Sinead O'Connor: C/D?

(xp) I seriously wish I'd never read it.

I saw her last in ... 2007? She was incredible, of course. I went back to look how I summed it up at the time: "At its most forceful that soprano of hers could bring armies to their knees, and O’Connor often sang like she believed that was possible."

That night she also dedicated a cover of "Rivers of Babylon" to Britney Spears. Iirc a few people perhaps laughed or something (there was a lot of Britney in the news at the time, most/much of it not sympathetic). She was right about so much.

Died in London it seems, she'd only recently moved there

She was living in Notting Hill at some point in the 1990s. I know because I was working in the Exchange bookshop when she came in one day and sold off her book collection - a life decluttering, I think. The most amazing item was a copy of Dylan's Collected Lyrics, signed by Bob to Sinead, probably for the 30th-anniversary concert. My colleague tried to persuade her not to part with this, but she didn't want to know.

I was always struck by her interaction with Kristofferson at the Dylan tribute, not just by the way he gives her such generous support and comfort but the way she reacts like someone who rarely received such things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4fVxcT00Sc

I swear, someone posted her performing "Fire On Babylon" on one of the late night shows. I thought it was in this thread, but I can't find it. Nor can I now find it on YouTube. A real shame, as that performance was absolute fire.

wow this is great, i know rourke and joyce were her rhythm section on an early tour, but for obvious reasons this means even more coming from her

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOHhzcPLxSQ

Yeah, that realization hit me when the lights came on. I had no idea until they were standing there right in front of me.

I'm shaking with anger watching these savages at a Bob Dylan show boo her.

I swear, someone posted her performing "Fire On Babylon" on one of the late night shows. I thought it was in this thread, but I can't find it. Nor can I now find it on YouTube. A real shame, as that performance was absolute fire.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux),

Letterman! I watched it at the time.

Sinead singing on ‘visions of you’ , was a huge act of generosity. Typical of her . Refused to take a penny for the session . That track had a massive positive influence on my life . From writing the track with her voice in mind, through to recording it was transcendental

— Jah Wobble (@realjahwobble) July 27, 2023

This is one of those deaths that hit me especially hard. I feel old today. I don't think I've felt like this over the death of a musician since Prince, or maybe even Joe Strummer.

The Dylan clip is surreal - like, how many of those people even knew why they were booing her?

Letterman! I watched it at the time.

When her voice just takes off . . . my god. The only other artist I can think of who (occasionally) has that effect is Bjork.

Something often overlooked, or rarely mentioned, in that Dylan clip is that twice the band tries to start playing, and twice she silences them. Had they started playing and drowned out the crowd, I bet the crowd would have come around. I've seen it happen many times. But she doesn't let them off that easy. She chooses the more difficult, the more confrontational, the more righteous route.

Beth Orton’s Instagram post will burn you.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CvLU4kxNd9Q/

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, July 26, 2023 8:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Ugh. Worth posting her in full for anyone not on the platform:

I am not lost for words, I’m furious. All this bullshit about mental health and supposedly supporting artists yet nothing gets done to protect the vulnerable. Some go to school to learn their craft and some sing for their life because it depends on it. Sinead should have been better taken care of. The cruelty and mockery she experienced over way too many years for being exactly who we needed her to be so we could feel the feelings we would have been unable to know otherwise is appalling. She was an artist in the highest and most righteous form. There is no chart to steer through the songs that come from the soul. The hardest graft is not to learn the lines but to live them. Sinead O’Conner was a seer and she was paper thin, see through, she should have been held with the upmost love and care and respect. She found success and made people money from what tormented her, it was clearly extreme and shocking to find success from doing what came naturally to her. How brutally lonely for someone as in need of love as she was, someone who gave pure love, pure anger and endless forgiveness with all the wisdom and best will in the world. Sinead sang me through losing my mother, she gave me my tears and allowed me to feel a grief I wouldn’t have understood without her honesty and truth. She deserved medals of bravery for her service. I’m glad she got to see some love in the last couple of years, but too little too late to save her health. I hope she finds the peace she was searching for all the way through. Words will now fail me. Thank you dearest hearted brilliant brave women.

