SINÉAD O’CONNOR FOLLOWED JESUS TO THE CROSS

The Saint Who Cried Out for the Victims of Abuse when No One Else Would

Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor died today. For a time she was one of the voices of my generation. “Nothing Compares 2 U,” a cover of a The Family song which she released in 1990, is one of those songs, the quiet kind that well up inside you like a heartbreak that hasn’t healed and never will. And yet somehow rather than battering the grief she shared with us was consoling. It told us that we weren’t alone.

But O’Connor was capable of battering her fans with grief as well. On October 3^rd, 1992 on Saturday Night Life she ended an entirely a capella cover of Bob Marley’s song “War” with the lyrics “We have confidence in the victory of good over evil,” while holding up a picture of Pope John Paul II and tearing it to pieces. “Fight the real enemy,” she said, to an entirely silent crowd.