A Mini-Sinead Tribute

On her passing....

Didn’t want her passing to pass without note here, so see below. Let me pause for one more moment first to alert many folks who possibly subscribed here this week after my many media appearances and surge in interest in my Oppenheimer-related books and film. Lot of people heard about my new Oppenheimer substack and found this one (by mistake) via Google. So if you are in that category, you can unsubscribe here and go over there for daily atomic/nuclear/Oppie reports. Thanks.

Just a note here on her infamous SNL incident when she tore up that photo of the Pope: My former Crawdaddy colleague Jon Pareles observed in his article in The New York Times after Madonna criticized her:

After Madonna had herself gowned, harnessed, strapped down and fully stripped to promote her album Erotica and her book Sex, O'Connor stole the spotlight with one photograph of a fully clothed man. But the other vilification that descended on O'Connor showed she had struck a nerve.

And Sinead later commented:

Madonna is probably the hugest role model for women in America. There's a woman who people look up to as being a woman who campaigns for women's rights. A woman who in an abusive way towards me, said that I look like I had a run in with a lawnmower and that I was about as sexy as a Venetian blind. Now there's the woman that America looks up to as being a campaigner for women, slagging off another woman for not being sexy.

Pink and Brandi last night with “Nothing Compares.”

Tremendous performance, apparently unrehearsed, version of “The Times They Are a-Changin” by one of her heroes, Mr. Dylan.

Terrific 1997 version of my favorite Irish traditional song.

With another one of her heroes, Van Morrison, on Letterman.

And covering a song from Van’s classic cult album, Veedon Fleece.

As I have noted in past, one of the lowlights in rock and roll fandom (and certainly Dylan fandom), was the night, around 1991, which I watched on closed circuit, when she got booed off the stage at Madison Square Garden in a star-studded tribute to Bob, after she tore that picture of the Pope on SNL. Bob later asked her to record his terrific (if not very well known) song which she was to perform that night for an album devoted to that night, and here it is when she did it live at the Albert Hall.

Trailer for the recent film doc, which is pretty good.