RIP Sin'ead O'Connor (1966-2023) Singer and activist

Dunk • Cambridge District • 01-08-2014

Описание: Sin'ead O'Connor (1966-2023) was an Irish singer and musician. Her debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987 and charted internationally. Her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got received glowing reviews upon release and became her biggest success, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Its lead single, Nothing Compares 2 U (written by Prince), was named the number one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards. In 1992, O'Connor appeared on late-night television programme Saturday Night Live as a musical guest. She sang an a cappella version of Bob Marley's 1976 song War, which she intended as a protest against the Catholic Church's sexual abuse of children and its continued cover-up, referring to child abuse rather than racism. She then presented a photo of Pope John Paul II to the camera while singing the word “evil”, after which she tore the photo into pieces, said “Fight the real enemy”, and threw the pieces towards the camera. The incident occurred nine years before John Paul II acknowledged the sexual abuse within the Church. In a 2002 interview with Salon, when asked if she would change anything about the Saturday Night Live appearance, O'Connor replied, “Hell, no!” In her 2021 book Rememberings, O'Connor said of the incident: “Everyone wants a pop star, see? But I am a protest singer. I just had stuff to get off my chest. I had no desire for fame”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin'ead_O'Connor CC-BY portrait of Sinead O'Connor performing at Cambridge Folk Festival in 2014 by Bryan Ledgard via Wikimedia Commons w.wiki/78V$