“IT IS NO MEASURE OF HEALTH TO BE WELL ADJUSTED TO A PROFOUNDLY SICK SOCIETY”

#sineadoconner

They laugh 'cause they know they're untouchable
Not because what I said was wrong

Tori Amos played in town last night and there were guesses she'd do a tribute. They were correct.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgnJNLH24CY

The line that keeps coming back to me is "I have refused to take part." She did that so many times, for so many good reasons, and now it feels like an epitaph.

Her first SNL appearance (September 29, 1990), at 27:10 and 50:14

https://archive.org/details/saturday-night-live-s-16-e-01-kyle-maclachlan-sinead-o-connor

re Morrissey, JPEGMAFIA has a few remarks:

What JPEGMAFIA told me about Morrissey pic.twitter.com/WnCV2ntPHh

— Thomas Hobbs (@thobbsjourno) July 24, 2023

hahaha amazing 10/10

Nice bit from Jamie Lee Curtis

https://www.instagram.com/p/CvLFNcByOvv/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Those SNL songs shared by Tarfumes are excellent

I was kind of bummed to discover that she recently made vague but unflattering remarks about Kristofferson (I guess bummed because it complicates that positive impression of his support for her).

My god...

Camille Paglia's Profiles in Cocaine continues with saying Sinéad O'Connor deserved to be abused as a child pic.twitter.com/vLlqVsrOe0

— cris (@ilchinealach) June 29, 2023

Great tribute on CBC today, featuring none other than Maura.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwwxDNqigNo

It's been a tough 24 hours. Man.

That first SNL performance was really amazing, especially "Last Day of Our Acquaintance" - I think that was the first time I ever saw one of her live performances (caught it as a late, late night re-run on NBC back in the '00s) and I went looking for her great live DVD, The Year of the Horse, soon afterwards.

Steve Nieve posted this in tribute, a performance of McGowan's song for Circle of Friends at his 60th birthday celebration - just wonderful:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CvMmuERgMWQ/

Re: Camille Paglia, that clip was in the documentary. What a garbage human being.

xp that version of "you're the one" — unbelievable

here's where i wish i actually knew anything about actual music or theory, but been listening to her and she has a very interesting melodic approach, something about the way she uses certain internals that feels very unique to her...

um...again i wish i could explain better but the notes she chooses in relation to each other (sund4r come back bail me out buddy!), the way she hops up and down whatever scale she's using...like two examples i can think of off top are mandika's prechorus:

I don't ^KNOW no shame
I ^FEEL no pain
I ^CAAAAAN'T feel the ^FLAAAAME

or on "Jerusalem"

oh ^OH oh
je ^RUUUUUU sa lem

like the way those notes relate is really distinctive and seems like maybe she's drawing from certain scale or something, i don't know i lack the vocab

via Chaki

In 2011 Sinéad O’Connor was very publicly looking for a boyfriend whilst tweeting the most hilarious, filthy tweets. I collected those tweets & made a montage of them set to her cover of “Someday My Prince Will Come” from Disney’s Snow White. She e-mailed me to say she’d… (1/2)

— Liam Geraghty 🏳️‍⚧️ (@Liam_Geraghty) July 26, 2023

Hahahahaha ums I literally noted that yesterday

I was listening to Jackie (a minor key song) and Sinead hits the raised third (implying a major key) over a bVII chord and I thought “oh yeah, the Sinead note”

But there’s more to it than that— she generally had a “wild card” approach when she switched to her head voice on any yodelling passage— the pitches she hit were often sharpened (think the end of “Mandinka”) giving the phrase that much more emotional intensity. After watching many live versions of many songs you realize she’s basically just feeling out how wild she wants to be with any given performance

