Sinéad
I will sleep with a clear conscience.
I will sleep in peace.
(Sinéad O’Connor)
In case you hadn’t heard, the activist and “protest singer” (her self-characterization) Shuhada’ Sadaqat died on on 26 July, 2023. She was 56 years of age.
My social media feeds have been filled with friends and colleagues paying tribute to the singer. Many — not all, but many — of the tributes speak from the perspective of a young woman finding and needing the music of Sinéad O’Connor in their life. For me, my attraction to and respect for Sinéad came from a different place. I loved her voice. I love her compositions. I loved the stripped down, yet raw and powerful instrumentation. And though I only saw her live once, I would argue that her live set was even more raw, more powerful. What I loved most was her conviction.
She was a strong, defiant, and principled public figure, who refused to abide by the expectation put upon her. She refused to play the pop-star image game. When asked by record execs to glam herself up, she walked right into a barbershop and had her hair shaved off.
To be sure, that was an act of principle. She did not want to play the beauty and marketing game. She did not want to be sexualized. She did not want to be that kind of role model for fans. It could have scuttled her contract. It didn’t. It could have scuttled her career. It didn’t. But she stood on that principle, and she offered an important message for young women.
Of course, her first single put her on the map. “Nothing Compares 2 U,” penned by Prince, was a global hit. A massive hit in 1990. It’s hard to even imagine a single song being that pervasive in 2023. Today, the markets are too fractured and too targeted to have that kind of success. As the line in “Mandinka” says, “I have refused to take part.” (The story of her encounters with Prince are important, too, but not the focus here.)
After that first hit single, the thing she was most known for was the Saturday Night Live appearance in 1992. As her performance concluded, she held up a photograph of Pope John Paul II, and she tore it into pieces. As she threw those pieces onto the stage, she said., “Fight the real enemy.” Sadaqat has said that they well knew of the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Ireland in 1987. Even so, in 1992 the gesture did not sit well, not with the American public, and not with a lot of powerful entertainment figures. (The list of famous singers who insulted her is long.) But she knew what was happening. She was not going to remain quiet.
And, of course, she was proved right. A decade later, news broke in the US of sex abuse in the Catholic Church. What if they had listened to her then? Who might have been spared? But, instead, she was belittled and insulted.
Just a few days later, she appeared at the Bob Dylan tribute at Madison Square Garden. When she walked onto stage, (much of) the crowd loudly booed her. She stood there for a long time, head slightly bowed. And when I look back on those images now, she just seems so young. To be that young and to be subjected to that kind of hatred, for something she knew she was right about, is beyond my comprehension. Legend has it that Kris Kristofferson was sent out to bring her off stage. Instead, he said, “Don’t let them get you down.” Legend also has it that she responded, “I’m not down.” Such principle. Such conviction. Such self-possession.
After her first single, a romantic ballad, she could have followed the mold and made a mint. She could have stayed in the pop singer box and piled up the money. She did not.
She frequently wrote of social injustice. In the song “Three Babies,” she equates Margaret Thatcher with Deng Xiaoping and the murders in Tianamen Square. In “Black Boys on Mopeds” she decries the murder of black boys and men by police.
Her principled activism went beyond her lyrics.
In 1989, Sinéad protested at the Grammy Awards. The Recording Academy had resisted including rap in the awards. They argued that rap was a fad and therefore it would be useless to create a permanent award category for it. They eventually relented, but they decided that they would not televise that portion of the ceremony. Sinéad was not having it. In protest, she had the Public Enemy logo painted onto the side of her (shaven) head as she took center stage. It was her way of unerasing the erased, of center-staging the marginalized.
Sinéad became pregnant at 20, just as her career was taking off. Not the usual path of a pop star. Sinéad has claimed that the record company tried to convince her to abort the fetus — after all, the record company had just invested all that money in recording her album. She refused. She was proud to be a mother and a pop star. So, instead of aborting the fetus, she wore her son’s onesie on stage at the Grammys performance. Another principled act of defiance. Another fracturing of the mold.
In 1990, she withdrew from a scheduled performance on Saturday Night Live because it was being hosted by Andrew Dice Clay. Sinéad argued that she could not perform songs from a woman’s perspective right after Clay had given a misogynist monologue. Again, it might have scuttled her career. For one, she didn’t care. For another, it didn’t. She was rebooked for another date.
Also in 1990, Sinéad was booked to perform at a venue in New Jersey. That venue always played the “Star Spangled Banner” prior to any event. Sinéad refused. She thought that the SSB had nothing to do with her or her music. She also said that she did not want it played due to the US’s history of racism. Another principled stand. The venue relented, but she was blacklisted from the venue. And when word leaked, she was banned from many NY and NJ radio stations. For her, the principle mattered more.
In 1991, Sinéad was nominated for several Grammys for her single and her album. She refused to attend. She wrote to the Academy and said she would not accept and award if granted. She decried the Academy’s reverence for material gain. She argued that the Academy recognized only the commercial element of music, and therefore, left many artists marginalized. When Living Color won its Grammy that year, guitarist Vernon Reid wore a shirt with Sinéad’s image on it.
Mind you, I do not mean to romanticize Sinéad’s life or activism. Not every protest was straightforward or uncomplicated. For example, in 2013, she penned an open letter to Miley Cyrus. The letter was in response to Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” video. Sinéad worried that Cyrus had been mal-advised. She advised Cyrus not to over-sexualize herself. In other words, she believed that Cyrus had gone down the pathway that Sinéad herself had ditched. Cyrus was not having. I would suggest that the difference of opinion between the two largely stems from a second-wave vs. third-wave feminist understanding of sexuality. The letter did not sit well with a lot of people, and has been revived following her death.
In 2017, Sinéad appeared on the Dr. Phil show, in order to de-stigmatize mental illness. In 2023, more and more artists and athletes and politicians are being public with mental health issues. It was less common in 2017. Sinéad wanted to normalize talking about mental health; she wanted to assist and encourage anyone who was struggling to get help. (I found a video of this appearance — of all places — on the webpage of the Grammy Awards!)
On July 26, 2023, Shuhada’ Sadaqat, who performed as Sinéad O’Connor, passed away.
May we all live such a principled life.
[[If you know of any other incidents or examples of social justice activism from Sinéad, please let me know in the comments. I’ll edit the post and give you acknowledgment for the tip.]]
Ritch Calvin is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at SUNY Stony Brook. He is the author of Queering SF: Readings, Feminist Epistemology and Feminist Science Fiction, and edited a collection of essays on Gilmore Girls. His most recent book is Queering SF: Readings (Aqueduct Press).
