Back in 1992, Sinead O'Connor appeared on Saturday Night Live and performed an a cappella version of Bob Marley's "War." She substituted lyrics regarding rascism with lyrics about sexual abuse of children, and because she was protesting the abuse of children by members of the Roman Catholic church she concluded by ripping up a photograph of Pope John Paul II and commanded her audience to "fight the real enemy." As you can imagine, this was not well received by the viewing public. Read more and watch the video after the jump.
Saturday Night Live producer, Lorne Michaels, claimed he was never made aware of how O'Connor was going to end her song, in fact, during the dress rehearsal she held up a photo of an African child. Saturday Night Live substituted the dress rehearsal version for all future rebroadcasts of the episode, and only released the "Live" version on a DVD box set called "Saturday Night Live - 25 Years of Music."
Sinead took a very brave stance that night and she felt the repercussions of her actions rather immediately. Take a look at her original song followed by a performance a mere two weeks later at the Tribute to Bob Dylan.
So you would think that performing at a Tribute to Bob Dylan might be a spot where Sinead would find some sympathetic audience members, music fans who understood a thing or two about protests, but I guess you just can't go around ripping up photos of the Pope and pick up life as if nothing ever happened. Sinead was set to perfom "I Believe in You," but the crowd was so loud and furiously attempting to shut her down that she never got the chance.
It seemed as though not everyone was against her. When she first comes on stage you can clearly hear people cheering, but then you can hear the booing and the jeers, and they don't seem to stop. Sinead seems so small and meek up on that stage as she tells the piano player to stop playing, and she just stands before the screaming crowd. Kris Kristofferson attempts to comfort her, but she refuses to leave the stage. Sinead absorbs the wall of hatred projected at her.
Eventually Sinead realizes that she will not get to perform the song she came to sing, so she digs deep, and brings back the song none of them want to hear, "War," for one final performance. It is one of the most rebellious rock moments I have ever seen. It shows incredible internal strength and conviction to be able to stand before that crowd and force them to listen to what they despise. I'm curious as to what Bob Dylan thought of the moment.
About five years after these incidents Sinead gave an interview asking the Pope for forgiveness claiming that tearing up the photo was the "gesture of a girl rebel." She claimed to have been "in rebellion against faith," but "still within the faith."
In light of additional stories throughout the years regarding the Vatican's involvement of cover-ups and knowledge of child abuse within their own ranks Sinead has remained unrepentant about singing the song. In 2002, when asked if she would change anything about her performance on Saturdy Night Live she responded, "Hell, no!"
3 comments:
Obviously this is an old post, but I found it when I went looking for something about these two appearances after reading an article about O'Connor's recent statements about child abuse in the Catholic church.
I remember seeing the Bob Dylan tribute as a kid and being confused because it seemed like the response to O'Connor's performance was mainly positive. (I missed the SNL appearance because I couldn't stay up that late at the time.) Seeing it again, I can hear a few boos, but I don't get the impression of an overwhelming tide of hostility. The crowd kept screaming after she tried to start performing, yeah, but I kind of read that as the supportive part of the audience trying to shout down the haters. What am I missing?
Never mind, I did a little more digging and found the answer to my own question: apparently the sound for the TV broadcast was remixed in such a way as to make the booing less evident than it was in person. First person accounts do confirm my impression that a substantial portion of the audience was supportive, and a lot of the noise was created by both sides trying to shout the other down.
I also found an answer to your question about Dylan's reaction, he apparently told her to "keep doing what she was doing," which she felt was too little too late because he didn't say it publicly.
Hi Alex - Thanks for your additional research and contribution to this post! -stitcher
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