INTERVIEW WITH "Sessions At West 54th" A US-TV-program 1997 CHRIS:We're here with Sinead O'Connor and I really appreciate your doing the show. I see this as an opportunity to clear up some misconceptions about you because there have been so many. Not only about you, but about some of your actions related to your work. I know that you said it's nearly impossible for you to talk about your music without talking about your past. SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. Well, it certainly was at the time that I was between 20 and 30. That's what I was writing about. And even now, I guess it would be, in a different way I would talk about it now because I'm not right in the middle of the recovery-- well, I am. But only significantly. CHRIS:But you've come through it, or I mean you're still coming through this. SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. I've still got work to do. But yeah, I'm not an open wound which I was at the time that I was first making records. CHRIS:Well, it was the turbulence of your childhood that really powered your foray into music to begin with. SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. CHRIS:I mean, I don't think a lot of people realize that there was a lot of abuse in the house from your mother. What was it? Physical abuse? Emotional abuse? SINEAD O'CONNOR: Physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual. CHRIS:And spiritual? SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. Well, all abuse is spiritual. But all of the above. CHRIS:Spiritual abuse. How does that manifest itself? SINEAD O'CONNOR: If an adult invades the body or the psyche of a child so much that a child has to drive itself out of its own body and that that parent is more present in your body than you are, then you have your spirit invaded. Although there's also a part of you that can't be touched. So, there is a part of your spirit that doesn't get touched. If these things happen to grownups, a grownup has a certain defense because a grownup knows it's wrong. But a child doesn't know it's wrong. And I guess that's what I mean in breaking your spirit literally. You've been driven out of your own body so that all you know or think of yourself is what that person tells you. You haven't got a chance to discover who you are for yourself. Do you know what I mean? CHRIS:Yeah. SINEAD O'CONNOR: It's obviously quite an emotional thing to talk about. But it's to do with the fact that we weren't allowed to be children. To just sit in our bodies and such. Because you're spending your whole life trying to affect someone else rather than discovering who you are. That's what I mean by spiritual. And also, because a lot of the abuse was very sexually oriented. A lot of violence was very sexually abusive. She was also sexually abusive in other ways. But that kind of sexual violence can really break your spirit. CHRIS:Yeah. You know when some people think of you, they think of the moment when you tore up the picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live. One thing that I'd just realized recently was that that picture was the same picture of the Pope that hung in your mother's living room. SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. Sorry, everyone. Well, I'm not sorry, actually. I think that that's more of a subconscious thing than anything else, though. Do you know what I mean? It's a very hard thing to articulate. But obviously, Ireland is what created my mother and people like my mother. My mother is as much a sort of a victim of circumstances as maybe we were. And I totally forgive my mother and understand-- well, I don't understand, but I forgive my mother and I have a lot of love for her. Part of it certainly is the history of the country and what happened to the people of the country that created this kind of schizophrenia as a kind of national disease in Ireland. And the Church really had a role to play in how much violence was inculcated in the society given that they spent most of the time beating the crap out of the kids in school and this, that, and the other. Teaching them that sex was dirty, so if you believe sex is dirty you're going to do it in dirty ways or you're not going to have a healthy relationship. That kind of stuff. So, I certainly see the Church as being partly responsible for what happened to myself and my brothers and sisters. I've always been a very religious person and my father was also quite a religious person and quite an activist. He was the chairman of the divorce action group in Ireland because there wasn't any divorce in Ireland at the time. But he was married. So I guess I follow in my father's footsteps in that we have a kind of a love for God and everything, but we can see that the Church doesn't necessarily have the same love all the time. 90% of the people there are wonderful. I grew up believing that these were good people and when I got to 22, 23, I found out some stuff that made me pretty angry. Doing what I did on the show and all...I do love God or whatever you call it. So, I guess that's where it was misrepresented as being an act of hate. And the actual fact was not to love. And for myself, and also for G-O-D, and also for people. But yeah, it's much more personal I think than I even know in terms of ripping. I wanted to get rid of my mother, I guess, and the effects of that on me. And that's what my career has been-- that's why I call my first album the Lion and Cobra. Which I don't know if I've explained to you before. But in the Bible it says with God's help you'll trend up on the lion and the cobra will trample the grapevine and the serpent. Those things to me meant the effects of my childhood. The effects of my mother on my life were the lion and the cobra. So, it's the same thing. Ripping up the picture is the same thing. CHRIS:Well, from the very beginning your music has been a refuge for you, right? SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. CHRIS:Kind of ironic that a nun gave you your first guitar. SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. That's what I mean. I mean, I have a lot of love for the Church and I have a lot of love for people who are brave enough to give up their lives to serve it. I think there's an awful lot that they are not allowed to talk about. So, in a certain way it's up to us to talk about it. But I think their whole teaching on sexuality is really what I was trying to get at: with the Pope's picture and the effect that that had on my brothers and sisters and also that it has on other families and on the Church itself. It's a subject that has not been discussed, the Church's attitude towards sex. And then, the whole idea of depriving people of having sex. Which is why then it happens that people end up being abused. It's because I love those people that I would discuss it. I mean, there's a lot to be said if you have enough respect for someone to have an argument with them. Do you know what I mean? There's a lot of healing to be done and things to be talked about. CHRIS:Obviously, a lot of the writing has been driven by these feelings and these emotions. Do you remember the first piece you ever wrote? SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. I guess I do. It was on a song when I was about 14. It was about a place that was a rehabilitation center for girls with behavior problems. I ran away from my mother