It’s sad that Henry Kissinger is still alive, while Sinead O’Connor is not.
My two favorite performances by her (there are many) are when the audience boo’d her at Madison Square Garden, and she flew right in their face. And, her performance of “The Foggy Dew” with The Chieftans, when she was at the height of her power and magnificence.
I’d rather live 56 years with a conscience than 100 years without one.
Rob Grigjanis@#1:
I’d rather live 56 years with a conscience than 100 years without one.
Yup.
people born into irish catholicism converting to islam – her and peter murphy. is there a reason for this particular move? i like that she was calling non-muslims disgusting and had to walk it back, classic sinead. what a character. death sux.
Oh my, that voice.
That voice!
GAS
you are *such* a Yankee
Nothing Compares 2U – that was HER song she took it away from Prince . Just like Aretha took Respect away from Otis Redding. RIP Sinead all the trauma and sorrow are over!
@GAS: you can see her search as a hope for faith and justice wherever she might find it. And, I don’t think she did. Perhaps islam appealed to her anger…? I don’t know.
Did not know Peter had converted. He’s welcome to his opinion, of course. As am I.
Became aware of her in ’87. Was impressed that when I read somewhere that some record company exec had said something to her about what she could do with her hair (grow it longer? Style it some particular way? I forget) her immediate response was to shave her head. She was ahead of her time in many ways, rejecting pop star stylings in a way Billie Eilish has done more recently. It’s a rare talent that can make a cover version the definitive version.
She always seemed a very angry, confused person, but I don’t think anyone could argue that the world was a better place overall for having had her in it.
I believe that would be Sinéad. I feel it’s right to show proper respect.
GAS @3: My offhand, uninformed guess is that Islam, at least as it was presented to her at the time, offered a set of principles that sounded right to her, and a set of rules by which she could organize her life; in stark contrast to all the emotion, Christurbation, name-dropping, bogosity, incessant incoherent irrationality, hairsplitting factionalism, (un)disguised bigotry, and endless relentless manipulative bullshit we get from Christianity pretty much all the damn time.
Seriously, there’s just a lot of worse-than-useless nonsense and rubbish all around and in Christian churches and teachings — even Christians are tired of it because it’s just too much all the time and does no one any good. I have no use for Islam, but I can easily see how, compared to Christianity, it can look like a plain, simple, easily-understood, common-sense set of principles that can very easily replace all the loony baggage of Christianity for a much cleaner, more sensible life.
Murphy lived in Turkey for a long time with his wife, late 1980s to mid 1990s, IIRC.
Another two well known musicians who became muslims are Linda Thompson and Richard Thompson. Their children were exposed to it at birth.
Cat Stevens also became a Muslim (I forget his new chosen name).
The guy who announced Sinead in the second vid is Kris Kristofferson!
Cat Stevens is now Yusuf Islam.
Robbo@#13:
The guy who announced Sinead in the second vid is Kris Kristofferson!
Yup. He was quite the fan.
So were the Chieftans and Shane McGowan and many others. You can judge a woman by the size of her enemies.
I liked some of her music, though not all. And I liked that she stood up to catholicism and tore up a pedophile-covering-pope photo in public and stood by that.
I do not understand at all how anyone with brains can convert to Islam from Catholicism. It is like trying to cure headache by smashing your knee with a sledgehammer. I mean converting to a religion that to this day in some parts of the world mutilates girls and practices child-brides does diminish standing-up to christian pedo-priests significantly in my eyes.
I was really disappointed when I learned that she converted to Islam. I was similarly disappointed when Dawkins turned out to be bigoted sexust jackass and several other disappointments in people whose actions I used to admire. Ahj well, no heroes.
@ 7 Marcus Ranum
You can get the answer from the proverbial horse’s mouth here:
Shit!, sorry I didn’t mean to embed. Try this link instead, otherwise the relevant bit is not queued up. :-/
@Silentbob, I listened to a few sentences and I wish I did not. She was bonkers.