Sinéad O’Connor, Author, “Rememberings” (Full Stream 6/9)

[Music] my [Music] so [Music] fight the real enemy [Music] and i don't know what god is but yeah there's something out there that responds to the human voice i just want people to feel like they've been to church or better when they've been to a show good afternoon everyone i am jeff edgers the national arts reporter at the washington post and uh we are so lucky today to have a acclaimed artist and now best-selling author sinead o'connor with us uh coming to us from ireland and she is the author of the new book rememberings uh which chronicles her decades as an artist and her roots and her uh her start and um janae we're so glad to have you here thank you thank you for being with the washington post thank you no no jesus it's lovely thank you um so sinead um as you know a few days ago you retired and uh and then you unretired and you said this you said i lied when i said i'm past my peak which i've seen you perform recently and i agree with you um yeah you know what i i i for for 30 years or at least since the pope business every time i go to work to sell a record or a book or whatever or show all anybody wants to know about is uh you know upsetting things do you know very upsetting things and uh on the grounds that i suffer from mental health conditions as a result of the violence i went through growing up i get treated like [ __ ] and i have to kind of wade through oceans of prejudice and stigma you know every day to make a living and that's depressing you know so there was a couple of interviews where i i had also the publishers had several times requested that journalists wouldn't uh would be sensitive not to perhaps re-traumatize me by digging into the abuse issue much and some of them ignored that and it was all a bit triggering i didn't expect that um talking about the book would would bring it was it's actually a huge catharsis you know which is a good thing but anyway there was a particularly hurtful interview about a week ago for all the years that i've got treated like this several times i've retired and it's actually because you know what it's so um it's so demeaning having to you know answer questions about whether you're saying or not or being invalidated on the grounds that you suffer from the symptoms of trauma do you know what i'm saying so yeah i mean you know one of your heroes uh two of your heroes van morrison is one of them and uh uh bob dylan um they found a solution to this which is they never do interviews right they do like one interview yeah well that's what's happening after this book promo is done everybody has promised me that i don't have to do any promo for the album coming out or anything like that because i terribly triggering it's weird it always has been over the years because even watching for example the beautiful thing that you've just made about my history and the things you know it's lovely but it's triggering it's weird it's weird you know not all it's actually a really good thing it's a blessing in disguise because all of my life when i in recovery the therapists and the doctors etc they always say and that this is common and they'll be survivors that you know i could tell you about something dreadful that happened but i wouldn't have any feelings about it you know of course you you're dissociated so you know a part of recovery is associating and that's what's happened as a result of you know talk about the books so that's a good thing but it means i'm terribly fragile so there was a particularly nasty [ __ ] god forgive me who was just demeaning me saying dreadful insults about mental health and all that stuff and uh you know i i every time somebody's just hurt me so bad that i don't want to [ __ ] be in the business for you know but then a couple of days later i was like you know what [ __ ] that [ __ ] so i got revenge by writing or writing a letter about it on my um web page so once i've got revenge i'm cool you know so um yeah i'm a mad [ __ ] like that's that's the thing so yeah i mean i don't mean that in a bad way i mean with respect you know but you know i i got terribly hurt and i didn't want to you know it's hard it's a hurtful thing being in the music business and constantly being defined by as if you're mad mental health and as if being mad is bad and or makes you somehow dangerous and you get treated like a russian dancing bear the kind of mocking and invalidating and putting you down you know catch it so that that made me want to run away a million times over the years you know but it so it's a hard it's a hard job you know you're wading through walls and this is true for everybody listening and of course who suffers from mental health issues but to go to go to work or to live your day you you have to wade through all the [ __ ] prejudice which even comes into your own [ __ ] head you know let me ask you you um uh um i know you're a consumer of news and you follow all current events i'm sure you've watched what's happened with um only only only in america i don't follow current events even in my own country don't forgive me all i do is i watch american cnn 24 hours a day so let me ask you when it comes to trauma and how people deal with it i mean you've seen what's happened with naomi osaka um great tennis player who you know respect her of course like but so i'm not saying anything about her but like the way the media are dealing with her is so respectful but to deal with me um they treat me like a dancing bear they it's horrible to live that way you know what can we what can we do better as as the media to i mean you've done it beautifully in this book the idea of sort of helping destigmatize mental illness and make people feel more powerful about speaking out what can the media do better how do they improve that because there is obviously that dr phil quotient out there that just want to get clicks and want to get attention well i suppose it's different for everyone like i'm not sure you ask me what do i think is