No. Not Sinéad. Friends have been texting and posting all day in disbelief. There’s something so particular about what Sinéad O'Connor meant to our generation in our teens and 20s — she was our anger, she stood up for us before we could stand up for ourselves, she spoke truth to power and got knocked down for it. Hard. But she never wavered.
And that voice…bellowing to breezy, plaintive to pissed-off.
I can still see that blue and white cover for The Lion and the Cobra leaning against my turntable in my college dorm, Sinéad’s face mid-wail. I wore that album out. Fierce and poetic, and so Irish and so danceable, some of her music, like “Troy”, required the right mood to withstand the pain in her vocals. I always thought, too, with her shaved head and piercing gaze, she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.
Today we learned that Sinéad has passed on at 56. Her son had taken his life only 18 months prior and you don’t need to read the news to understand a mother’s unimaginable grief.
I’m 56, too. I’d put her records aside for years; there was something about her music that appealed to a different, younger time in my life. Watching the documentary (a must-see), Nothing Compares, I can’t help but feel there is an unspoken debt we owe her; we were not always kind to this outspoken, gifted Lion, yet she helped to shape our vision of what could be as women, as artists.
Now, I just wish for Sinéad to simply find the peace she so deserves.
What did Sinéad mean to you? Share your memories and tributes below.
I admired her style, in that she defied the pressure to be sexually objectified. I admired her clarity in calling out wrongs. I'm so sad! I wrote here about why her androgynous look seemed to speak to me. Thanks, Margit, for letting me post this: https://franmasonwriting.com/the-courage-of-sinead-oconnor/
Lion and the Cobra has been the first album I name in my list of “desert island” discs since I first heard it in 1987. Her power was obvious to us the moment she yelled “YOU’RE ALL WRONG,” halfway through the otherwise whisperingly haunting first song. Sinéad O’Conner was a few steps ahead of us our whole lives - we rarely understood what motivated her to step out of line over and over. But eventually we caught up and realized she was right about everything all along. By the time we hit our 30s, we went our separate ways, us to try to figure out how the world worked, her to keep trying to show the world how wrong it was. In our 50s we ran into each other again. Just as she was ready to tell us her story. Just as we were ready to hear it. And I’ve been listening to her sing truth to power ever since. Damn Sinéad O’Conner. You were the lion we needed when we needed you. Rest in peace forever. Thank you.
There are so many vocalists I emulated when I was trying to find my singing voice. Blondie, Donna Summer, Ann Wilson, Joni Mitchell, Carol King, Pat Benatar, who I saw last night, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Annie Lennox, Cyndi Lauper, Alison Moyet. And then came Sinead. Sinead's voice shook me awake. She rattled my rib cage. She went from a literal whisper to a scream. I wanted to sing like THAT! HOW DID SHE SING LIKE THAT?!
This is so incredibly sad. I'll always remember her on the stage at the Tower Theatre on the I Do Not Have What I Haven't Got tour -- with Andy Rourke (RIP) on bass -- smiling, blushing, at bashful at the crowd's ecstatic enthusiasm for her talent. She seemed so happy in that moment.
I bought Lion and the Cobra in 87 and it was everything to my teenage self for several years. Her cover of Someday My Prince Will Come on Stay Awake is chilling and gorgeous
Jul 27, 2023Liked by Margit Detweiler, Liz Thompson
Sinéad O'Connor's voice entered my life in 1990 when I was 15. The year I ran away and ended up in a psychiatric hospital. I left with more trauma and no help, but Sinéad's words helped me trust myself at a time when you sort of had to separate from your body just to get by. She was a lone voice I heard saying: the things you’re feeling are wrong, ARE wrong. She paid huge costs over and over just from saying out loud what everyone knew. I can’t even imagine what it was like for her. Ever grateful. She’ll be ever missed.
My favorite from that year — “The Emperor's New Clothes”: “Everyone can see what's going on / They laugh 'cause they know they're untouchable / Not because what I said was wrong.”
I listened to the album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, on my way to work today. Her voice was like no other, so raw, so emotional. I cry every time I listen to her sing. When she tore up the picture of John Paul II on SNL, I thought - here is someone standing up and standing in her power to bring light to what the world refuses to see. I was in awe of her strength and vulnerability.