when I was 13 and went to live with my father but I was pretty messed up and didn't go to school and shit. So, I was in this place where the nun bought me my guitar. This was the nun Sister Margaret who ran the place. And there was a guitar teacher there and she was getting married. And she asked me sing the Barbra Streisand song "Evergreen." I sang that at her wedding. And her brother was in this Irish band. And he then came back to the place after the wedding and gave me a tape of some music that they had asked me to write words to and come into the studio and all. So-- I can't remember what it was called but it was about an old guy-- about a dead guy. It was about this place being haunted by this old dead guy. And they really liked it. And that was my first studio experience. CHRIS:Your first record? SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yes. CHRIS:I don't see "Evergreen" on the set list here. SINEAD O'CONNOR: No, no. I'll leave that to her. CHRIS:Well, it's true, I guess, if you're writing from an emotional place and it becomes a cathartic experience, than hopefully the piece can stand as a healing piece for others. SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. I don't think that song's gonna solve the world no more than I think religion can. But I think that what they can both do-- which is more than relevant-- is put their arms around you. What I can do about taking the journey in front of other people is show them that there is a journey that can be taken. I can't heal them. I can heal myself, and by doing so show them that they can heal themselves. So it's not that the song will heal them, but hopefully they would write their own song. You know? CHRIS:Yeah. Exactly. I wanted to ask you about a couple of the songs that I know you're going to do tonight. "John, I love you." SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. CHRIS:John-- there's a couple of Johns in your life. SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. Loads. CHRIS:But this is one of your favorite songs? SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. It is actually one of my favorite songs. But Sinead is also the female equivalent of John. It's worth pointing out. CHRIS:Like Sean? SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. It's just the female version. CHRIS:But there's a lot of Johns in your life. SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. And my daughter's father is called John. My son's father is called John. My boyfriend is called John. My last boyfriend was called John. CHRIS:No kidding? SINEAD O'CONNOR: Sinead means John. And my younger brother is called John. Did I mention that already? I think it's more a song about my younger brother, or directed towards my younger brother, and myself. I think we're always writing about ourselves, even though we might not know we are. I didn't really know that I was writing that about myself too. And it's not about anyone in particular. And also, I think, it's important not to talk too much about what songs are about because it destroys it, basically: the magic that it can do on you or someone else if you know too much about it. CHRIS:But of all the Johns that you mentioned, the original inspiration was your brother? SINEAD O'CONNOR: It'd be very hard to say. You see, I don't really think it's a good idea to explain things too much because they have magic as long as you don't know really-- they're in another kind of land. CHRIS:Yeah. It's kind of what a video does sometimes too. Because a video takes away some of the magic. SINEAD O'CONNOR: I mean, the thing I like most is it's a very healing song and that's the direction in which I want to go. It's a song which gets a lot of response from audiences as well. So I think my audience are people who identify with me and have probably been through some of those experiences. So, they hear what's behind it all. CHRIS:Do you hear from people thankful for having heard the work? SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. I think that happens to all musicians. God loves a singer. People love musicians. CHRIS:How about [PETIT FOULE?]? [PETIT FOULE?] is a newer song. SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. Again, it's another one of my favorite songs. Probably "John, I love you" and [PETIT FOULE?] would be among my favorite ones. They're very similar songs in terms of what they're saying and where they're coming from. And I like it, again, because it's very hopeful. To a certain extent in all the songs I'm talking to myself. And in that case there's also a kind of start to think about it. And when I saw on TV the stuff that happened in [RUWANDA?]. And again, going back to that thing of you know songs can't save the world but what you can do is try and put your arms around people. So, I guess that song is a kind of an attempt to supply some kind of healing. CHRIS:What does [PETIT FOULE] mean? SINEAD O'CONNOR: It means little chicken. Everything's okay now. In Ireland, you call people little chicken. Babies are called little chicken. Or your sweetheart. You go-- chicken. CHRIS:It's cute. SINEAD O'CONNOR: But I think if I'm to be very truthful, you can come up with all kinds of sort of political reasons why you've done this, that, and the other. But in fact, they're all about yourself. Do you know what I mean? And so, you all don't need to know. That's a conversation between me and me. But you hear something in it that reminds you of a conversation between you and you. CHRIS:Exactly. And you said that your songs, or your albums, have been sort of musical diaries of your own recovery. SINEAD O'CONNOR: And prayers for that recovery. CHRIS:Ah, so the new work-- the newest songs... SINEAD O'CONNOR: Yeah. They are what I imagined God would say if God would speak to me on this. It's very much what I imagined God, the mother, would say to me. CHRIS:When you're performing the songs, obviously the songs hold a lot of emotion for you. Is there any preparation that you go through before doing a show? Or do the songs pull you into it? SINEAD O'CONNOR: There's usually something that you can find. I very much operate on the feeling of the stuff but you don't have to be dragging up things in order to do that. It's a bit like an actor that can do a thing. You find something in it that will make you feel it's a different thing each different night. You can tune into the feeling or just into yourself. It's a different thing every night. It is all about having a relationship with yourself in the moment. CHRIS:Well, you've done some acting. And you're continuing to do some film work. Do you find that at all as satisfying as the music that you're doing? SINEAD O'CONNOR: Basically, no. It's not something that attracts me. I mean, it was very interesting doing the Virgin Mary. It's not a world that attracts me at all. And I'm a very private person. If you're an actor you have to be very open and not really care what anyone thinks. It's not really my bag. And I don't like getting up early in the morning. CHRIS: So, I should appreciate all the more that you came into that radio show? [LAUGHTER] SINEAD O'CONNOR: Well listen, I got a good sleep actually. Well yeah, that night you should appreciate it. Definitely. That's why I was crying, man. I was crying on the telephone. I miss my kids when it's too early in the morning. I always cry early in the morning.