the trick like i guess what one thing obviously is media could stop portraying in in movies or tv or anything uh and even the news uh where there's a mass shooting everybody says oh the person is mentally ill that's bollocks there's a difference between evil and mental illness so that labels us we're stigmatized people are afraid going to work it's basically it's like being a person who has two broken legs but everybody expects you to walk normal and if you don't work normal you might lose your job you might lose your girlfriend or your kids you know whatever you know and if you don't walk normal people jump on your broken legs and then when you scream and shout they use that against you you know i'm saying you're constantly in it's like a [ __ ] horrible video game so maybe you need to stop um i think one of the things you know i had an idea and it sounds funny but i'm not joking of of coffee mornings with crazy people right that in your in your town you would once a month or something in the park everybody could go and meet people who have all the different mental illnesses and chat get to know each other the trouble is because everyone's so afraid the reason everyone's so afraid of mental illness is um the way the media has portrayed it you know as if we're scary and all that crap you're in dangerous um or invalid you know so one of the people don't uh engage with people who have mental health illnesses and they don't understand the illness like media constantly portray multiple personality disorder as if it's schizophrenia schizophrenia is a completely different condition also media constantly portray people with schizophrenia or whatever as you know monsters you know dangerous and all that's complete bollocks nothing like it you know but yeah can i ask you i i i want to ask you about your your performing because that's a very important thing i think i think the media could do an awful lot if they encouraged people to engage with you know people of mental health and and find out that they're perfectly valid people you know but like one of the biggest problems when you again are at this person with two broken legs and everyone expects you to walk normal like you you wouldn't believe the millions of people that are going to work every day doing whatever jobs they do having to walk normal you know for fear they lose their job at their house with their mortgage you know so we're we're all we're constantly put under pressure not to show any symptoms you know in fact even i'll tell you something that my publisher will kill me for telling you but i'm gonna tell you like but before i start a promo for this book um there was a request came in that i do a mock interview with the publicist of some sort so that quote they could see was i going to say anything whack or was i going to come across crazy and then that really upset me in fact i stopped crying for a whole weekend because that's asking someone with two broken legs to walk normal you know and then i said i sent them the james brown interview on cnn after the [ __ ] car chase i was like hey you know how come james brown can act like a [ __ ] lindtech on cnn and i can't you know or somebody else can't go to work you know with their crutches and having to [ __ ] move normal yeah let me ask you um uh i i thought when you talked about your retirement one thing i thought of is so so much of what you do and so much of who you are is defined by what you've written and been able to sing over the years and one thing i thought was um uh you know one was it cathartic at all to write this down as a book this is by the way a beautiful book i mean it's like a it's very poetic and i love the fact that you wrote it uh you didn't get some hack like me to help out uh and and and two um i thought this is someone who who who doesn't just sing she needs to sing i've watched you perform and i feel this intensity that comes from you that is is i don't know if it's healing or cathartic we use that word too much but um uh tell me about how you deal with your life and and struggles with music and with this book well um when i was writing the book it wasn't a catharsis i didn't have any feelings as i explained earlier i i was completely so dissociated i was afraid i didn't so yeah i didn't um there was no guitarist writing it i just wrote and i didn't get it didn't trigger anything i was frightened to read the audio book because i thought it would be triggering but it wasn't at all except for weirdly the prince chapter because i had not in fact engaged at the time with how [ __ ] frightening that was and you know so i had to go to bed for a couple of days after that one um but the catharsis is now coming thanks be to god god works in mysterious ways the these journalists that have been a bit insensitive and digging into you know re-traumatize me it has that has been the catharsis it is all coming up now all the stuff that i told you earlier that the therapist for years are saying you know we'd like you to feel your bloody feelings if you don't mind well it's happening now you know i mean and that's a good thing you know but it's it's uh not easy you know but it's it's a blessing you know so when you talk about retiring it feels like you need to sing am i right about that i mean it it feels like something you can't just cut out of your life yeah exactly it's it's a bit like having a row with your husband and you say you know i'll [ __ ] off or you know two days later you're like oh i'm sorry you know it's a bit like that i guess but do i need to sing it's a very good question i think that what i like and why you see me get fiery when i'm on stage is that i feel strongly about the audience that to art to most artists it should be the case and it is with me that the audience is the most important person in in my life artistically so the i i guess i love that turning up and doing what i do because i know that the people there are finding something um encouraging and healing in it do you know what i'm saying it's