The news yesterday hit me like a wall. It's too wrong in too many ways. She deserved her peace while she roamed this earth. I truly hope she has it now. She was right all along. She knew it. We knew it. Rest peacefully, Sinead. xo
Oh, this has absolutely gutted me. Everything about Sinéad O'Connor was incandescently defiant, extraordinarily beautiful, unique and complex and vibrant. All through the 90s, her music was like a beacon for me, a mix of softness, compassion, intensity, outrage, that reflected my feelings back to me in ways I didn't entirely understand then. I *did* understand that liking her was, where I lived, uncool at best -- everything from her shaved hear to her infamous SNL appearance cemented her as a figure who was "disrespectful" and outrageous and unfeminine, the worst things for a young woman to be. But I loved every album she put out, and I aspired to be like her, even though I felt vaguely ashamed of both of those things. It took me years and years to become even an ounce as bold and brave as she had always been.
I will be receiving and cherishing the gifts she gave, with her music and her words and her life, for the rest of my own life. This life and this world were so hard and unfair to her, and she herself could be difficult, confusing, unkind. But to me, she is a voice of astonishing revelation, in everything she did.
Her pain is over, now. I wish for peace and strength for her loved ones. I hope I can help make this world, parts of it at least, worthy of her in a way it seldom was during her life.
As a young, and recently out lesbian, I remember hearing her music and thinking how she so perfectly encapsulated the rage I felt. My first creative job ate me alive, people were dying all around me and there was so little I could do to change a single god-damned thing. Soon my peers were shaving their heads, buying docs, and venting the rage they felt. Between Sinéad and Ani we had our voices and we started to do things, to make change. I am so grateful to these women who gave us strength and made us powerful, when no one cared about us. There are so few generational transcendent voices, she was one of ours. RIP warrior queen. Your job is truly done.
Sinéad’s death hit HARD. I didn’t cry for Prince, David Bowie or Eddie Van Halen, but I shed tears listening to Sinéad’s music yesterday. From the moment I first played The Lion and the Cobra in college I was hooked. Such power, pain and rage in her voice! She was a unique and mesmerizing new artist. She spoke to my soul. She was a misfit at a time when I felt like one. I remember when a boyfriend broke up with me listening to The Last Day of Our Acquaintance on repeat. She was so brave in ways I didn’t understand at the time. She was misunderstood by the media and the music industry, who didn’t know how to package/market her. She was proven right about the church, and we owe her a massive apology. I am grateful I was able to see her twice in concert. I hope she now has found the peace that eluded her in life. RIP Sinéad.
Nothing to add, as there are no words for the grief of losing someone who was my companion through late high school and then uni. I hope she is at peace. She was too good for us, in so many ways.
I admired her style, in that she defied the pressure to be sexually objectified. I admired her clarity in calling out wrongs. I'm so sad! I wrote here about why her androgynous look seemed to speak to me. Thanks, Margit, for letting me post this: https://franmasonwriting.com/the-courage-of-sinead-oconnor/
Lion and the Cobra has been the first album I name in my list of “desert island” discs since I first heard it in 1987. Her power was obvious to us the moment she yelled “YOU’RE ALL WRONG,” halfway through the otherwise whisperingly haunting first song. Sinéad O’Conner was a few steps ahead of us our whole lives - we rarely understood what motivated her to step out of line over and over. But eventually we caught up and realized she was right about everything all along. By the time we hit our 30s, we went our separate ways, us to try to figure out how the world worked, her to keep trying to show the world how wrong it was. In our 50s we ran into each other again. Just as she was ready to tell us her story. Just as we were ready to hear it. And I’ve been listening to her sing truth to power ever since. Damn Sinéad O’Conner. You were the lion we needed when we needed you. Rest in peace forever. Thank you.
Every time I play Three Babies I cry....
And of course I'm like a wild horse
But there's no other way I could be
Water and feed are not tools that I need
For the thing that I've chosen to be
We wanted to be her so badly.
Really, nothing compares to you Sinead. Rest in peace 🖤
There are so many vocalists I emulated when I was trying to find my singing voice. Blondie, Donna Summer, Ann Wilson, Joni Mitchell, Carol King, Pat Benatar, who I saw last night, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Annie Lennox, Cyndi Lauper, Alison Moyet. And then came Sinead. Sinead's voice shook me awake. She rattled my rib cage. She went from a literal whisper to a scream. I wanted to sing like THAT! HOW DID SHE SING LIKE THAT?!
