Rememberings by Sinéad O’Connor

Yesterday, it was a year since Sinéad O’Connor was found dead in her South London home. I hadn’t realised that when I picked her memoir out of the TBR piles a couple of weeks ago, but realised once I heard the trails for an Archive on 4 programme hosted by Jo Whiley to celebrate her a year after her death (I listened, it was good), there was a subconscious synchronicity going on, don’t you think? It was time to read it as my 11th of my 20 Books of Summer.

Taking us from her schooldays up to lockdown, Sinéad O’Connor’s memoir is searingly honest, she tells it the way she sees it, she’s unafraid to cause controversy and always stood up for her own, womens’ and minorities’ rights. Published in 2021, it ends on a positive note, pre-dating the tragic death of her son Shane by suicide in 2022.

You might think that this memoir is grim reading. Well, parts of it are: her mother abusing her terribly; some of her treatment at the hands of the suits in the music industry; the stymying of her career when she ripped up a picture of the Pope on live TV in the USA; her ordeal when she visited Prince at his LA residence (puts him in a whole new more coercive controlling light); the radical hysterectomy that left her with chronic problems that sent her mental health downhill, the list goes on.

However, it is also a heartfelt and funny read. She said she saw herself as a punk not a pop star – so it was no surprise really, that when the suits wanted her to be womanly for publicising her debut album that she went and got her head shaved, revealing a beautifully shaped head and emphasising those eyes that see inside you.

She did have a rare ability to see through / into people, and in an early chapter where she’s cataloging her musical influences as a teen, she discusses the differences between Bowie and Bolan…

I also love David Bowie. I saw him as part of Marc Bolan’s show. I don’t know what to think of Marc Bolan because he seems like he is pretending to be someone, but David Bowie isn’t pretending. He’s not boring or square and singing like teachers tell everyone to sing. He has his own voice. Marc Bolan has someone else’s voice. I think he doesn’t like himself because he wouldn’t need someone else’s voice if he liked his own.

Later in the book, she looks back at the photo incident with a new clarity:

A lot of people say or think that tearing up the pope’s photo derailed my career. That’s not how I feel about it. I feel that having a number-one record derailed my career and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track. I had to make my living performing live again. And that’s what I was born for. I wasn’t born to be a pop star. You have to be a good girl for that. Not be too troubled.

[…]After SNL I could just be me. Do what I love. Be imperfect. Be mad, even. Anything.

I particularly enjoyed her commentaries on her albums and the insights into her songwriting. I admit, I largely lost contact with her albums after 2000’s Faith and Courage, her fifth, but I loved reading about the influences on all of her work and how she built her experiences into it. We tend not to realise how good a songwriter she was.

This is a wonderful memoir, witty, honest, painful, and full of love for her children (and their fathers intermittently), as well her family and friends, and those who did look after her in the music industry.

I shall leave you with a link to the video of one of my favourite of her songs – Fire On Babylon from the Universal Mother album. The lyrics are shocking, it’s about her relationship with her mother – but the video is superb and the dub groove underneath is hypnotic. Watch it HERE.

See also what Kim thought about Rememberings last year HERE.


Source: Own copy. Sandycove hardback, 289 pages.

BUY at Blackwell’s in Penguin paperback via my affiliate link (free UK P&P)

4 thoughts on “Rememberings by Sinéad O’Connor

  1. Calmgrove says:

    I was always in awe of her, as a person, as a singer, as an uncompromising punk though not consciously seeking out her music to listen to, so I’m glad this is all reflected in her memoir. But what a visceral piece ‘Fire on Babylon’ is, both the lyrics and the video, so hard-hitting but immediate. Thanks for reviewing and sharing, Annabel.

  2. kimbofo says:

    Thanks for the link to my review. Such a tragic loss… I still remember waking up and hearing the news and refusing to believe it.

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