t agree with a lot of his words, but he hits some home truths here

She had only so much ‘self’ to give. She was dropped by her label after selling 7 million albums for them

Morrissey has written a vociferous tribute to the late Sinéad O’Connor, decrying the media and music industry over a lack of support for the singer.

Praising her “proud vulnerability”, he writes on his website: “There is a certain music industry hatred for singers who don’t ‘fit in’ (this I know only too well), and they are never praised until death – when, finally, they can’t answer back […] You praise her now ONLY because it is too late. You hadn’t the guts to support her when she was alive and she was looking for you.


“The press will label artists as pests because of what they withhold … and they would call Sinead sad, fat, shocking, insane … oh but not today! Music CEOs who had put on their most charming smile as they refused her for their roster are queueing-up to call her a ‘feminist icon’, and 15 minute celebrities and goblins from hell and record labels of artificially aroused diversity are squeezing onto Twitter to twitter their jibber-jabber … when it was YOU who talked Sinead into giving up … because she refused to be labelled, and she was degraded, as those few who move the world are always degraded.”

The former Smiths frontman compares her to similarly troubled female stars who died relatively young – Judy Garland, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Monroe and Billie Holiday – adding: “She was a challenge, and she couldn’t be boxed-up, and she had the courage to speak when everyone else stayed safely silent. She was harassed simply for being herself. Her eyes finally closed in search of a soul she could call her own.”

‘You hadn’t the guts to support her’: Morrissey decries music industry after Sinéad O’Connor’s death

Former Smiths frontman writes impassioned screed on his website, criticising media and record labels for lack of support of O’Connor during her life

www.theguardian.com

 

[Idris2002]

Just watched and listened to her singing Nothing Compares 2U, followed by Foggy Dew with The Chieftains. Got all emotional.

I was reminded of seeing a tv programme of her recording Foggy Dew with the Chieftains in the studio. They'd never met before and you could see the uncertainty in the body language of the Chieftains confronted with this controversial figure. But once she started singing all the uncertainty was swept away. Brilliant.

Back when I was in door-to-door sales, my boss was a wanker - but he would have some decent music on in the car, including the O'Connor versh of the Foggy Dew.

A few years later I said to one of my cousins (think "if Ross O'Caroll-Kelly was a hippy") and said to him "that Sinead O'Connor version of the Foggy Dew is really good" and got a tirade about how the song was never meant to be sung by a woman. Well, shows what he fucking knows, I must say.

RTE radio news close their morning news show today with a clip of her singing TFD. And there it is folks, you really don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

 

[Idris2002]

 

[RainbowTown]

I don;t agree with a lot of his words, but he hits some home truths here

‘You hadn’t the guts to support her’: Morrissey decries music industry after Sinéad O’Connor’s death

Former Smiths frontman writes impassioned screed on his website, criticising media and record labels for lack of support of O’Connor during her life

www.theguardian.com

Totally concur. This is one hell of a fierce tribute, coming from a place of real impassioned anger. And some of that anger seems pretty well justified.

 

[Yossarian]

Such a sad loss - it reminds me a little of George Michael how many stories of good deeds etc. are emerging

 

[skyscraper101]

Found unresponsive in SE24. I didn't know she lived in Herne Hill.

 

[Weller]

View attachment 384765

Thanks for posting that remember it Ive just watched an interview where she says she only met Prince once as a young vulnerable woman and he hit her whilst on heavy drugs because she wouldnt sign up to be one of his girls she had to run to another apartment and ring the bell for help like her mother told her to always do back in Ireland
She was always so much more than this media Princes nothingcompares2U singer

"because if you acknowledge that a girl who has been raped should be allowed to leave the country to have an abortion then you are acknowledging that abortion is acceptable in certain circumstances and if it acceptable for an Irish woman to leave the country to have an abortion why cant she have it (safely) here , to send her away is another Irish solution to an Irish problem"

Sinead Oconner Socialist Worker March 1992

 

[Idris2002]

One of my old colleagues in Auckland told me that she saw Sinead live when she appeared at the Kiwi WOMAD. "There's an amusing story about a duck I'll let you google".

And here is that amusing story about the duck:

https://www.waikatoindependent.co.nz/2015/03/sinead-oconnor-ducks-out-of-performance/21038/

 

[trashpony]

Found unresponsive in SE24. I didn't know she lived in Herne Hill.

She moved back to London earlier this month

 

[Aladdin]

Thought this might be something some of the London Urbs might like to know about.

 

[Idris2002]

Her song "Troy" was inspired by this poem of W.B. Yeats, "No Second Troy":

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

(Emphasis added - Idris)

 

[Idris2002]

Remember her this way:

 

[scalyboy]

As someone who wasn't a massive Sinéad fan, this terrible news has had an unexpectedly powerful impact on me (as it clearly has on many other Urbans).