This is so incredibly sad. I'll always remember her on the stage at the Tower Theatre on the I Do Not Have What I Haven't Got tour -- with Andy Rourke (RIP) on bass -- smiling, blushing, at bashful at the crowd's ecstatic enthusiasm for her talent. She seemed so happy in that moment.
Margit, this is such a perfectly stated tribute and you really captured a moment in time for me. You are a gorgeous writer. RIP Sinéad O'Connor.
I bought Lion and the Cobra in 87 and it was everything to my teenage self for several years. Her cover of Someday My Prince Will Come on Stay Awake is chilling and gorgeous
Sinéad O'Connor's voice entered my life in 1990 when I was 15. The year I ran away and ended up in a psychiatric hospital. I left with more trauma and no help, but Sinéad's words helped me trust myself at a time when you sort of had to separate from your body just to get by. She was a lone voice I heard saying: the things you’re feeling are wrong, ARE wrong. She paid huge costs over and over just from saying out loud what everyone knew. I can’t even imagine what it was like for her. Ever grateful. She’ll be ever missed.
My favorite from that year — “The Emperor's New Clothes”: “Everyone can see what's going on / They laugh 'cause they know they're untouchable / Not because what I said was wrong.”
I listened to the album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, on my way to work today. Her voice was like no other, so raw, so emotional. I cry every time I listen to her sing. When she tore up the picture of John Paul II on SNL, I thought - here is someone standing up and standing in her power to bring light to what the world refuses to see. I was in awe of her strength and vulnerability.
The news yesterday hit me like a wall. It's too wrong in too many ways. She deserved her peace while she roamed this earth. I truly hope she has it now. She was right all along. She knew it. We knew it. Rest peacefully, Sinead. xo
Oh, this has absolutely gutted me. Everything about Sinéad O'Connor was incandescently defiant, extraordinarily beautiful, unique and complex and vibrant. All through the 90s, her music was like a beacon for me, a mix of softness, compassion, intensity, outrage, that reflected my feelings back to me in ways I didn't entirely understand then. I *did* understand that liking her was, where I lived, uncool at best -- everything from her shaved hear to her infamous SNL appearance cemented her as a figure who was "disrespectful" and outrageous and unfeminine, the worst things for a young woman to be. But I loved every album she put out, and I aspired to be like her, even though I felt vaguely ashamed of both of those things. It took me years and years to become even an ounce as bold and brave as she had always been.
I will be receiving and cherishing the gifts she gave, with her music and her words and her life, for the rest of my own life. This life and this world were so hard and unfair to her, and she herself could be difficult, confusing, unkind. But to me, she is a voice of astonishing revelation, in everything she did.
Her pain is over, now. I wish for peace and strength for her loved ones. I hope I can help make this world, parts of it at least, worthy of her in a way it seldom was during her life.
As a young, and recently out lesbian, I remember hearing her music and thinking how she so perfectly encapsulated the rage I felt. My first creative job ate me alive, people were dying all around me and there was so little I could do to change a single god-damned thing. Soon my peers were shaving their heads, buying docs, and venting the rage they felt. Between Sinéad and Ani we had our voices and we started to do things, to make change. I am so grateful to these women who gave us strength and made us powerful, when no one cared about us. There are so few generational transcendent voices, she was one of ours. RIP warrior queen. Your job is truly done.
Sinéad’s death hit HARD. I didn’t cry for Prince, David Bowie or Eddie Van Halen, but I shed tears listening to Sinéad’s music yesterday. From the moment I first played The Lion and the Cobra in college I was hooked. Such power, pain and rage in her voice! She was a unique and mesmerizing new artist. She spoke to my soul. She was a misfit at a time when I felt like one. I remember when a boyfriend broke up with me listening to The Last Day of Our Acquaintance on repeat. She was so brave in ways I didn’t understand at the time. She was misunderstood by the media and the music industry, who didn’t know how to package/market her. She was proven right about the church, and we owe her a massive apology. I am grateful I was able to see her twice in concert. I hope she now has found the peace that eluded her in life. RIP Sinéad.
Nothing to add, as there are no words for the grief of losing someone who was my companion through late high school and then uni. I hope she is at peace. She was too good for us, in so many ways.