Sinéad O’Connor was a bolt of light

Plus, Tyler Childers offers up a much-needed antidote to last week's Jason Aldean controversy.

View this email online July 29, 2023 by Stephen Thompson This week, we examine Sinéad O’Connor’s legacy through the lens of two of her greatest songs; plus, Tyler Childers offers up a much-needed antidote to last week’s Jason Aldean controversy. Getty Images The past few days have seen an outpouring of remembrances and obituaries for Sinéad O’Connor, following Wednesday’s news of the Irish singer’s death at 56. Many of those pieces have focused on the pair of moments that made her famous and then infamous, as a world-shaking breakthrough (her chart-topping 1990 cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U”) was quickly undercut by the 1992 Saturday Night Live performance she concluded by tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II. Taken together, the two moments are often used to impose a tidy narrative upon a life and career that defied order: the yin of her beautiful voice and imposing talent, forever complicated by the yang of her defiant, chaotic spirit. But O’Connor’s life was longer and more complicated than that, not least because she rejected the notion that the SNL incident harmed her career. (“I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career,” she wrote in her 2021 memoir, “and my tearing the photo put me on the right track.”) Examining her ever-changing, ever-conflicted relationship with religion, music, sexuality and even her own name — which she’d changed from Sinéad O’Connor to Magda Davitt to Shuhada’ Sadaqat in the span of roughly two years — is like watching someone cross a river by hopping across ice floes in search of steady footing. She’d spoken openly of childhood trauma and mental-health battles, and she suffered an incalculable loss with the 2022 suicide of her 17-year-old son Shane. Summarizing her legacy, and paying tribute to who she was and what she accomplished, feels impossible against the backdrop of her accumulated pain and her lifelong search for an identity capable of containing her. So instead, I’ve decided to pick two tiny dots on the pointillist landscape of Sinead O’Connor’s giant, unwieldy life, and let them tell a different story. One, from 1987, is the first Sinead O’Connor song I ever heard. In its opening seconds, “Mandinka” could be any number of college-radio-friendly rock songs of the late ’80s; its chunky guitars don’t signify the arrival of anything you haven’t heard before. But by the time the chorus blows in — ethereal, ferocious, mysterious, muscular — “Mandinka” has blossomed into one of the best songs of the 1980s. Years before O’Connor topped the charts, she carried the air of inevitable stardom, arriving as an artist who seemed fully formed: bald, beautiful, willful, strange. If you haven’t heard O’Connor’s debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, spend time with it this weekend. It’s incredible. The second moment I want to highlight came out nearly 25 years after O’Connor became a pop star. The singer had already embarked on countless creative detours, from reggae to religious music to the 1992 album of jazzy torch songs that confused fans and irritated critics in the wake of “Nothing Compares 2 U.” But in 2014, she released a more straight-ahead album called I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss, and released as its first single a song called “Take Me to Church.” The song never received the attention it deserved, perhaps in part because another song with that title became huge around the same time. But it’s remarkable: a clear-eyed declaration that our pains, hardships and mistakes needn’t define us. If you’re looking for a song that properly contextualizes O’Connor’s journeys — that seeking, searching, hopping-across-ice-floes thing — then “Take Me to Church” is it. It’s a love song about owning your mistakes (“I’ve done so many bad things, it hurts”), embracing and accepting yourself anyway (“I’m the only one I should adore”), and finding comfort and strength in the redemptive power of music: “Songs,” she sang, “are like a bolt of light.” That particular bolt of light — that moment when she wrote “Take Me To Church” and felt its words in her bones — is where I like to imagine Sinead O’Connor. Awed by music, in love with its immutable power, she found a moment to stop, sit in her own skin, take a breath and experience music as a gift. I hope she lived in that moment for a while. Newsletter continues after sponsor message More to read, watch and hear Last week, Amanda Marie Martínez wrote about the controversy surrounding Jason Aldean’s dismal ode to vigilantism, “Try That in a Small Town.” Now, Ann Powers takes a long look at a different new country song: Tyler Childers’ “In Your Love” — and particularly its new video, in which two Appalachian coal miners (played by Hollywood actors Colton Haynes and James Scully) fall in love, start lives together and battle forces ranging from bigotry to black lung. Childers, a native of a small town in Kentucky whose past work has addressed race and racism (Long Violent History) and religion (Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?), will release a new album called Rustin’ in the Rain on Sept. 8. In the meantime, he spoke with Ann in a conversation that also includes the writer Silas House, who wrote the video for “In Your Love.” Hip-hop celebrates its 50th birthday this summer, so NPR Music is mapping its story on a local level, with more than a dozen city-specific histories of the music and culture. You can bookmark the full series here, but don’t miss the latest entries on “How Chicago rap became a home for controversial, visionary stars” (by Meaghan Garvey), “How Detroit and Flint became havens for rap dark horses” (by William E. Ketchum) and “How St. Louis recalibrated rap radio” (by series editor Sheldon Pearce). Last week, Tony Bennett died at 96, and now Fresh Air has assembled a collection of interview highlights from their conversations with the legendary singer over the years — specifically 1982, 1991 and 1998. Annie Zaleski has a review of Joni Mitchell’s new live album, At Newport, which documents the all-timer’s emotional, guest-star-laden surprise performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 2022. And Jim Allen reviews I Am Not There Anymore, an unexpected left turn for the long-running British band The Clientele. All Songs Considered has two new podcast episodes full of stars and discoveries: Hazel Cills and Marissa Lorusso (both of whom are, it turns out, both stars and discoveries) join Bob Boilen to play new songs by Mary Jane Dunphe, Squirrel Flower, Saya Gray, SPELLLING, Josaleigh Pollett, Sivan Levy and Big Thief. And Cyrena Touros, Gavin Godfrey and LaTesha Harris join Robin Hilton for a new episode of New Music Friday; it features commentary on new albums from Post Malone, Georgia, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Carly Rae Jepsen and Joni Mitchell. Tiny Desk Michael Zamora/NPR When he lived in Côte d'Ivoire, Peter One was half of a successful folk-singing duo. But he fled the country in the ’90s, settled in the U.S. and gave up on music, opting instead for a career as a nurse. Now, he’s back to pursuing his long-deferred dreams: Peter One released a new album called Come Back to Me earlier this year, and now he’s made his Tiny Desk debut.  Also this week: Puerto Rican singer Kany García revels in the intimacy of her rich, emotive songwriting. One More Thing A new song “transforms Mitski’s soundtrack of loneliness and brokenness into something almost hymnal.” Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from WBEZ (edit station). Need a new playlist? Follow NPR Music on Spotify and Apple Music What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: nprmusic@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Books, Pop Culture, Health and more! 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