kind of like music as a priesthood music as a priesthood you know i've been really inspired by the rastafari movement in that regard you know the idea of music as a priesthood you know and i think people like dylan are priests and van they don't know they are maybe maybe they do but when i go on stage there's two prayers i say every night so first i say jesus don't let me make a fool of myself too and then god don't don't let me make a fool of myself and then the next is i want to be a priest so i want to see what i love it's not so much that i need to sing i need to be a priest and that's how i go about it do you know what i'm saying yeah so the priests are very very by necessity extraordinarily flawed human beings you don't have to be perfect it's just that hopefully by you if you look at dylan or van not that i'm comparing myself to them but there are certain artists just by them you know there's a god you know i think yeah you know i want to ask you about um you know obviously you see the uh the clip of you tearing up the picture of the pope 100 times a day right i mean it's just it's just played over and over and uh the reason is because it was a very significant pop cultural moment and we all paid attention to it but now as you know people are reinterpreting it and they're saying boy how did she know all that and i know there were you explained beautifully that this wasn't just motivated by your knowledge of of child abuse in ireland yeah sorry when you when you see the when you see the way people are talking about it now because i know you see it on the internet people are saying hey sinead was right uh why didn't we listen do you say oh i feel like i'm finally they get it or is there more to it well it's never mattered really to me if anybody get it i understood i understood at the time why people didn't get it the thing about america that's quite sweet amongst many things is um that you guys think something hasn't happened unless it's happened in america so you didn't know for 10 years after the pope incident you know that this was going on i understood why people were so bloody horrified they couldn't possibly contemplate the idea i mean it was shocking the idea that there could be priests that were abused and worse the so-called same people covering it up you know but to be fair now i have to be honest i didn't know much about it i only saw a teeny tiny paragraph in some newspaper i can't even remember where but it was at very embryonic stages of the whole church thing um it was a fa about families who had made reports to the cops but then when they had gone to the cops to follow it up the cops had lost you know couldn't find the documents the statements and blah blah blah they were being stolen that's all i saw but the book explains the rest of it you know well i mean in the picture it's remarkable that photograph of the pope was when your mother died uh tragically in a car accident you plucked that photograph off of her wall and swirled it away uh yeah i i guess not not knowing that moment was going to occur on saturday and a lot i mean why did you what was your idea of what that photo would be at some point did you know well you know first i have to say you know there was a great thing about live tv in those days and i have a feeling because of me they they created the three second delay between lots of california and the other side of america with saturday night live but it's great because punk's like live tv do you not really [ __ ] do anything on live tv and so that was part of it as well but i took the photo because you know that the pope that guy came to ireland when i was a child he kissed the ground when he got off the plane as if the flight had been terrifying and then he gets up and says young people of ireland i love you and of course nobody bloody loved us actually and there was no love going on at all and that catholicism was crushing you know the very essence of life in people via sexuality you know their their perverse ideas about sexuality that they try to drill into people especially in ireland it's almost like they've had an experiment here you know so um people like my mother god rest her soul um what am i trying to say catholicism was making people in ireland either into monsters or being miserable there was no love at all it was a grey dark [ __ ] theocracy a miserable place so yeah when he gets up and says young people of ireland i love you like [ __ ] off like what the [ __ ] and also why are you driving around in a uh you know protective vehicle if if you are good in your heart why do you think anybody want to shoot you you know think think about it why would you want to get into such a vehicle unless you had something that you were afraid of you know you know if you understand what i'm saying you know so the falsity of the whole thing you know the crushing of irish people by the church in fact you know the football teams having to kneel down before matches and kiss the ring of the bishop you know the streets parting like the red seas when the bishop walked down the street you know people being told justin was awful lies by the devil and god my father was told at school several times by a priest when he was about seven years of age my father in the classroom the priest says um once there was a boy who didn't go to confession and you what happened was he had a didn't he die in a fire and didn't he go straight to hell and what happened was the the priests said that all my my bed clothes burned and everything and when they cleaned up the room they found two little burned hand prints on my bed clothes you know the boy had come back from hell screaming to you know finally beca get a confession this is the kind of [ __ ] they were drilling into people you know bashing the kids at school telling the parents it's like sex was a bad thing from from from the moment you're born as a catholic you're a sinner because your parents made love to create you the very essence of life beautiful sexuality and all