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Mother Sinead
Death has a way of focusing the mind, especially if it’s someone who for no good reason slipped long ago from your conscious. The last couple weeks Sinead O’Connor reentered my life. She created a great diversity of music, but from song one, Sinead was and remained a Rock and Roller. She was also Irish OG – “They gave me five years.” Her voice could be honey sweet or banshee wail.
She professed to have been touched by god at a very young age. Brothers and sisters, history shows that is the most dangerous and tortured creature, capable of wondrous beauty. She was mother of four, four different fathers, the first at 20 while making her debut album. Last year was the most darkly tragic, as it would have been for any mother.
She was whip-smart, hellishly funny, with a mouth and humor of the saltiest sailor. A few years back she joked the only thing keeping her alive was the thought of Bono speaking at her funeral and “he'd shite on.” That's fucking funny, no Brit piss-take, pure Irish.
She took one of the most famous faces in pop and in five seconds she made it the most infamous with the power of broadcast TV which thirty years before created The Beatles in 10 minutes. The Irish colleen didn't understand in 1992 America, there was no more “real enemy” than General Electric's NBC. Her act of protest wasn't against the then still not reported priests' diddling and subsequent cover ups, but, as she explained, Rome’s acquiesce to Britain's centuries long rape and pillaging of Ireland, the destruction of its culture, and the resulting abuses. A number of years later commenting on the church’s cover-ups, she said, “It showed the church was run by people who didn't believe in god.” Smack!
Finally, yes Bono, this is a rebel song
To and fro in my dreams I go
And I kneel and I pray for you
For slavery fled O glorious dead
When you fell in the foggy dew
Beautiful of body, mind, spirit, and song, god love Mother Sinead.
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