O'Connor
embrases a new style, religion
by Tom Moon
NEW YORK -- In the
vast and well-documented history of
pop makeovers, there's never
been anything quite like
the imminent return of Sinead
O'Connor.
Once seen on national TV
ripping up a picture of the
pope, she's now become a
priest in the Latin
Tridentine Church, a tiny
Catholic splinter group.
Once, her calling card was
rage, and her primary mode
was provocation; now, in
songs with such titles as
"The Healing Room," she
talks about overcoming anger
with poise, and extols the
virtues of grace.
She once was bald. Now she
has hair. (It's black.)
Once she was a proud punk;
now, she credits the Rastas
for showing her the light.
Once she ignored internal
cues. Now, she says in a
humble whisper as a cross
and other jewelry jangle
beneath her deep-blue tunic,
her inner ear is tuned to
spirit-world frequencies.
"This record represents my
soul singing to me," the
slight O'Connor, 33, said
in a plush suite at the Four
Seasons as she talked about
her first full album in
six years, "Faith and Courage."
"I believe the soul has knowledge
of where your energy
should be. And if you are
aware, and you have a
dialogue with it, you can
learn from that. There are
topics in some of the songs
that I wasn't consciously
trying to deal with, but
they just came out. Almost
like these were the things
my soul thought I needed to
deal with."
It doesn't take long to sense
how important this stuff
is to O'Connor. As she talks
about her journey to
enlightenment, her eyes
flicker and flash in a kind of
visual punctuation, underscoring
her awe at small
coincidences and major revelations.
And though she's
endured ridicule and other
kinds of torment for years,
she's hardly bitter: She
exudes the confidence of
someone who has overcome
obstacles through sheer force
of will.
She points to "Til I Whisper
U Something," which uses
a pounding ritual pulse
and Celtic flute to address
the importance of relaxation,
as one example of her
heeding an inner voice.
"That's a universal thing, and
maybe really obvious. But
when I wrote it, it was a
reminder to myself that
I really needed to lighten up
and stay open."
Vivid transformation
It is in these "reminders"
-- meditations on the role
of spirituality in everyday
life, as well as
expressions of forgiveness,
healing and reconciliation
laced into the album's 13
tracks -- that O'Connor's
transformation is most vivid.
The singer and controversy
magnet, whose signature
sound is that of an anguished
seeker clawing out of
deep emotional distress,
has always flirted with the
metaphysical. Off and on
since she was 18, she has
studied the paranormal at
a London school for psychic
healing. "I'm learning to
be a medium -- using guided
meditation to read auras
and ask questions of the
spirits. It's something
anyone can do, if they're
tuned into it. It fills
me with the greatest joy."
With "Faith and Courage"
(Atlantic), O'Connor has
discovered compelling ways
to bring her spiritual
journey more overtly into
the mix, allowing it to
inform, on some level, every
song. The album is a
series of lullaby hymns
and petitioning prayers,
anthemic proclamations of
devotion, and blunt
assessments of dysfunctional
relationships, outbreaks
of rage overshadowed by
beautiful melodies.
The narratives retain the
strident,
busted-apart-at-the-seams
urgency of her previous work
-- one memorable refrain
finds her imploring "take
back the hatred you gave
me for me, take back the
anger that nearly killed
me." But these pieces are not
always linked to the typical
rock or hip-hop settings
she favored in the past.
Several are built around
pulverizing, techno-style
electronic drums, and others
strive for the uplift of
classic reggae, or the
soothing contemplations
of folk. And though many of
the compositions are freighted
with symbolism and
personal anguish, they're
never preachy. O'Connor is
one of the few pop artists
who can make the "know
thyself" quest sound like
a matter of life-or-death
importance.
O'Connor says that when she
began writing these songs,
she felt strongly about
addressing serious issues
without compromising, or
overburdening, the music.
"In the West, people are
not encouraged to go inward,"
she says as she lights up
an American Spirit
organic-tobacco cigarette.
"They're not exposed to
those ideas, and that meant
I had to find ways to
introduce them that wouldn't
be threatening. The thing
is, we live under the illusion
that we are all
separate from each other,
and what I believe is that
on the soul level, we are
one. So if you're honest
when you talk about the
things you're going through,
people feel it. They hear
a bit of themselves in
there."
Of course, sometimes the
signals get crossed, which
she says has happened with
the first single, the
declarative "No Man's Woman."
Though her intention was
to celebrate strong, independent-minded
women (she
recently said she was a
lesbian), some have
interpreted it as an anti-male
diatribe.
"That's a shallow reduction
of my idea: Man in that
song is just a symbol of
anything, real or not, that
blocks you, that keeps you
from being free."
O'Connor says that when she
began planning the album,
she had just one goal: Unlike
her previous successes,
particularly the 1990 breakthrough
"I Do Not Want What
I Haven't Got," the new
work would not mine a single
musical style from start
to finish.
"The most important thing
is having a sense of
direction. My father's a
builder, and he says that
when he looks at the drawing
of the finished project,
he doesn't know all the
steps it'll take, but he knows
what he'll end up with.