Of course I was well aware of her courage, speaking out about the iniquities & crimes of the Roman Catholic church; about the treatment of women in the entertainment industry, and the treatment of women in society in general...
And naturally I was in awe of her astonishing voice.
But wasn't familiar with much of her work, so thank you to everyone who has posted up YouTube links on here.
I'm WFH today and working my way through all these amazing songs, with a lump in my throat.

Like quite a few other Urbans, I've grappled with mental illness for much of my adult life. But the thought of having to do so in the full glare of the public eye and the taunts of the gutter press, from her early 20s on... I can't comprehend what that must have been like, and the resilience and bravery that must have required.

It'd be good to think that the position of women (and even more so, LGBT women) in the music & film industry has improved since Sinéad's career began. I'm not so sure. But if things are any easier for women in the industry today, it's in large part due to the courage of trailblazing, fearless women like her, who (as SpookyFrank and others have pointed out) was way ahead of her time - proved 100% right about the Catholic church, and about other abuses of women. While being pilloried in the gutter press as a shouty, mentally unstable harridan.

Condolences to her family and friends. Life is hard, and can be shit, but so is death. May she at last find the peace and tranquillity that seemed to elude her in life.

Rest eternal grant her, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon her; may she rest in peace.

O Allah, forgive her and elevate her station among those who are guided. Send her along the path of those who came before, and forgive us and her, O Lord of the Worlds. Enlarge for her her grave, and shed light upon her in it. Ameen.

 

[Cid]

Totally concur. This is one hell of a fierce tribute, coming from a place of real impassioned anger. And some of that anger seems pretty well justified.

The dude has been (arguably, seems to be doing ok) marginalised within the music industry because he's a right wing piece of shit. He's a dick using Sinead's death to vent about being cancelled... Do you think Nigel Farage hasn't chuckled then sadly shaken his head at an article about her? Do you think For Britain have plans for improving mental health services to marginalised people? The people he has endorsed perpetuate the systems that fail to support people like Sinead/some of us. He's still right that the behaviour of the industry towards her was appalling of course. People are complicated. But he can also still fuck off.

 

[redcogs]

i have not been as shocked and saddened by the death of a political singer since John Lennon was brutally snatched away from us. Sinead always moved me to tears with her beautiful singing and choice of songs. Thank you sister honesty. x

 

[Yossarian]

The dude has been (arguably, seems to be doing ok) marginalised within the music industry because he's a right wing piece of shit. He's a dick using Sinead's death to vent about being cancelled... Do you think Nigel Farage hasn't chuckled then sadly shaken his head at an article about her? Do you think For Britain have plans for improving mental health services to marginalised people? The people he has endorsed perpetuate the systems that fail to support people like Sinead/some of us. He's still right that the behaviour of the industry towards her was appalling of course. People are complicated. But he can also still fuck off.

I saw he managed to squeeze a weird reference to "artificially aroused diversity" in there as well

 

[RainbowTown]

The dude has been (arguably, seems to be doing ok) marginalised within the music industry because he's a right wing piece of shit. He's a dick using Sinead's death to vent about being cancelled... Do you think Nigel Farage hasn't chuckled then sadly shaken his head at an article about her? Do you think For Britain have plans for improving mental health services to marginalised people? The people he has endorsed perpetuate the systems that fail to support people like Sinead/some of us. He's still right that the behaviour of the industry towards her was appalling of course. People are complicated. But he can also still fuck off.

I’m as critical of Morrissey as anyone but I think here he was taking aim primarily at those within the music industry (and the media too), and pointing out the hypocrisy in the way she was treated by them in life and how they are now treating her in death. It’s more a rallying cry against them than anything else. That’s how I read it anyway. I totally concur that he has made a long, long rod for his own back over the years, with his views and utterances. But on this occasion I think he can be partly justified in what he said and the passionate way in which he went about expressing it. I’ll give him that.

 

[girasol]

. DP

 

[girasol]

Thought this might be something some of the London Urbs might like to know about.

Ageist that so many tribute photos of her are of young Sinead - that was 30 years ago ffs. She was still worthy of being seen past a certain age.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I’m as critical of Morrissey as anyone but I think here he was taking aim primarily at those within the music industry (and the media too), and pointing out the hypocrisy in the way she was treated by them in life and how they are now treating her in death. It’s more a rallying cry against them than anything else. That’s how I read it anyway. I totally concur that he has made a long, long rod for his own back over the years, with his views and utterances. But on this occasion I think he can be partly justified in what he said and the passionate way in which he went about expressing it. I’ll give him that.

It’s kind of the done thing to say kind words about someone when they die though. And for all his accusations of hypocrisy, what did he do for her himself? Because if the answer is ‘nothing’ then he’s no different than those he directs his barbed comments at.