In Bill Flanagan's U2 book he notes how during the recording of "You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart" Sinead would yell harrowing shit into the mike, step away and whisper, do it again, then happily overdub her own harmonies. Bono, Gavin Friday, and Eno were amazed at her vocal control.

ums and fgti i concur: i think she had a terrifically precise ear for (for want of a better way to say it) the delivery -- with superb confidence and exact force -- of microtonal grace notes and ornaments in a manner she p much seems to have herself invented

(by which i mean i can't quickly think of anyone she reminds me of in this)

xpost thanks the knowledge fgti! must have missed your post in the flood yesterday but that's cool like the raised/sharp stuff over certain chords, that's what I was trying to say in a dummy way

May Sinead O’Connor rest in peace. Let me share my moment meeting this Great Women. I performed at the @MTV music awards crying singing band in the USA. When I got backstage, the first person to greet me was her, knowing the weight of the world was on me, fighting this fight for…

— Luther Luke Campbell (@unclelukereal1) July 27, 2023

damn it sucks to get only the opening of these stories bc i quit twixer, fucking elon

Now we need to hear from Billy Idol

...and Steve Lawrence (still alive at 88)!

and Henry Kissinger (still alive at 873!)

Stevie Ray Vaughan is dead, and we can't get Jon Bon Jovi on a helicopter.

This chatter about her vocal control and technique is why I think she was such an incredible performer. She didn't just have technical skill and ability but she knew exactly how to service a song best by using her talent. She could have the most measured, considered performances, hitting every note and flourish with grace and precision, but it never felt studied or forced. Whether it was her own songs or covers - she knew how to draw the full emotional range out with her voice, and made it seem so instinctive and obvious.

I found myself getting really teary today listening to The Emperors New Clothes. It's one of her most straightforward "pop" songs, and yet it's just such a vulnerable, unflinching, honest portrayal of pregnancy - an experience that as a man I will never fully comprehend but she made feel so understandable. I'm sad for the strife she endured in her life and the tragedy of her premature death. But I'm also sad because what she represented - fearlessness, defiance, sincerity and charming vulnerability - they're all personality traits and features I would aspire to, and as both an artist and a public figure she really was a role model for the type of person I wish I could be. I'm sad that her presence isn't in the world to keep making it better, and I'm sad that it took the world so long to realise what a difference someone like her could make.

I never saw the Letterman version of Fire on Babylon, but the Top of the Pops version is pretty amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUdhwJZE7AE

for omar et al

May Sinead O’Connor rest in peace. Let me share my moment meeting this Great Women. I performed at the MTV music awards crying singing band in the USA. When I got backstage, the first person to greet me was her, knowing the weight of the world was on me, fighting this fight for free speech and hip-hop. She hug me we talked. She told me I was fighting a good fight. She knew the industry was not supporting me. She wanted me to know she was. I always love that woman for that. May God bless her soul my condolences go out to her family. 🙏

https://play.acast.com/s/blindboy/sineadoconnor

she talks a bit about her approach vocally in this interview (interview starts around 25 min mark or so, vocal part I forget when), use of bel canto singing style etc

I found myself getting really teary today listening to The Emperors New Clothes. It's one of her most straightforward "pop" songs, and yet it's just such a vulnerable, unflinching, honest portrayal of pregnancy - an experience that as a man I will never fully comprehend but she made feel so understandable. I'm sad for the strife she endured in her life and the tragedy of her premature death. But I'm also sad because what she represented - fearlessness, defiance, sincerity and charming vulnerability - they're all personality traits and features I would aspire to, and as both an artist and a public figure she really was a role model for the type of person I wish I could be. I'm sad that her presence isn't in the world to keep making it better, and I'm sad that it took the world so long to realise what a difference someone like her could make.

― boxedjoy,

Co-sign. And that outro!

I used to try desperately to pause the Emperor’s New Clothes video on the one frame where she smiles just so I could see her smile for more than a fraction of a second. That video is burned into my brain!! Also boxedjoy otm bc like many odd girls my age I longed to be as free as she was.