Day 239: Sinéad O'Connor – The Lion and the Cobra
I’ve never gotten into Sinéad O'Connor. It’s just always felt like an undertaking, hers probably isn’t an album that you pop on in the background, she feels like an artist who comes with a hefty amount of things to read to really understand her. I don’t necessarily think I have time for that, but I will still put on her album.
Album cover courtesy of Chrysalis Records
Sinéad O’Connor was an Irish singer, musician and activist who died in 2023. She left a legacy of a very successful career as an artist, but she was maybe better-known for her controversial reputation, mainly stemming from her ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul II on SNL to protest the Catholic Church protecting child abusers, years before people knew much about it.
The Lion and the Cobra was released in 1987 as her debut studio album, and it consisted of songs that she’d written when she was younger. At the time of recording, she was about 19 or 20 years old, she was also heavily pregnant, and she didn’t like the producer she was working with so she decided to produce the record herself. The songs were written by her when she was a teenager, with some written when she was only 15.
You can sort of hear that it’s a young person’s album, not because of immaturity or lack of sophistication but just from the raw emotion of it. And yet there’s so much range to it: there’s songs about religion and folklore, relationships and sex, along with her singing in Gaelic. There’s even a cameo from Enya, who reads a bible passage in Gaelic. There’s such a level of emotion poured into it that it’s almost uncomfortable to listen to, but you also just want to hear what she’s about to say. And that voice! Almost otherworldly.
There’s something that’s so open and vulnerable in her music, which makes it even more sad that the controversy overshadowed her. She was mocked and derided when she was alive, then as soon as she died, she was suddenly seen as very cool and brave – before, she was only cool to the cool people. I think Yoko Ono will have a similar fate where she’ll go from the masses regarding her as the weird yelling joke lady who broke up the Beatles to a brave pioneer in art, so long as she’s not here anymore. There’s a certain type of woman who society can’t really accept unless she’s dead, and Sinead O’Connor was one of them.
After she became famous, she put a poem in an Irish newspaper saying that she’s still wounded from the violent abuse she suffered as a child, she became famous practically on accident and she was still too fragile to deal with the abuse she gets: “Stop hurting me please. Saying mean things about me. I've been in public since I was only twenty. Still a very sad baby. But I could sing then because I wasn't frightened. I know I've been angry but I'm full of love really do you think you could stop hurting me? It is suffocating me. Please?” Obviously the Irish public responded by submitting their own poems where they made fun of her and telling her to shut up.
Not to get too real here, but if there’s one thing I love, it’s women who stand up for what’s right even when they become unpopular as a result, and especially if they become a laughing stock. Sinead O’Connor was both, having people like Madonna parodying her on SNL and being booed off stage at Bob Dylan’s 30th Anniversary Concert. She was famous enough that she could have coasted for the rest of her career and not spoken out or tried to voice her opinions, selling records and shutting up, but she chose not to, even with the backlash it afforded her. Before she killed herself, she’d written a song to protest the Magdalene Laundries of the Catholic Church, which she was also a victim of. She didn’t stop fighting for what’s right, no matter what anyone said about her.
I really get the army of ladies who are ready to ride to battle for Sinead O’Connor and would like to submit my application to join. She was very much ahead of her time. And what an artist. 9.5/10, I had more time for this today than I thought.