life comes from it they they crush that into people you know and with wars and everything going on here and [ __ ] we never heard a word from the pope we had bloody four wars going on at the same time and they're they're still going on you know hey sinead i want to um uh and i wish we could talk for hours by the way but they only allow me to talk to you for half an hour so um uh i want to show you something i made this when i got i i saw you in march of 2020 before the pandemic struck i thought we were gonna see you back in the states on your tour but i had this made by this amazing outsider artist because this is a lyric black boys on mopeds i'll send you one if you want it's on a board on a wooden board it's like yeah i don't look very pretty in it obviously but i don't look very pretty anyway but i look much worse than that but i like it it's beautiful it's beautiful i actually love it it's beautiful oh look your typewriter remember i said i wanted you i tried blackmail you into giving me a typewriter but you've got exactly the one behind you it's the one that i have you don't have to bla you don't bla no blackmail i'll get you one but look that song black boys on mopeds you write that in the early 90s late 80s whatever it is in this lyric is there a danger these are dangerous days to say what you feel is to make your own grave i mean these are incredibly it's as if you're telling the future or maybe it's just the way the life has always been when you watch things like you have your black lives matter shirt on you say uh again why did these people in the united states not understand how messed up things were and how much we needed to fix them because we're evolving and you know things don't happen quickly we're you know if you say that we're made in the image of god god is evolving also we're evolving along with us we're all part of us we're just growing these things were bubbling under for years and at least they're being talked about they're being talked through and people are getting to express their their pain or their you know hope or do you know people are getting to talk about it you know look people been killing black people for [ __ ] centuries you know people been putting them down making them feel like a piece of [ __ ] and you know it's always been there i get very sad when it's actually beautiful though but what the the song that gets the most um you know applause from the audience when i first start singing the lines it's actually black boys and butt pads it's more popular than nothing compared and that's gorgeous but i always i'm thinking every night oh my god isn't it sad that this is still so [ __ ] relevant you know after 30 years that's sad so you know but i guess people are you know i think it has a lot to do with religion if you look at it like people have not been taught to love each other you never hear a politician say the word love you know people haven't been taught you know it was dangerous in america back in the 60s when people bloody loved each other and they were prepared to sit in the street and get killed if they had to you know but people have been made so busy trying to pay the rent and the mortgage in one check away from you know homeless and you know no no time to to think of others or to the will to be willing to die for the sake of others you know and um no spirituality no none of the religions are saying you know let's get and sit in the street and do a gandhi on it and just sit there and if they're gonna kill us okay kill us but but you know non-violent you know non-compliance if everybody in america got out the streets for one day the whole thing would bloody change because the powers that be would lose so much money on that one day you know do you know what i'm saying we don't we don't love each other we're enough to sit the street and die for each other you know and we're in america america defines that very idea in the 60s of you know loving your neighbor you know we uh beautifully put it up early in this uh the quote from your book but it's i'll just read it again because i think it's an important point uh because you're talking about how the how the moment on saturday life didn't ruin you it saved you it it recovered you in some way but you're right everyone wants a pop star see but i am a protest singer i just had to get stuff off my chest and so i i'd love to understand as you look at it uh do you look back at that time period that that point where you were on the top of the pop charts when you know look this record i get george harrison holding it uh but you're you're you know this thing was like the biggest album of all time when i was 19 years old and i still listen to it often because it's beautifully written but you look back at that time strangely and say boy what was i doing there on these award shows or uh you know on the pop charts i was embarrassed i feel like i was embarrassed you know and and i don't know if that was impolite of me perhaps you know but i i just was uncomfortable with it i don't know why i i guess because you know it's like all oil and water or whatever they say what is it oil and something don't mix so yeah i guess um you know the whole pop thing it's a very vampiric arena and it's almost as if you ever meet someone where for for some reason you just didn't get on with them your energy didn't work together it was something not right it's a bit like that for me when i was in the pop thing it just i i couldn't be whatever the hell it was i was supposed to be you know and as i said in the book nobody asked me what the [ __ ] i wanted you know so it derailed perhaps the dreams of a whole other record executives do you know what i mean mostly male obviously in fact entirely well in those days and um they they want to prostitute you and i wasn't comfortable with being a prostitute or expected to be a prostitute you know well the way you i mean that you you write it you write it beautifully in the book i mean the moment that the record executive tells this uh 