The Sinéad O'Connor of my youth was primarily associated with two key memories: her big hit single, and her controversial 1992 protest of the Catholic Church on Saturday Night Live.
“Nothing Compares 2 U” was a fascinating moment of the time for several reasons. First, there’s the fact that despite being an accomplished songwriter in her own right, this – O’Connor’s biggest hit ever – was written by someone else. Secondly, that someone else was Prince. Not to mention that despite Prince being a habitually groundbreaking and unparalleled line-blurring virtuoso genius musician songwriter showman fashionista provocateur and mind-melting sex symbol, her version of his song is far superior to his own. But the biggest fascination of all came later, from her infamous Saturday Night Live appearance.
I still remember watching it as it aired: finishing her performance, arm stretched high, O’Connor held up a photograph of the Pope, looked directly into the camera and practically shouted, “Fight the real enemy!” She ripped the Pope image apart, straight down the middle, then into pieces, on live television (werq queen). If you weren’t around for this, you can’t fathom the ensuing controversy for its time, as she earned what I understate to say was the ire of Catholics and Protestants alike. The churches went nuts, the talking heads went nuts, everyone went nuts. But there’s one response I remember most clearly of all. A few SNL episodes later, Madonna was the musical guest, and during her appearance, she chose to parody O’Connor’s protest. At the end of her performance, she looked into the audience, held up a photo of Joey Buttafuoco, uttered O’Connor’s same call-to-action, “Fight the real enemy,” and tore up the photo. For those of you who don’t remember or perhaps weren’t born yet, the Amy Fisher scandal centered around a 17-year-old girl who showed up one night at the home of her 35-year-old boyfriend (Buttafuoco), knocked on the door, confronted his wife, and then shot her right in the face. Fisher was dubbed the “Long Island Lolita” by the media and derided by the entire country as a jealous criminal maniac and deviant.
Now, Madonna had reportedly been critical of O’Connor’s chastisement of the Pope, which is ironic for a couple reasons. While citing her Catholicism as the root of her disapproval of O’Connor, Madonna had by then a firmly established career habit of earning and even courting religious rage and controversy, inciting charges of heresy and indecency time and time again. But it’s also ironic for the simple reason that O’Connor was absolutely right. Her protest regarding charges of both child sexual abuse and institutional cover-up was completely warranted – the church and supportive media fought tooth and nail to minimize the scandals until years of pressure finally corroborated both the abuse and cover-ups as not only true but institutionally pervasive. Nonetheless, I always remember Madonna’s parody protest as a deftly executed few seconds of performance art typical of Madonna’s brands of both feminism and irreverent humor, playfully suggesting to audiences that an underage girl who’d been seduced by a grown-ass married man was not – as the media portrayed her – the key villain in that story, even subliminally correlating it to the larger theme of child sexual abuse. As fans of both artists at the time, as well as of SNL, I was enraptured by both protests and their resulting controversies.
But back to the songs: O’Connor’s version of the Prince-penned tune, with that synth-string arrangement, beautiful and haunting hint of Irish lilt in the vocals, imbuing the unforgettable melody with heartbreaking clarity, and the accompanying music video with O’Connor’s beautiful bald head, cherubic face, extreme close-up and single teardrop are iconic of the period. Not wanting to overlook O’Connor’s accomplishments as a songwriter in her own right, I’ve also included “Last Day of Our Acquaintance” off her acclaimed sophomore album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, a simple but poignant breakup song – with a surprising crescendo to an unexpected climax – about the mundane horror of running into your ex “later in somebody’s office,” at some moment when you’re just trying to get through the banal trivialities of everyday life that are already made more excruciating in the wake of separation.
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