January 1988. I am in a car with Dave Hoffman. I don’t know why I am in a car with Dave Hoffman. Dave and I were neighbors, but we weren’t the closest of friends. He was older than me, suave, sophisticated, incredibly handsome. I am, at this time, in love with his sister but I don’t think that has any bearing on why the two of us are on the Parks Highway, mile 20 or so, driving across the perpetually beautiful, haunting Eklutna flats.
It can’t be the only reason, but I’m pretty sure it’s one of the main reasons. I don’t remember the other reasons anymore. All I remember is that one of the reasons that Dave and I are in this car together because we both felt it necessary to drive to Anchorage in the dead of winter, more than 350 miles from home, to pick up a copy of the new Sinéad O’Connor single.
And we proceed to listen to it on repeat, just the two songs, over and over for the entire drive home. Six hours. David softly talks about how much he loved The Lion and the Cobra. We both love Sinéad, but David’s love seems… all encompassing. universal.
Can you imagine what it’s like first hearing The Lion and The Cobra? I can’t. I can’t remember first hearing it. I can’t remember how I got so into Sinéad, sixteen years old, in Alaska.
But I can remember loving The Lion and the Cobra so much that we drove to Anchorage to buy the Nothing Compares 2U single the day it came out because there was absolutely no guarantee it was going to be a hit. I remember not understanding why The Lion and the Cobra wasn’t the biggest album in the world, and there was no reason to think Nothing Compares 2U was going to be either. And I can remember first hearing that song, and realizing that this new album might end up being even better. That feeling, when an artist takes it up a notch, when you didn’t think it was possible, when you thought you would be disappointed, but instead you were blown away.
What strikes me now is that Sinéad was only 5 years older than me, I never knew that. Dave was a year or two older than me, so they were even closer in age. It is absolutely inconceivable to me that someone 21, 22 years old made The Lion and the Cobra. Yes, sure, listening to it now, last night, I can hear the child in it, but… just barely. And no more child that I occasionally manifest even now, twice her age.
Sinéad was a child when she made The Lion and the Cobra. A child.
Months later, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got came out which means I heard “Black Boys on Mopeds” for the first time and I considered myself woke and political and I cared, but the blunt truth of the lines of that song struck me as too much, too harsh. But I trusted Sinead enough to dig into it and I can credit her with a political awakening of sorts.
Sinéad was not “over the top” or “too harsh” in that song, she was telling the truth. A truth that is absolutely commonsense and obvious to us all these days.
This would, obviously, be a pattern for her. It was her strength and her curse.
By the time of the SNL “incident,” Sinéad had completely changed me. Her actions weren’t shocking, they weren’t “too harsh” they were absolutely commonsense. I didn’t doubt her for a second.
August 2014, I’m walking around New York City. I am walking from Union Square to SoHo, except I’m doing it going down 5th instead of Broadway like I usually do. I usually don’t go this way, that 14th and Washington Square on 5th bothers me: too precious, too expensive, people really care about it. I can’t explain it.
But today, I don’t mind, because I am listening to the amazing new Sinéad O’Connor album, I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss. And it is awesome, Sinéad is still awesome. I still love Sinéad, I still appreciate her, I haven’t forgotten about her. I’ve followed her career, her trials and tribulations. Sinéad and I aren’t always on the same wavelength, how could we be. I have empathy and a respect for women but Sinéad has been through things I cannot imagine and Sinéad has passions and interests that barely intersect with mine. But I never stopped checking in with her, I never stopped. Twice in the intervening 25 years I’d seen her live. Neither was “my” Sinéad show, I never got to see “my” Sinéad show. I learned last night that out of her thousands of live performances she only played my favorite track maybe ten times. But that’s okay. None of that matters. Sinéad is a treasure, Sinéad is an institution, Sinéad just made I’m Not Bossy I’m the Boss and it fucking rules and the sun is out and the album is blaring on my headphones and probably half the people I see as I walk down the street were emotionally touched by Sinéad at one point, but none of them know or care about I’m Not Bossy I’m The Boss and they are missing out but Sinéad is still doing it she is still going.
Still, even then, 25 years after her “heyday,”this album charted in the US, in fifteen countries. Think how many people are hurt and touched about Sinéad’s death today.
I don’t pretend to know the relationship between Sinéad and John Reynolds, but I know that he produced her first album, I know they had a son together, I know they got divorced, and I know that past that divorce they kept collaborating up until today. I know he produced her last album. I know he played drums on her last tour. I know that he’s alive today and I know that like the rest of her family, he is probably hurting today. My heart goes out to him.
April 4, 2022. A day or two earlier, “The Last Day of Our Acquaintance” comes on shuffle in my car. Whenever this happens, every year or two, it is an emotional event and within the next few days I have to listen to it ten more times or so, and then listen to all of I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. I buy a copy on vinyl, because I think to myself I absolutely need to own this record on vinyl. It arrives, I listen to it again, I file it, there is already a copy there because this exact same thing happened to me a year or so earlier.
But this time I take it further and I listen to every single Sinéad O’Connor album. Today is the day, I think, that I take in her entire career, warts and all, discursions into gospel and reggae and everything else. And I do. And what I hear is a monstrous curiosity, a respect for the art of songwriting, of music, of the emotional impact that music can have on you.
Really fucks you up, listening to Sinéad’s entire musical output in a day.
I go in reverse order, I work backwards from I’m Not Bossy I’m The Boss, which, personal hits aside, I’ve not listened to in its entirety since that sunny New York day in 2014. I do this because I’m not exactly sure when I lost the continuous threads of Sinéad’s career. I kept it up after I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. I own Am I Not Your Girl? and Universal Mother, but after that, not sure. I was dipping in and out.
And one thing I missed was the astonishing, brilliant Faith and Courage, 2000, her first album in six years, a quarter of a million copies sold in the US (people fucking love Sinéad O’Connor. She stuck with so many people), rated just 3.8 by Pitchfork in an absolute travesty. It has never been released on vinyl in any country which is totally fucked up.
And on that record sits a song that bowled me over the first time I listened to it, that has bowled me over every time I’ve listened to it since, that drove me to tears yesterday as I listened to it again. A song she only played live a handful of times. A song she wrote with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics (Sinéad’s collaborators are an absolutely insane list of talents: so many people were drawn to her). A song that stands as the perfect autobiography:
I was born in Dublin town
Where there was not too much going on down
For girls whose only hope
Was not to find a man who could piss in a pot
So early I heard my first guitar
And I knew I wanted to be a big star
And I told my poor worried father
Said I ain't gonna go to school no more
'Cause see I want to look cool and I want to look good
With my hair slicked back and my black leather boots
want to stand up tall with my boobs upright
And feel real hot when the makeup's nice
I get sexy underneath the lights
Like I want to fuck every man in sight
Baby come home with me tonight
Make you feel good make you feel all right
I'm going away to London
I got myself a big fat plan
Gonna be a singer in a rock 'n' roll band
And I'm gonna change everything I can
Sorry to be disappointing
Wasn't born for no marrying
want to make my own living singing
Strong independent Pagan woman singing
I'm glad I came here to London
I've myself some big fat fun
And I have even made some mon'
I got the most angelic son
My baby daughter is golden
And I do what I like for fun
And I'm happy in my prime
Daddy I'm fine I'm fine Daddy I'm fine
Daddy I'm fine I'm fine Daddy I love you
Look at this woman. Look at this. She was amazing. We did not deserve her.
Thanks for your words. Feeling blown out over her passing and was nice to sit with a cup of tea and read one of my oldest friend's thoughts on how powerful and complex she was.