AN EULOGY FOR DEARLY DEPARTED SINEAD.
We never know when our heroes, inspirations, artistic mainstays will leave us; leave us wondering about the fragile nature of mortality and our own ordinary woes transmuting to grand testimonies of faithlessness in the world around us.
This reader/ writer testifies to being duly mesmerised by Sinead O'Connor's empathy and broken pieces, the sheer soulfulness of her swooping vocals on NOTHING COMPARES TO YOU for the longest time. That is a global testament indeed.
But beyond that historic marker, she was also the fierce champion of her punk-rock spirit who could make MANDINKA a true iconoclast in her discography, turn the predictable synthpop of PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME into a sigh of repressed and then overflowing desire and summon her hushed serenity to give us beautiful odes to nurture in the form of THREE BABIES, MY SPECIAL CHILD and THIS IS TO MOTHER YOU as well as the sustained spell of quiet on her own solemn take on SILENT NIGHT. Here, she was metaphorically making sense of a life in the spotlight, reconciling with the oppositional tides of popular culture, her place in it and nurturing the very principles of fame as she deemed fit.
Singing an unadorned protest anthem through her powers of persuasion by covering Bob Marley's WAR on primetime television in 1992 and ripping apart the curse of silence regarding sexual abuse in faith- based legions- that was her greatest hour as an unabashed champion of human rights.
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NOTHING COMPARES.... remained a steadfast, dearly beloved monument all throughout. But so was the spirited revision of her principled core on NO MAN'S WOMAN, her almost autobiographical musings conflating with a national ethos on the unforgettable YOU MADE ME THE THIEF OF YOUR HEART and the prescient, resigned finality of her last vocal feat- a cover of Mahalia Jackson's TROUBLE OF THE WORLD.
Today, I believe her soul needs and is on its way to find the rest she yearned after being held as an adversary by her contemporaries and a greater part of late 20th Century history, the new millenium and beyond.
So we summon her own voice to remind us of the purity, the soulfulness she espoused so guilelessly. LAY YOUR HEAD DOWN, her excellent contribution to the Albert Nobbs Original Soundtrack, is the lullaby she has left us with, to let us know that everlasting peace may be elusive but the mind of truth ultimately finds it by not seeking sycophantic roads to an unattainable utopia.
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A LETTERED SOUL, BOOK 2- MUSINGS ON ART AND CULTURE
Non-FictionI continue this journey of bringing the best from the realms of music, cinema, encapsulating a world of culture, with this reprise of A LETTERED SOUL. Let this journey begin with a melody of words and the constancy of thoughts.
