In praise of Sinead O’Connor

No, she hasn’t died. (That was Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, very sad...). But I came across Ms O’Connor on the YouTube tonight randomly, from her performance at the Bob Dylan tribute concert back in the 90s.

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about or have forgotten…

The show came on the heels of her infamous Pope-shredding incident on SNL and was also taking place in New York, at Madison Square Garden. From the moment Sinead was introduced the crowd was openly hostile and getting ugly. Sinead stood back, waved the band to silence and unflinchingly took the abuse like it was a physical punishment. Kris Kristofferson came out and said something to her, apparently urging her to go on. She stepped back up to the mic and the band again began playing the tender Christian ballad, “I Believe In You” from Dylan’s born-again period.

The crowd just got louder and uglier and uglier till Sinead stepped back again, waved the band off and ripped the earphone from her head. She can be seen pointing at her monitor and calling for it to be turned up. Then she rips into a searing, scathing a capella version of the same Bob Marley song she had sung so beautifully on SNL just prior to ripping up the picture of the Pontiff. The song is all about the necessity of equality between races and people, ironically more representative of Dylan’s body of work than the song she had rehearsed with the band.

Then she stepped back, proud and unbowed, and left the stage to collapse into Kris Kristofferson’s embrace. It’s really powerful viewing. And provocative. Willy Nelson comes out at the end and introduces Neil Young who proceeded to blow the dump off the place.

At the time, I was disappointed that no one said anything from stage after that in support of her, especially Bob himself. But that was before I understood that Bob Will Be Bob and the proper thing to do is just be glad he’s still out there working.

Looking back on it, the Sinead spectacle seems like the single most Bob Dylan moment of the whole event. When you think about Bob Dylan, you think about the young firebrand who set fire to bridges before he was even done crossing them. The guy who made his bones singing protest songs and upsetting what the establishment expected of him. Sinead’s Bob Dylan tribute appearance was Bob Dylan’s going electric at the Newport Folk Festival.

This clip needs to be seen and appreciated. Please feel free to snatch it and put it up on your blog, Facebook page or Twitter mini-url. (Or whatever the cool kids are doing this week.)



The lovely Ms O’Connor continues an active, richly rewarding songwriting and recording career to this day. It pisses me off when her name appears on “One-Hit Wonder” lists. I double-dog dare you to swing over to iTunes and check out her post-“Nothing Compares To You” career. Some of this reporter’s favorites are “Universal Mother,” “Faith and Courage” and “Throw Down Your Arms.”

And there are many, many quality clips on the YouTube. And I also found a totally funny shrine-site, too.

Some artists, like life, can only be lived forward but appreciated in retrospect. Sinead O’Connor doesn’t have to be one of those artists.