SINEAD O'CONNOR ISN'T MISERABLE ANYMORE
 
By Greg Kot
 
With a new EP, "Gospel Oak" (Columbia), of deceptively soothing, hip-hop
flavored Celtic lullabies and hymns, Sinead O'Connor has quietly re-entered
the pop arena. After abruptly departing the Lollapalooza tour in 1995
because of physical problems associated with her pregnancy (she later gave
birth to a daughter), O'Connor is back in North America for a brief
American tour, which includes a sold-out concert Saturday at the Vic.
 
O'Connor burst into international prominence with a brilliant 1987 debut
album, "The Lion and the Cobra," and in 1990 scored a No. 1 hit with a
dramatic version of Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U." But ever since she has
challenged, and sometimes bewildered, her audience with her public
pronouncements and increasingly less pop-oriented albums.
 
She ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II on "Saturday Night Live" in
1992 to protest the Catholic Church's stance on issues such as abortion and
divorce, and has been outspoken -- and often misunderstood when she has
spoken out -- about her own past as an abused child. Two weeks after the
TV appearance, she was booed off the stage at a Bob Dylan tribute concert
in New York by a small but vocal group of protesters.
 
Finally, she says, she has come to terms with the pain in her past, and at
age 30 has settled into motherhood; she records and tours sporadically so
she can raise her two children, 17-month-old Roisin and 10-year-old Jake.
She has a greatest-hits collection due out in the fall, but says her next
album of new material won't be released until 1999.
 
A few days ago, after arriving in the States from her home in London, the
Irish singer gave a rare interview.
 
Listening to your EP, it's like eavesdropping on a private conversation.
Do you ever get self-conscious about laying out so much of your life for
public consumption?
 
I think I've always done that. I look at all my albums as being the
diaries of someone in recovery from child abuse. I think with this record
the personal aspect is more disguised, and I've done a better job of making
it more universal. But even growing up, the music I was into, people like
Bob Dylan on "Blood on the Tracks," was extremely personal -- talk about
opening up your blood veins.
 
On your new record, "This is a Rebel Song" is a love song, but it's also
about the relationship between Ireland and England. It sounds like a
response to Bono of U2, when he would introduce "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by saying, "This is not a rebel song."
 
It is a direct response to that. What the song is rebelling against is the
fear of standing up and saying that we believe in the right to ownership of
Ireland by Irish people. In the days when U2 was saying that, people were
afraid to stand up and say we have a right to our country because they
feared it would be misinterpreted, that people would think they believe in
violence, that they were supporting the IRA and other paramilitary groups.
This song is a way of rebelling against that fear. We shouldn't be afraid
of standing up and saying we have a right to our country.
 
A lot of what you say and do is about standing up for what you believe in,
at the risk of being misinterpreted. Did the negative public reaction to
the "Saturday Night Live" incident surprise you?
 
I think at the time for each person that didn't understand there was a
person who did. You would think the way the papers wrote about it that
nobody understood it. At the Bob Dylan show, three quarters of the
audience was cheering, but the newspapers would have you believe that
everyone was booing. There are still people who don't understand why I
ripped up the Pope's picture, who saw it as a vicious attack on an old man
who had had assassination attempts made on his life. But obviously it
wasn't a personal attack on the man. It was an attack on the church in
general, and for its policy of silence on the abuses that were taking place, particularly in Ireland. I do feel vindicated by all the information that has come out in the last few years concerning child abuse within the church and how the church tried to cover it up, especially in Ireland.. With some people you can never win them over, and I respect those who think it was a terrible thing. But it was something I felt I had to do, and I don't regret doing it.
 
Were you disappointed that your fellow artists didn't stick up for you at
the Dylan show? Many of them carried on as though nothing had happened.
 
I never expected anyone to save my ass that night. It was something I did
myself, and I had to be prepared to accept the consequences. Some people
were disappointed that Neil Young (who followed O'Connor on stage) didn't
say anything, but why should he get his head kicked in for an artist he'd
hardly even met?
 
What about Dylan?
 
That night he came over and said he was sorry. He didn't know about what
happened that night, or the Pope thing, so he was completely baffled. What
I found out later was that it was a very carefully organized group that
came down to the show specifically to do what they did. So they don't
represent Bob Dylan's audience.
 
I was in the audience and it seemed most people were there to see you
perform.
 
In the end, I guess they saw me perform anyway (laughs).
 
You've indicated you're not fond of performing the songs on your first two
albums, which established your audience. Why?
 
My main reason is that I am not a miserable person anymore and I have no
desire to summon up the ghosts of my past. People are disappointed when I
don't do songs like `Troy,' I know that, but it was very painful being that
person, and I don't have any desire to go back there. I basically do the
songs that are loving and peaceful and give me a sense of love and peace.
I don't have any desire to be miserable. I've worked very hard to be
happy.
 
I sense that becoming a pop star was totally unnerving.
 
Yes. And that's another reason why I ripped up the Pope's picture -- it
was a way of ripping up myself, a way of ripping up that image of myself.
 
What offended you about being a pop star?
 
Pop stars are people who play it very safe. They don't really stir the
water. I had a few things I wanted to write about -- child abuse,
especialy at that time, was a hot potato. I didn't want to be writing `Oh,
baby, baby.' If you look at what happened, I had a hit record, I sold a lot
of records, so what was expected of me is that I would start licking
people's butts. It was not expected of me that I would have anything to
say about anything, or that I would be protesting anything. It was not
expected of me to be a protest singer, which I was in a way -- not in the
old fashioned sense but in the '90s sense.
 
Do you still consider yourself a protest singer?
 
I've gotten through the stages of feeling the anger and expressing it. Now
I want to heal -- myself, and anyone who cares to listen.