 

[Idris2002]

For what it's worth (which may not be much), here's Amanda Palmer's tribute:

Spoiler: Amanda Palmer

Sinéad.
If I were a different kind of person I would let it settle and wait a few days to collect my thoughts and do this the right and grown-up way but I think she’d be more proud of me for writing like this….pulled off to the side of the highway writing from my fucking heart because that’s she did, all her life, made from the heart.
I got my first Sinéad record at age 14 - I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got - dubbed from my mentor Anthony’s CD collection onto a 90-minute Maxell XLII blank cassette tape. It changed my life. I wanted the artwork, so I borrowed Anthony’s CD booklet, took it down to the town library xerox machine, copied it, and carefully and lovingly cut it to size for a cassette tape. So I could see her face.
Her face.
I learned every song by heart.
She was fierceness and honestly incarnate.
She howled her heart out so purely that people had no idea what to make of it.
This is a woman who ripped up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live (when it had no ”safety delay”) to draw attention to the sex abuse happening in the Catholic Church, after delivering “War” by Bob Marley, a cappella:
Until the philosophy which hold one race
Superior and another Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned
Everywhere is war.
Twelve days later she took the stage at Madison Square Garden for a Bob Dylan tribute festival and you could barely hear her sing over the boos and jeers from the crowd. She scrapped her planned Dylan song and screamed out “War” again, as the crowd tried to overpower her.
That feeling. Many women have been there. I have been there too, shaking, as it feels like the whole world is trying to shout and drown you out, and put you in your place. Wondering if I am the crazy one. Wondering if this many people are right. Or wrong. Or even real.
She was right about the church. She was very fucking right.
She was right about so many things.
Now that she is dead, I know she’ll be lauded and applauded.
But back then? That night? How do you imagine she felt that night, crawling into bed, having been abused by a crowd of thousands? How would you feel? What would that do to you? Would you care if the world turned around, forty years later, and said: “Sorry about that, you were actually very brave?”
This is a woman who boycotted the Grammys saying she did not want “to be part of a world that measures artistic ability by material success.” This is a woman who refused to play US national anthem before certain concerts. That went down reallll well, too.
She was hated, she was scorned, she was cancelled for being honest over and over again. That SNL move was the beginning of the end of a career in many ways. She never recovered.
Too much, they said. Go away.
She used her voice. She kept on speaking.
She was loud. Being a loud woman is not fucking convenient, for anyone. Ever. Not around here.
She was strikingly beautiful. She shaved her head and gave the middle finger to the beauty standard. She wore combat boots and jeans. She opened her mouth to the max, literally. She did not mumble; she roared. She inspired me into taking power; she inspired so many of my friends. She showed us all another way. There’s this way, too. Go this way, she seemed to be screaming, GO.
Dismissed as crazy. She struggled, and she struggled, and she struggled. She was punished, she was mocked, she was ridiculed.
She retreated and came back time and time again, her roar ragged, her frustration jagged and visible. Painful. You could see it, feel it. We mourned it, me and my friends.
Sinéad? Misunderstood? Which chicken, which egg?
What the world did to Sinéad was death by a thousand cuts. The world lauded her, worshipped her, bought her, sold her, forgave her, claimed her, disavowed her. Over and over in cycles. How could anyone survive that? Like a piece of metal getting bent over and over and over again. It breaks.
She began as a fragile person. A fragile artist. Which is why her songs were so beautiful and powerful to begin with. A raw heart. A mother. Not an idea, not a theoretical. A person.
The world loved the taste of her. The world didn’t know how to digest her. The world spit her out.
She never apologized for ripping up that picture of the pope. When asked later, she said “I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant”.
It was.
She was.
Never forget this woman.
Let her memory guide us.
Let them scream at you, but do not stop singing.
Never apologize just to make them happy, to make them go away, to “get along”, to make them accept you.
No, no, no.
Me say War.
Sinéad….rest in world-changing ripped paper phoenix-pieces from the stage, rising and burning into the white night stars. Find peace at last. I hope you forgive us what we could not give you.

 

[Aladdin]

Ageist that so many tribute photos of her are of young Sinead - that was 30 years ago ffs. She was still worthy of being seen past a certain age.

It's a gathering in London at the London Irish Centre to remember / commemorate Sinéad. I would think they used a photo they could access.
Point being there is a gathering.

 

[Raheem]

It’s kind of the done thing to say kind words about someone when they die though. And for all his accusations of hypocrisy, what did he do for her himself? Because if the answer is ‘nothing’ then he’s no different than those he directs his barbed comments at.

Expect Morrissey's comments are far more about himself than S O'C anyway.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Expect Morrissey's comments are far more about himself than S O'C anyway.

Fair point.

 

[nagapie]

It's a gathering in London at the London Irish Centre to remember / commemorate Sinéad. I would think they used a photo they could access.
Point being there is a gathering.

I don't think this is a point just about this event, and I think it is a valid one. And definately one that Sinead would get behind.

 

[Aladdin]

I don't think this is a point just about this event, and I think it is a valid one. And definately one that Sinead would get behind.

Pretty much very tv news statement or report here in Ireland is showing Sinéad as she was recently... I don't know who arranged the London Irish gathering. AnnieMac posted the instagram post about it.