I have been thinking about Sinead O'Connor quite a lot the last couple of days, as many people no doubt have. Full disclosure: I was not her biggest music fan, for a variety of reasons. And yet... I was a true fan of her, Sinead, the person, and it is that which I have been thinking about.
Of course, I recognized she had the voice of an angel. Haunting, emotional, tearing you this way and that. She had a power like very few ever have to move the listener. She did not need autotune and lots of special effects to do it. Her voice, alone, was enough. Sometimes it was too much, really. She was almost too real to bear.
She was stoic, which is something I value highly. She was uniquely original, totally herself, in the face of everything pressuring her to be otherwise in order to be successful. That takes true strength, and I believe she had that, and I admire her enormously for it.
When I was young, I longed to be a singer. (I am not comparing my voice to Sinead, by any means, just the desire.) I wasn't really interested in the trappings of fame - I didn't care about the entourage or the chauffered limosines or even, to be honest, the money. I just wanted to sing for people, because it was something I felt inside my soul that had to come out. But when I started looking seriously at the music industry, thinking about how to pursue it, I realized very quickly it just wasn't something I could do. I could not be tasked with selling myself to be packaged and managed by some old people who would literally own me, lock, stock and song rights, in order to sing for people.
So, instead of standing up for what was right for the artist, I just quit on it. Right or wrong, I couldn't do it, and I quit singing altogether for many years. (BTW, my PSA for today - I learned there is a cost to doing that. Use it or lose it is real. My voice will never recover. So if you give up singing for awhile, know you maybe won't get it back again.) I gave up, where she forged ahead. I admire her for that, especially in light of her mental health battles, part of which were no doubt exacerbated by that struggle.
Sinead sacrificed a very lucrative career to stand up for herself (and by extension, other artists, to be free to be who they are,) and it cost her the commercial success she unquestionably could have had. She walked the talk, and it ultimately was her undoing. But, you know, I don't think she ever really felt regret. Because she was true to herself, and that was more important to her than money or fame. I admire that about her. She is a much stronger person than I am.
She overcame a very difficult childhood, and found her release in music. I can relate to that, actually. My childhood was not difficult in the same way, I had a very loving family and was protected and cared for, unlike Sinead. But life had some hard bumps for me, too, and music was the place I could forget and lose myself. But where she turned hard, I turned soft. Where she released her rage, I bottled mine up. Her lifelong mental illness was exposed for all to see, while I hid behind the facade of respectability. I couldn't, and still can't, understand how she brought all that rage to her music, because music is where I ran away from the hurt and found solace. But I can appreciate that music was perhaps the one place where she felt entirely free to express her pain, and that is okay, too, even if I don't get it.
Sinead was ground breaking in several ways. She stood up to the music industry, of course, and did all sorts of other controversial things which didn't really speak to me, but freedom of speech and all that.... But that is neither here nor there. She also allowed the world into her mental illness, which is the biggest thing for me. Unless you have struggled with your mental health, you cannot understand the burden you feel not to disclose, not to talk about it, not to embarrass yourself or your family, by not being able to cope. You don't want anyone to know You Can Not Deal, because of the fear that they will look down on you, think you are less than, maybe even worthless. It is scary, let me tell you. And the fear is real. You can't tell me Sinead being bi-polar didn't affect her sales and popularity, not to mention her ability to simply perform on a reliable basis. I will bet no promoter could get insurance for her tours, for example, because who knows if she will manage?
Sinead was bi-polar, while I struggled with severe chronic depression. They are not the same, of course, but it makes people uncomfortable when I talk about it, anyway. (That is getting better, but don't think for a moment some people don't still squirm when I get mention it.) I think by talking about it, we can bring it out into the open and make it better for those who come next, and I feel an obligation to do what I can to help that happen.
There is no shame in mental illness, many people struggle with it at some point in their lives. You do not have to feel worthless simply because you are mentally ill, any more than you should feel bad because you have cancer or diabetes or any other illness. And make no mistake about it, most people continue to live with it, even though, technically, they may be "cured." At least for me, and I suspect for most people who have struggled with it, its always hiding around the corner, waiting to jump out in my path and derail me. The difference for me is that I have now learned to "manage" it, instead of allowing it to manage me. I don't think Sinead ever got there, but she also had a lot more to overcome. That makes me sad.
Along with poor mental health comes a host of physical problems, as well, and I imagine Sinead struggled with that, as well. Eating disorders cause all kinds of physical manifestions. Stress causes all kinds of physical illness. Driving others away causes loneliness and isolation, which leads to even more problems. Self-medicating is a manifestation of mental illness, as is self-harming. Suicide is a companion on that dark journey, along with paranoia and other imaginary, but real to you, problems.
We see so many celebrities struggling with mental illness, but we only hear when they are off the deep end. It would be so much better if we could see them struggling and succeeding, to give us hope that we, too, can live a normal life. I understand their reluctance, of course. We need look no further than Sinead (or Britney, or Amanda, or Amy or Kurt...) to see the effects of mental illness on their lives and careers. It would be hard to disclose something that could easily derail your whole life when you have it under control. But there are many people who live with it successfully, and it would be good to see that, too.
I have never really related to singers who poured their rage and anger and hatred into their music. That would never have been my way. But I have no judgement of those who would, because that is their way, and it is coming from somewhere deep in their soul. So while I can't relate to much of the music Sinead produced, I can appreciate her talent and her honesty and her searing, unadulterated pain that she shared with the world through her music.
We are in a world that seems to overshare everything right now as a glorifcation of themselves, like showing everyone everything on TikTok is a virtue or something. But its all so superficial and unreal. Its weird, and I will never get it. Sinead O'Connor, on the other hand, was reluctantly exposed in a way very few are, when you feel like she would really rather have been more anonymous, in all her human frailty, and it is painful and sad and empowering, all at the same time. She was real, human, and relateable, even if she would have been difficult to be friends with or related to.
I am sorry that you are gone, Sinead. My sympathy and my heart goes out to your family, because they have been dealing with the pain since forever, and I am not sure that will ever end for them. The world needs more artists like you - real, uncompromising, vulnerable, genuine. You exemplified the beauty and the value of true art. You made us confront ourselves. Slán abhaile. RIP.