When I started thinking about
the record, I took the same
approach . . . I like to
be covered in butter, so
I can't quite be caught in
one place. I mean, I have
a pop streak and a real
Irish traditional streak
and a punk streak, and I
don't think those things
have all been represented
together before."
All-star team
O'Connor wrote or co-wrote
10 of the 13 tracks, and
enlisted an all-star team
of producers including Dave
Stewart of Eurythmics, hip-hop
star Wyclef Jean, Kevin
"She'kspere" Briggs, and
ambient-music pioneer Brian
Eno.
"Everybody ended up doing
things they weren't used to
doing," she recalls. "The
track I did with Wyclef is
country-and-western, almost.
The energy of being
around really smart people
who are feeling their way
in unknown territory was
just incredible. And they all
gave me the space to be
in charge. Producers can be
controlling, especially
of female artists, and in
every case these men recognized
that it's like a
relationship, like a marriage,
and everybody worked to
make it a good environment."
That doesn't mean she wasn't challenged.
One day Stewart brought in
a track and had a specific
theme in mind for the lyrics.
"He asked me to go write
a song about how I left
Dublin to become a singer.
Which was uncomfortable
for me, because I don't always
write autobiographically.
And because it felt like I
was coming full circle:
The girl I'm writing about was
so influenced by Eurythmics;
he and Annie Lennox were
just tremendously important
to me at that time."
The song, "Daddy I'm Fine,"
bounces between slurpy
funk and a careening, up-tempo
punk thrash to
chronicle O'Connor's turbulent,
headstrong youth. But
by the end, it tries to
reassure her father, with whom
she fought as a teen-ager,
that she turned out all
right. The last line: "And
Daddy I love you."
O'Connor acknowledges that
she wasn't capable of
making such a forthright
declaration a few years ago,
and credits teachings from
Rastafarianism and
Catholicism with helping
her development.
"I like religions which don't
withhold the magic," she
explains. "To me, the Rasta
men are a true
inspiration, the way they
talk: 'The "I" has work to
do.' "
She sees no incongruence
between respecting the
Jamaican religion and working
within the Latin
Tridentine Church. "My idea
is to go in there and be
one drop in the ocean, as
Bob (Marley) said. I can be
a bridge between cultures
. . . I'm not here to beat
up the old church, just
to suggest that maybe there
needs to be some change."
O'Connor quickly adds that
she's uncomfortable talking
about her priesthood, which
became official last year.
"Because I didn't do it
for publicity reasons, and I
don't want to bring them
attention they're not
seeking." She offers the
one affirmation she received
from church elders: "Their
only statement has been
that they welcome someone
working to seek a spiritual
life."
O'Connor's theological studies
were just one of
several obstacles to the
completion of "Faith and
Courage." She spent more
than a year in record-company
limbo: "My label, EMI, closed
10 days after they put
my record out," she says,
referring to the 1997
"Gospel Oak EP." She spent
months learning bel canto
singing, a classical Italian
technique that she says
taught her to focus on "the
pictures and the intent of
the song rather than the
words or the notes."
Then came a protracted battle
over custody of her
daughter, Roisin, now 4,
who was fathered by British
journalist John Waters in
what the British press
characterized as an "arranged
pregnancy."
Waters told British officials
that he thought O'Connor
was an unfit mother. O'Connor
soon found herself in a
legal morass.
"I suffer from depression,
and in the English courts
there's a bias against mental
illness, any kind of
instability. The implication
is that you're unfit to
mother." She tried to move
the case to the United
States, arguing that in
this country, "there is
support and understanding
for mental illness. I knew I
wouldn't be punished for
crying in court -- I was
hysterical, just phobic
about being there at all. And
I found it difficult to
sit there and take it when
someone's telling the most
foul lie about you."
Though the British tabloids
initially reported that
she had lost custody, O'Connor
says she and Waters
resolved the matter earlier
this year by agreeing to
joint custody. (As for other
perceptions advanced by
the tabloids: "I've never
been an alcoholic . . . I've
never gone out with Daniel
Day-Lewis, but that's not
for want of trying . . .
I never supported Saddam
Hussein.")
Healing themes
While the case was proceeding,
O'Connor and her son,
Jake, now 13, passed the
time in Atlanta, where Jake's
father was working, watching
TV -- specifically
televangelists. "I was struck
by how inspiring they
are, how much feeling they
put behind the words. I
want them to teach the priests
of Ireland, because
some of them can be pretty
dull."
The metaphor-rich sermons
sparked a song, "The Lamb's
Book of Life," that neatly
encompasses the themes of
healing, reconciliation
and forgiveness that run
throughout the album. On
one verse, she talks about
Ireland's needing spiritual
help to resolve "the great
hatred." On another, she
asks for understanding for
her own transgressions:
"I know that I've done many
things to give you reason
not to listen to me," she
sings over a lilting reggae
pulse. "Words can't
express how sorry I am if
I ever caused any pain to
anybody."
She insists it's not an act of contrition.
"I don't regret anything
I've done," she says. "But
I've come to understand
why people felt threatened,
and I guess I did feel I
needed to make some
acknowledgment of my behavior.
To say that I've
learned, from my children
and from everything that's
happened to me, about compassion."
<<< BACK TO ARTICLES