I was eighteen or nineteen years old when she ripped up the photo of the pope on TV. I remember watching it at home with my parents. Maybe I was just finishing high school or it was the last time I came home during break in college; I'm not sure. What I remember was a sense of dismay as it happened, because even though I didn't really get it, I knew there was something there to get, and most people wouldn't and wouldn't try, they'd just be angry.
Sinead O'Connor's first album, which was a sort of ubiquitous thing in queer and lesbian and feminist circles if you were eighteen or nineteen at the time, sounded like nothing else anyone had ever heard before. I remember having it waaaaaaaaay before anyone else I knew, because I'd read about it in British music magazines I had to hide from my parents. It was so angry and primal and I spent an endless amount of time listening on repeat to "Just Like U Said it Would B" and thinking I knew things, even though I was a virgin.
Sinead O'Connor taught me women are wrath with the unprettiness of much of her voice, and it's slightly peculiar now to be regarding her commentary on the Church with admiration for her skills as a memoirist.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-31 05:48 pm (UTC)When I was 20 and I discharged from the IDF I was filled with a fire inside me (of rage, of sadness, of I don't even know what) and I was in the States, taking care of my sister's baby and I hated everything.
I downloaded her discography (I left my music at home) and when I listened to The Lion and the Cobra I knew I had to change, she inspired me to shave my head and listening to her after I came back from the States and was immediately called for war, absolutely saved my sanity. I can honestly say she's saved my life, her new albums show a peace she was yearning for, but she's still, as you say, wrath and Vox.