19 year old to uh wear some nice little short skirts and uh grow her hair out you go to the barber and say cut it all off right yeah well that was my manager at the time he said to me i don't think you should [ __ ] shave it so i had like a mohawk anyway so yeah so i like the chapter in the book about the um the shaving of the head because it's a very funny chapter because the greek barber he was a young man himself probably a bit older than me like and he was having a freak out about doing it and so the whole scenario was quite funny and in fact he at the very end but when he did it it was like that nothing compares to you video one little tear came down his face because he was so horrified of doing it um uh you know you know i'll tell you that the one thing that i hope that people will understand from this book is it's also like you you have a great sense of humor you have a great command of language and comedy language i'd say you have a way of giving us even the prince uh scenario where prince really it's a horrifying and scary uh experience but the way you tell it is with humor at times and with just a co it's just beautifully written um for me the prince chapter is the best chapter in the book i feel well it's beautifully done um we only have a couple more minutes i want to ask you you talk at the end of this book and i know that we talked about it too going to get your degree as a health care assistant and wanting to uh time with people who are who are dying and you're talking about calling this new album that you're going to put out next year no veteran dies alone um explain that to people who don't we're used to our heroes in arts sitting on an island and gazing out at the sunset or you know getting treated like royalty tell me about sitting in a room with a dying 92 year old veteran on his on his oxygen and why what that means to you why you're doing that well look thanks be to god none of my guys actually died i had a i had a little voluntary job in in waukegan around waukegan there was a veteran hospital um and it was a program called no veteran dies alone where there were soldiers of all kind of ages who for one reason or another perhaps they'd outlived their families or for one reason or another family couldn't be there or whatever the idea was you would make friends with them and you'd kind of do the things they might like you know if they want hot dog at four in the morning or whatever um and then the idea is that you are the person who sits with them while they make the transition and it's beautiful what they do in the veteran hospital there's a lovely salute and kind of trumpets and everybody stands when the man is or woman but i only had the job for maybe about three or four weeks so luckily i i got forgiving i didn't um thank god i'd have to go through them actually dying which i think would have hurt me because i loved um the one man in particular and that i was working with and he was a syrian man but syrian american and he was 92 and just i loved him so much that i i think thank god i wasn't there when he died because it would broke my heart so that's why you know if you're going to do that kind of work you would need to clear your own griefs you know because you can't be falling apart but the reason that i wanted to call the album no veteran dies alone is to advertise the program no veteran dies alone it's a voluntary program it's running into veteran hospitals all over america and they're looking for people to come in and just be friends and you know be brave enough to do that you know so it's a great program so the alden title is a pure and adverse for the for the program you know okay well look i again i would talk to you for three or four hours and i hope we will talk again soon this is the book it's a great book folks uh it really is it's a wonderfully written book i'm not going to give you my copy i've taken some notes um and i know you're going to be touring again soon and you're going to be putting out a new album and look you're a great person and a great artist and um uh we really look forward to everything that you do thank you i really i'm so i'm overwhelmed but how loving everybody's being about but i'm really really like i'm like i can't believe it it's weird the same as when the record when the you know the glory days as i call it you know i kind of couldn't couldn't believe like you know why why would people be interested you know what i mean there's been so much love about it it's lovely you know well uh we we so look forward to anything else we can we can hear from you and i'll get you i'll get you some records okay and um records i i need some vinyls guys everybody out there so send them to jeff and i'll get them to if you send me a record i'll be really happy because i just got a record player and i've got hardly any records this hasn't normally been how things are arranged with washington post live guests but folks my emails on the internet write me send send me your records and i'll send them to sinead okay within reason no i like blues and country i don't like it dance i do like trance it doesn't send me any [ __ ] [ __ ] you know i like russ effing [ __ ] okay hey folks come back wednesday at 11 o'clock on washington post live we have uh my colleague paige winfield cunningham will be talking about the global vaccine rollout and uh look have a wonderful afternoon and thanks so much for being here

Channel: Washington Post Live

Views: 80,287

Keywords: activism, activist, books, breaking news, breaking news video, dublin, economic, interview, live, live event, live speeches, live updates, live video, new books, nothing compares 2 u saturday night live sinéad o’connor, pop culture, press conference, prince, real time coverage, rememberings, sinéad o’connor, sinéad o’connor author, sinéad o’connor interview, sinéad o’connor memoir, video updates, washington post, washington post live

Id: iEvjeAMTy-Y

Length: 32min 53sec (1973 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 09 2021